Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Virgin Red domestic flights starting soon – earn bonus miles if I refer you to Flying Club

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March 31st will see the launch of Virgin Little Red domestic flights with flights commencing from Manchester to Heathrow.

Services to Edinburgh and Aberdeen will be added by April 9th.

If you have never flown Virgin before, but are likely to give the new domestic services a try, then you can earn 1,000 bonus Flying Club miles by letting me refer you to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.

Little Red

This is a no-lose deal, because you do not earn any bonus miles at all for signing up directly! I also earn some bonus miles for referring you.

It is also worth being referred if you are about to do your first Virgin Atlantic long-haul flight. The referral bonuses are:

1,000 miles if your first return flight is in Economy

2,000 miles if your first return flight is in Premium Economy

3,000 miles if your first return flight is in Upper Class

If you are travelling with your family, then you should let me refer you and you can then refer your other family members!

Drop me a line at rob at headforpoints.com and I will have a Flying Club application form emailed to you.

Remember that you can add to your Virgin Flying Club miles in a number of ways, including transferring Tesco Clubcard points, BAA WorldPoints and American Express Membership Rewards. The offer of 5,000 miles for opening an ISA is still available as well.


How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (December 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Virgin Points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

You can choose from two official Virgin Atlantic credit cards (apply here, the Reward+ card has a bonus of 18,000 Virgin Points and the free card has a bonus of 3,000 Virgin Points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

3,000 bonus points, no fee and 1 point for every £1 you spend Read our full review

You can also earn Virgin Points from various American Express cards – and these have sign-up bonuses too.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for a year and comes with 20,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 20,000 Virgin Points.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with 50,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 50,000 Virgin Points.

The Platinum Card from American Express

Huge 80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Small business owners should consider the two American Express Business cards. Points convert at 1:1 into Virgin Points.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Virgin Points

(Want to earn more Virgin Points?  Click here to see our recent articles on Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club and click here for our home page with the latest news on earning and spending other airline and hotel points.)

Comments (3)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Neil says:

    Quick question that is kinda related! The VA Flying Club site mentions that you can collect miles with their hotel partners as well as on flights. I note that the same is true of the BA Exec Club. Taking Radisson (or Club Carlson) as an example – is it possible to claim both club carlson gold points AND Virgin Miles/Avios on the same stay or is it one or the other?

    • Rob says:

      It is one or the other. The exception is Hilton, which has an option to take miles and points or a higher level of points.

      For a one-off stay at a brand you will not knowingly use again, it obviously makes sense to take the miles unless your spend is so high that you will have enough points to trigger a redemption into miles. With the recent Carlson ‘triple points’ promo, for instance (coupled with their generous online booking points bonus), you would probably have been better off taking the points and then converting them into miles, given that just 2000 points is worth 250 miles.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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