Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Get a 30% bonus on Tesco Clubcard to Virgin Flying Club conversions

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

Tesco has launched a 30% bonus on transfers of Tesco Clubcard points to Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club. This means that you will receive 325 miles per £1 of Clubcard vouchers you convert, rather than the standard 250.

I assume that this deal was planned before the announcement of the Avios devaluation on Wednesday.  The timing is excellent, however!

Full details are here on the Tesco website. The deals runs to March 31st and the miles generally appear 1-2 days after initiating the transfer.

Virgin is also repeating its offer of 1,000 bonus Virgin miles for opting-in for auto-conversion of your Clubcard points each quarter to Virgin.

Nothing stops you agreeing to this and then cancelling after one quarter. If you have a dormant Clubcard account, you should set that up to auto-convert to Virgin Flying Club – based on last year, you will still receive the bonus miles even though nothing is being sent over. You cannot earn this bonus if you have previously had an auto-convert bonus.

What intrigues me is that this is better than the 20% bonus offered last Autumn.  Virgin offered a 30% bonus in January 2014 and September 2013 (and 50% in January 2013) but I thought the trend was permanently downwards.  Perhaps not.

British Airways will NOT be launching a conversion bonus this quarter. Instead, you can win a meal at The Savoy in London with one entry for every 500 Clubcard points you convert.

Should you jump to Virgin Flying Club now that British Airways is devaluing Avios?

Perhaps.  But DO NOT do it just because of the devaluation.

Virgin generally copies everything that British Airways does.  It is not a coincidence that their premium credit card offers 18,500 miles as a bonus when the British Airways Premium Plus offers 18,000.  The two tend to move in step.

It would make commercial logic for Virgin to do a similar devaluation over the next few months.  As long as it isn’t as bad as the BA devaluation, they will still come out smelling of roses.

Here is a reminder of some of the key features of Virgin Flying Club if you were considering doing a transfer:

Diversification

British Airways can fly you to pretty much anywhere that Virgin Atlantic can. However, that doesn’t mean they can get you Avios seats when you want them. Having a balance in another programme gives you more chance of getting seats on the dates you want them.

Both BA and Virgin allow one-way redemptions, so with a Virgin balance you could mix and match a trip as availability allows. Virgin also partners with Delta in the US and a number of other airlines.

However, Virgin and BA are both UK-focussed airlines, so you are likely to face an identical squeeze around UK school holidays. You may want to expand into Star Alliance and redeem on, say, Lufthansa if you want a better chance of seats at UK half-term.

It is also worth noting that Virgin has been cutting its route network.  Any route which does not fly to North America or the Caribbean should be seen as under threat.  If they pulled high yielding Tokyo – which they did recently – then nothing is safe.

Cheaper taxes in Economy – but no longer fewer miles

Virgin Atlantic has lower taxes than BA on Economy redemptions. These are quite aggressive – New York is £120 cheaper than BA. Virgin also historically required fewer miles – New York is 35,000 in Economy vs 40,000 with Avios.  This has now reversed, however, due to the new off peak Avios redemptions.

Virgin also runs occasional but fairly regular redemption sales with big discounts on the miles needed for economy class redemptions.

Here is a sample of charges compared to BA:

New York today, economy: Virgin £248 & 35,000 (British Airways: £336 & 40,000)

New York post April 28, economy:  Virgin £248 & 35,000 (British Airways off-peak:  £336 & 26,000)

New York today, business:  Virgin £488 & 80,000 (British Airways £508 & 80,000)

New York post April 28, business:  Virgin £488 & 80,000 (British Airways off-peak:  £508 & 100,000)

Las Vegas today, economy: Virgin £218 & 42,500 (British Airways: £362 & 50,000)

Las Vegas post April 28, economy:  Virgin £218 & 42,500 (British Airways off-peak:  £362 & 32,500)

Las Vegas today, business:  Virgin £499 & 100,000 (British Airways: £553 & 100,000)

Las Vegas post April 28, business:  Virgin £499 & 100,000 (British Airways off-peak:  £553 & 125,000)

A key point to note here is that – at off-peak times – the new British Airways economy rates are very aggressive.  26,000 Avios for a return flight to New York is very good.  If fuel surcharges come down then these will look very attractive, although at the moment you may prefer to use more Virgin miles and pay the lower surcharges.

Availability

I do not redeem on Virgin, so cannot comment on how easy or hard it is to get availability. In general, Upper Class cabins have fewer seats than BA Club World cabins with subsequent squeezes on availability. Is it easy to get 4 Upper Class seats on Virgin for a family? I don’t know.  We don’t know enough about the new British Airways availability patterns to make a fair comparison.

You can check availability on the Virgin website without having enough miles in your account to do the redemption. You should spend some time researching your favourite routes before deciding whether to commit miles to Flying Club.

No 2-4-1 Amex voucher, but an upgrade voucher

There is no equivalent of the BA Amex 2-4-1 voucher. The Virgin credit card does give a 2-4-1 voucher but ONLY ON FLEXIBLE CASH TICKETS. You can, however, get a voucher with the Virgin credit card to upgrade Economy redemptions to Premium Economy for no extra miles.

Fallback option of transferring to Hilton HHonors or IHG Rewards Club

Rare among airline schemes, Virgin lets you transfer miles out into Hilton HHonors (2:3) or IHG Rewards Club (the Holiday Inn etc scheme) at 1:1. There is a minimum transfer of 10,000 Virgin miles. If you found yourself struggling to use your Virgin miles, you could also move them across.

A 30% transfer bonus does NOT make such transfers a great deal, however.

I value Hilton HHonors points at 0.3p. A £1 Tesco voucher gets you 325 Virgin miles which is 487 Hilton points. At 0.3p, they are worth £1.46. Terrible, less than 1.5x the face value of your Clubcard points.

Similarly, I value IHG Rewards Club points at 0.5p. A £1 Tesco voucher gets you 325 Virgin miles which is 325 IHG Rewards Club points. At 0.5p that, that is just £1.62 of value. Avoid, unless you are just topping up your account.

The Heathrow Clubhouse

The Virgin lounge at Heathrow, for Upper Class passengers, is widely regarded as one of the best airport lounges in the world. Get a haircut, have a massage, eat a proper meal, chill out in the audio or TV rooms or do one of many other (admittedly ‘boys toys’ type) activities. Well worth trying once in your life.

Note that, whilst full fare cash tickets in Upper Class also get a free chauffeur to and from the airport, reward tickets do NOT get this.

Easy to collect additional miles

It is as easy to collect Flying Club miles as it is Avios. You can transfer from Tesco, Amex Membership Rewards and Heathrow Rewards, as well as all the major hotel schemes. As I wrote here, some major hotel chains do not give Avios but do offer Flying Club miles.

There is a shopping portal similar to the Avios estore. There are also decent promotions, eg 5,000 miles for opening an ISA.

Conclusion

Flying Club has something to offer the person who redeems in Economy – lower taxes and the ability to upgrade to Premium Economy for free via the credit card voucher.

You even get the option of selected long haul departures from Manchester, which BA abandoned long ago. There will even be a handful of flights from Glasgow and Belfast this Summer.

At peak BA dates, you will also require fewer miles to fly Virgin in economy.  On off-peak BA dates it is not so clear cut.

For business class redemptions, it is also less clear cut. Smaller cabins, a smaller route network and fewer daily flights may make it trickier to find seats.  You will need fewer miles on Virgin after April 28th but how long will that last? And there is no British Airways American Express 241 voucher, which for a couple effectively makes a ‘once a year’ redeemer require twice the miles. It has a proportionately lower impact on a family of 4 taking multiple long-haul flights each year.

Virgin also has ‘route risk’ now.  Non-North America routes are being cut aggressively.  If you are planning to fly east rather than west, be aware that your route may not exist in a year.

You have until March 31st to decide whether to convert or not.


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 (75)

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

  • Jason says:

    Also, in light of your dilemma

    Last October we used 2 x 241 to LHR – JFK in F, flew JFK MCO jet blue out( fantastic free wifi at 30000 ft was great) AA back miles (ok)

    This year flying MAN MCO outbound in UC through tesco cc points, ( nearly missed booking flights as tesco or Virgin, not sure which, did security checks as more than £500 of vouchers was redeemed)
    Returning from Newark LHR in F using 2 241’s.
    All travel during October half term on both trips. During Easter availabilty should be a bit easier.

    • Mycity says:

      I thought 241 could only be used starting from the UK, how have you managed Newark to LHR?

      • Jason says:

        The website did say that but it let me book the flights and took my cash and Avios and voucher.

        • Mycity says:

          Hmm interesting it’s never let me get that far.

        • Jason says:

          Also, only using the vouchers OW, so in effect only using half the benefit.

          • Mycity says:

            That’s how I tried to use it, I couldn’t get BA out to Florida but could return. So I went Virgin out and tried and failed to use the 241 return.

  • Mr Bridge says:

    i got an email from BA yesterday:
    Would you like to experience an evening of fine dining at the Chef’s Table in Gordon Ramsay’s Savoy Grill? Simply exchange a minimum £5 in Tesco Clubcard vouchers for Avios between 30 January to 28 February and you’ll receive entry into a prize draw to win tickets for you and three guests.
    Tesco clubcard site (under ba tab) says:
    Special offer: Your chance to win 1,500 Avios – Avios is giving away 500 prizes of 1,500 Avios. To be in with a chance of winning, all you have to do is exchange £2.50 in vouchers for Avios between 1st and 28th February 2015

    does this mean i can win 1500 avios and a meal from Gordon!!

    wooow thanks ba….not

    • mark2 says:

      You beat me to it!
      I think that the BA competition must have been designed by a Virgin mole. Most people would not be able to afford to take the prize if they won it. For people outside London they would have to stay the night as well as getting there.
      It reminds me of a prize that we won in a local newspaper some years ago. The prize was a studio session with a photographer and my wife got very excited. It turned out that only one print was included and it cost us a lot of money to buy a reasonable number of copies. I suspect that there were a lot of winners!

      • callum says:

        If you couldn’t afford to go to London, you shouldn’t be collecting Airmiles in the first place (or shopping at Tesco…).

    • Rob says:

      I did this via groupon in 2013, cost £99!

  • Stuart Ross says:

    Virgin have a great service from Glasgow to MCO direct from early April to September. The 2015 availability has gone for the full Easter fortnight (as you would expect by now). Summer availability is still good in Premium Economy (e.g. out 5th July – back 25th July for 70k miles and £353 charges). May be worth considering for Easter next year, especially as their is a good chance APD will be abolished in Scotland by then.

    • Rob says:

      This is a trial service, no guarantee it will return.

      • James67 says:

        I thought it had been running a few years already. Or perhaps they did it before, scrapped ot then brought it back recently.

      • Martin says:

        It’s been running for a few years now, IIRC it started the year after TCD folded.

      • Stuart Ross says:

        The GLA to Las Vegas service in Sept/Oct 2014 was a trial (with no redemptions allowed) but these are back for Sept/Oct 2015 with redemptions now allowed – my son has just booked 4 economy seats for 42,500 + £222 each for his Stag “week” in early September. Virgin’s GLA to MCO flights have been around for a few years now, from April to October.

  • SH says:

    Did a transfer yesterday morning (after I got the email) and the points showed up in my Virgin account by midnight but they posted at the normal rate. Does the bonus get sent separately?

    Thanks

    • Ben says:

      Likewise, did mine in yesterday afternoon. Standard points have posted, but no bonus. Checked T&Cs and couldn’t see anything about bonus coming later… Will give it a couple of days and then chase.

      • Janeyferr says:

        It usually comes separately and later. Couldn’t tell you how much later because it is back dated to the same date, but not long. Maybe a day or two?

        • flibbly says:

          Same here. Normal points only arrived. I have already emailed Clubcard to enquire, but I’d have waited if I’d seen this beforehand as I’ve now potentially alerted them to the large number of points from 3V last quarter.

          • Janeyferr says:

            I made a transfer on Saturday afternoon and the bonus points posted this morning, so less than 72 hours.

  • Daleroxxu says:

    Thinking about transferring CC to Virgin so that I can sample Singapore Airlines’ First Class service. Looks like partner bookings can only be done over the phone though so have no idea about availability and taxes.

    • Rob says:

      Note that you MUST book a return with partners and I doubt VS can book Singapore F. This is very rarely offered to partners, even in Star Alliance.

    • RIccati says:

      Virgin will not confirm taxes without “requesting a flight” from a Partner. They create a booking and wait for it to be confirmed. After that they know the tax

      With Delta and Hawaiian, Virgin Club agents have direct access on Vega booking system and can look up availability and taxes right away.

      SQ F/Suites is out of reach via Virgin, as Raffles said.

      • James says:

        Is business available on SQ/MH? Was hoping to book a one way return from SIN/KUL with VS miles. Don’t want to have to trek back to HKG to be able to get one :/

        • James67 says:

          Before you do check what Sr Lankan want for a ow revenue fare, can sometime be as little as £650 although prices seem to have crept up since they joined one world.

    • Rob says:

      Can I just say. I’m a fan. I used to rail you on Pokerstars sometimes. Do you still play professionally? (sorry for outing you if you didn’t want it)

  • Fenny says:

    “full fare cash tickets in Upper Class also get a free chauffeur to and from the airport”

    Only within a certain radius, don’t remember if it’s 70 or 75 miles. I live about 80 miles from LHR, so would have to get to somewhere closer in order to take advantage of this perk.

    • Pol says:

      Miles upper class flights and the lowest cash ticket don’t include the limo. If you’ve booked an upper class reward flight you can use an extra 7500 miles to book a limo transfer.

      • Rob says:

        …. which is a decent deal.

      • Pol says:

        sorry miss type 17,500 miles but that’s per limo not person (up to 3 people)

        • Jason says:

          What is the max journey they will collect you from?
          I assume 2 adults and 2 children wouldn’t qualify?

          • Pol says:

            75 miles. you can pay for extra miles at $3.50 a mile. Not sure about 2 adults and 2 kids as both my children are now adults so we require 2 limos for 4 people.

          • Rob says:

            Depends how big the kids are. You can get 3 in the back of a Merc. Emirates gave us 2 cars once but we all squeezed into one and stuck the buggy in the 2nd one! We also travel as a 4 in an Uber Merc on a regular basis. Bit rubbish for whoever sits in the middle in the back of course. They probably also have MPV’s – Emirates gave us one of those once as well.

        • Fenny says:

          Each way. I suppose it depends how many of you there are and how much you value 35k miles at.

  • KeithS says:

    I have flown a lot more on VS than BA and my ‘loyalty’ was with VS, but have BA as diversification (I can’t beat flying in F !)
    A couple things that I think are worth highlighting (probably done so before in other threads) in a comparison of VS and BA:-
    1) Personal opinion – but U/C knocks CW into a cocked hat. I would suggest that U/C is halfway between CW and F
    2) As pointed out above, VS allow double upgrades i.e. from Y to J
    3) If a return reward is not available, then you can book a one way reward and still get the lowest fares class on the return, rather than buying a hideously expensive Fully Flexible One Way ticket for the return (not checked this recently though)
    4) I love the BA 2:4:1 (off to sunny Dubai in late Feb in F), and although VS don’t have a similar voucher, their Amex earning is 2 miles per £1 rather than the 1.5 on the BA Amex. Still not as good as the 2:4:1, but certainly a mitigating factor.
    5) Small increase in the number of miles per Tesco Club Card conversion

    All in all, worth having both schemes.

  • Simon says:

    Appreciate it would be speculation but any thoughts on what the Avios changes could mean for the Tesco to Avios conversion rate Rob? Also does it increase or decrease the chance we’ll ever see another conversion bonus?

    • Rob says:

      May well see a bonus if BA sees a big drop off in conversions – they want the Tesco money.

      • callum says:

        Well everyone wants money, but it’s not as simple as that!

        Firstly, do Tesco want to give BA that extra money? And secondly, do BA want the extra money more than they want to cut back on reward flights? The first is definitely no given their recent troubles, the second seems to be no considering the complete lack of a bonus for several years and now a devaluation. I’m not going to hold my breath!

        • Rob says:

          If there had been a recent bonus, everyone would have complained that BA made them convert under false pretences!

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

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.