Get a 20% bonus when you buy, transfer or gift Virgin Flying Club miles (as low as 0.83p)

As well as launching their ‘20% off Economy and Premium Economy redemptions’ sale yesterday, Virgin Flying Club also announced a 20% bonus when you buy, transfer or gift Virgin Flying Club miles.

The link to buy, transfer or gift miles is here.  The closing date for the deal is 23rd June – this is later than the closing date for the ‘20% off redemptions’ promotion which is 4th June.

Is this a good deal?

As usual with these cases, the answer is “not really, unless you want to do an immediate redemption”.

To buy or gift 20,000 miles, for example, comes out at £315. With the 20% bonus, you would actually receive 24,000 miles. This works out at 1.31p. You would struggle to get good value if you bought all of the miles you needed for a redemption at that price, but of course topping up an account is a different matter.

Before buying, think if you have any Amex Membership Rewards points, Tesco points, Heathrow Rewards points or hotel loyalty points which you could transfer instead.

The ‘transfer miles’ deal is always trickier to get your head around. What you would be doing is paying to move miles from your account to, presumably, your partner (or vice versa). It only makes sense if the fee is offset by the 20% bonus.

Transferring 20,000 miles, for instance, costs a whopping £165. This is amazingly cheeky pricing, given that usually no new miles are created. Even with this promotion, where you send 20,000 miles and your partner receives 24,000 miles, you are effectively paying £165 to receive 4,000 bonus miles – a shocking waste.

‘Miles Booster’, on the other hand, is a GREAT deal.

Miles Booster only works if you have a Virgin Atlantic flight booked. You are able to buy an additional 200% of the base miles you will earn from the flight for just 1p each.

Click here for details. If you have a New York economy flight booked, for example, you would earn 6,916 base miles from your trip.

Miles Booster allows you to buy up to 13,832 additional miles for just 1p.  Plus, with this promotion, you would get an extra 20% bonus as well.

If you maximised the Miles Booster option for your New York flight, you would be able to buy a total of 16,598 Virgin Flying Club miles for just £138.32. That is just 0.83p each, which is well worth considering.

You can retrospectively buy miles via Miles Booster for any Virgin Atlantic flights taken in the last six months. Even if you don’t have any current bookings, you may be able to take advantage of this.

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How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (September 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):

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.

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with 40,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 40,000 Virgin Points.

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

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 22nd October 2024, the bonus on American Express Business Platinum is increased to up to 80,000 Membership Rewards points, worth 80,000 Virgin Points. You will receive 8 points per £1 spent for the first three months, on up to £10,000 of spending. Click here to read our full card review. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 22nd October 2024, the bonus on American Express Business Gold is increased to up to 40,000 Membership Rewards points, worth 40,000 Virgin Points. You will receive 4 points per £1 spent for the first three months, on up to £10,000 of spending. The card is FREE for your first year. Click here to read our full card review. Click here to apply.

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.)