EDIT: This partnership was reprieved and is continuing beyond 13th April
There are a number of hotel groups who partner with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club but who do not work with Avios. I covered them in this article.
One of those is Red Carnation Hotels.
Red Carnation is a collection of 17 family run 5-star boutique hotels.
In London, they are dotted around Kensington and Belgravia – The Milestone, The Rubens, The Egerton House Hotel, The Chesterfield, 41 Hotel etc. In Ireland there is the modest looking Ashford Castle, below:
In South Africa they have a handful including the well regarded Twelve Apostles in Cape Town. There are also two hotels in Guernsey, two in Dorset and the D’Angleterre in Geneva. The full list is here.
Red Carnation Hotels is a Virgin Atlantic Flying Club partner. Full details can be found on the Virgin site here.
The standard earning rate is 2,000 Virgin miles per night. This is substantially better than any other Virgin Flying Club hotel partner.
Virgin Flying Club has announced that Red Carnation will cease to be a partner on 13th April. That still gives you 10 weeks or so to take advantage.
These are not cheap hotels and your corporate travel policy may not be able to swing them! They do have ‘3 for 2’ deals running at some properties, however, which makes them a better deal. You also need to book directly with the hotel or via the website to get the miles. Rooms booked via a travel agent will not count.
If you tend to book into high-end properties for work or leisure, there may be an opportunity to do very nicely here. You can learn more about Red Carnation on their site here.
How to earn Virgin Atlantic miles from UK credit cards
As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Virgin Flying Club miles from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!
Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Virgin Flying Club miles. That page is regularly updated with the latest special offers and will still be accurate even if you are reading this article months after publication.
(Want to earn more Virgin Flying Club miles? 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.)
About Head for Points
OT big hotel news: IHG finally abandons flat rate 5000ppn pointsbreaks. New list out next week is tiered at 5k, 10k and 15k per night. list will include HIE London Newbury Park at 10k. Details on LL.
For those who booked QR sale tickets exHEL, HI Helsinki City Centre is included at 15k. For those heading out to KL or thereabouts, HI Glenmarie is 5k.
I’d actually stay at the CP Potsdamer Platz for 15K per night. I’ve not been able to say that about anything on this list for a very long time….
Do you know the hotel? I’ve considered staying there before, but have always been put off by the fact that it’s actually not that close to Potsdamer Platz at all. I once stayed at the HIX nearby (before the CP opened) and it was a bit of a trek. I’d probably still go for the Indigo KuDamm for 20,000, unless the CP is really nice.
+1 for Indigo, rooms are on the small side but who cares if you are out most of the time. Great location and a steal at 20k.
I did notice that the CP Potsdamer Platz is very cheap when you use the Mastercard rate. Something like 60 euros for the dates I was looking at in March. Hardly worth using even 15K points at those prices, really, especially if you have Accelerate targets to hit. I went for the Indigo in the recent sale – 74 euros including breakfast made more sense for me than 20K points.
Hopefully better hotels going forward. We are in the HI Helsinki in Sept so will miss out on this one! 🙁
According to LL over 200 hotels this time. full list is out later today for Monday bookings.
As a one off probably, yes. Normal service will then resume!
Newbury Park being about as close to London as Watford!
IHG are also increasing the price in points to join/renew Ambassador to 40000 points.
Article on this already lined up.
Blimey that’s a hike! So better off paying $150.
OT VTEC: Just paid £86pp for a 1st advance singles from Kings Cross to Edinburgh six months out when tickets were released this morning. Can a regular traveller on the route please confirm if this is correct? I was surprised it was so high, last time I booked I think it was only about £59.
I’m doing the journey once a week at the moment and have done since the start of January. Cheapest I’ve seen outside the sale is £62 with £74.50 being the norm.
There have been a few occasions it’s been cheaper to get the tram to the airport, fly and use HEX.
Thanks Chris, I actually though it might be an error and the discounted fares were not loaded yet. It was also weird as some trains were showing as sold out less than 3 minutes after the latest tickets were released. Do they not need to sell advanced tickets on every train?
Sorry I meant start of November not January. The advances are unregulated fares so it’s up the VTEC how many they release and at what price IIRC.
Six months from now though is the middle of our school holidays, the start of the English school holidays and the start of the festival up here which I’m guessing they will have factored into the fares.
OT, Amex are having a 50% off hotel sale plus 50.00 credit. Under Amex offers for first 30,000 to save.
amex travel?
Yep.
If you scroll down to the Amex offers there is a link there that takes you through to Amex travel and you sign up for it there. 30,000 only allegedly.
Thanks Cate, I was already registered but I will take a look again to see if there is anything useful in the sale for me.
Not on any of my cards 🙁
OT – has anyone hit the 90k Amex referral limit? I have plat and gold preferred rewards cards linked with 4x 18k platinum referrals and 1x 9k gold referral totaling 81k. If I make another referral from Platinum will it let me go over 90k or should I just do it from gold, hit the 90k and call it a day?
I asked the other day if anyone had had experience of the annual limit being reset on a new card but probably it was not a problem when you could not get 18,000 for each, but there was no reply.
Why do you guys not pug the question to amex directly? It’s a oerfectly legitimate queryso hopefully you would get a definite answer.
True, but allegedly things are being extensively changed there so the question is probably moot anyway.
Let’s see, hopefully the current referral opportunities are here to stay though. Tome, they are more attractive than tbe sign-up bonuses as they are less hassle.
I have, they will not give me a straight answer.