Virgin Black launches its highest ever sign-up bonus – 30,000 Flying Club miles

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• oyster says:

  2 Apr2 April 18:37

  Will this get me access to the Virgin money lounge as talked about on here a few days ago?

  • Maximus says:

    2 Apr2 April 19:47

    The cards are advertised on the Virgin Money website so I assume they would, although they are issued by MBNA.

• Mucky says:

  2 Apr2 April 20:58

  I know that the 3V Visa card has stopped working for financial transactions but I have just seen that Tesco sell a Visa Gift Card (different to 3V) for £50 but there is a £3.95 per £50. However, you do receive 150 CC points per £50 card purchased. Can this card be used to pay council tax etc and whilst also helping to hit AMEX limits?

  £1000 bill would be 20 cards and £79 fee on top but 3000CC points converted at standard rate 7200 avios. Add in paying with the BA AMEX for another 1600 avios totals 8800 avios for £79.

  • CV says:

    2 Apr2 April 21:23

    Yes you receive the bonus points as normal (i always check my receipt as i expect this to stop one day!).

    The fee Visa card is accepted in a lot more places than 3V cards – you can pay it direct into an NS&I account just the same as you used to be able to do with 3V (but please test this is still the case!). But depending on your council you may be able to use 3V cards for your council tax bill – there are mixed reports on success of this as it varies between councils and their payment provider.

    You could also use 3V towards utility bills, works ok with edf and British Gas.

    Also if you have a car, Tesco fuel save will get you 20p per litre once you hits £500 spend. Also, after you use the 20p saving, you can start accruing it again, even in same month.

  • Kipto says:

    2 Apr2 April 21:27

    Or use the gold Amex charge card and get 9200 avios

  • Waribai says:

    2 Apr2 April 23:33

    3V worked with my local council but bizzarely the visa prepaid card didn’t! Even though it says “debit” on it!

• Idrive says:

  2 Apr2 April 22:30

  Yes we can!

  • Idrive says:

    2 Apr2 April 22:35

    Sorry replied to the question straight from the email did not read previous replies.
    I checked NS&I a couple of times but never opened an account as i don t want to be bothered with taxation. What do people usually do?

• Ben says:

  2 Apr2 April 23:08

  Sorry, new to all this – is the Virgin Visa considered a better option than Virgin Amex and if so, why? (Aside from the greater likelihood of use in the UK). Given the Amex offers 2 points to the pound, is this a no brainer or am I missing something?

  • Alan says:

    2 Apr2 April 23:10

    You receive them both, they’re linked to the one account. The main benefit of the visa is to help you hit the spend target with retailers that don’t accept Amex 🙂

    • Idrive says:

      2 Apr2 April 23:13

      And you get 1 full point not 0.75 as per the other cards offer so if You are a big Visa spender this becomes a little bit more interesting

  • Trevor says:

    2 Apr2 April 23:15

    I think you’re missing something – you get both the Amex and VISA on the same account, so use both, but preferably the Amex.

    Aand if you are still trying to meet other Amex issued sign-up targets, then use that Amex where you can, and this Visa where you can’t.

    If you are new to this though, you might not have considered the actual cost of the extra Black miles due to the fee, so consider my post below before jumping in.

• Trevor says:

  2 Apr2 April 23:09

  I am surprised that no-one has offered any analysis of the Black vs White in terms of value per point. And since I am interested, I’ll share my findings:

  With the previous offer, you could get 10k miles with the White for free, or 25k miles with the Black for £140. Assuming that you would be applying for 1 card, not both, and needing to make a choice, to me the choice was simple – the Black at £140 gave 15k more miles, but at a cost of £0.0093/mile. I was definitely not a buyer at that rate and since I value points over vouchers for more passengers/trips/flexibility, the long term benefits like vouchers I find of little value, while the same spend across more cards generates far more signup points.

  Now that the Black bonus is up to 30k miles, you are buying the extra points at a rate of £0.007/mile. That’s better value, yet still not great – depending on your redemption, you might benefit or only break even. There would only be a limited group of people for whom buying the miles they require at that price is worthwhile – if you are interested in the Black card, have you seriously considered the cost of those miles? Furthermore, your higher required spend is at the same ratio to trigger the full bonus, so no benefit there either and that money could be spent meeting a signup on another free card offering the same number of points. Since the fee is not pro rata refundable to give far greater value for money once the bonus is triggered, although it appears to compare favourably with other signup bonuses, at this rate I am still not a buyer – I expect a very decent ROI and see no point in simply swapping cash for points.

  And if you have £140 worth of clubcard vouchers, for the same cost you could have bought 45,500 miles before the transfer bonus expired! That’s more than double the miles for the same cost and no spend requirement. So consider carefully if you really want to buy miles at this rate.

  • Paul says:

    3 Apr3 April 08:30

    You need to factor in the increased earning rate too, though, when comparing the black card vs white. Let’s say you spend £5k on the AMEX, the black card will net you a bonus 5000 points. That changes your calculations to the black now giving 25k more miles for your £140 so now £0.0056/mile. Of course, for someone planning to spend more, that cost would reduce further. Someone planning on spending a reasonable sum on Virgin flights even more so — the black card offers a nice bonus for doing so (4x spend!) whilst the white offers none.

    • Trevor says:

      3 Apr3 April 11:56

      I’d neglected the increased earning rate, and you do raise a good point. However, I’d only go so far as to count it on the initial signup bonus of £3,000 spend required as beyond that there is no ceiling so where do you stop? Plus, some other cards also offer 2/£1 so for general spend after meeting a signup bonus, it’s a bit irrelevant – I’m comparing signup bonuses and the cost per point. So, revised figures make the cost £0.0061/mile, though this is a best-case scenario, you are unlikely to hit all the spend on the Amex. So certainly a better deal than initially calculated and the redemption value should always be more than this purchase cost. I’d still go the Clubcard conversion bonus route though at a cost of half that at £0.003/mile, and save my spending for meeting signup bonuses with free/better figures.

      The interesting thing about this game though is that seldom is any 1 person “right” – each has their own agenda and what works out best for them which always leads to some varying and interesting input.

  • CV says:

    3 Apr3 April 09:01

    For me, the 30,000 points sounded attractive in that is equivalent to 4 return flights with Little Red. Paying £35 taxes on each return ticket results in a total £140 of taxes, along with card fee of £140 and we are up at £280 in charges for my 4 return flights.

    So a redemption flight is actually costing 7500 points plus £70. In this scenario it doesn’t sound that great a deal after all, it depends on what flight I want to use as some Little Red flights are selling for just £38 one way (out of EDI).

    • Trevor says:

      3 Apr3 April 12:11

      Wow, at £38 o/w you don’t want to be wasting miles! As mentioned above though, personal scenarios are all different – if you already have a bunch of free Avios, despite using more miles for a redemption, buying miles to use less on Virgin doesn’t make it a good deal. Furthermore, if you already have a bunch of Clubcard points which are free to accumulate, while their face value may be £92.50 (who wastes them instore?), that is the equivalent cost of your 30,000 miles on a transfer bonus. It reduces your cost to £58 per ticket, but if tickets are available at £38 oneway, you are only getting £0.0024 redemption value per mile, so still less than the purchase cost of £0.003/mile via Clubcard and WAY less than the purchase cost via the Virgin Black at £0.0061/mile making it a pretty dire investment as you’d have lost 60% value!

• squills says:

  3 Apr3 April 10:24

  It proved tricky in Internet Explorer so I had to download it in Chrome.

• Trevor says:

  3 Apr3 April 13:10

  It proved tricky for in Chrome – had to try a few times before it installed correctly, and don’t have my first 250 points showing for the effort. Googled it and could only see 2 past promotions which are long expired.

• Singing Dwarf says:

  3 Apr3 April 14:30

  @squills – From the email “We reserve the right to remove the download bonus of 500 miles if you subsequently uninstall the Mile Finder.”

  • squills says:

    3 Apr3 April 19:58

    Heh heh! 😉

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