Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Virgin Atlantic adds a second daily Johannesburg flight

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

Filling the gap left by South African Airways move to drop one of its two daily Jo’burg to Heathrow services from late April, Virgin Atlantic has announced that it is doubling its Johannesburg services from Winter 2018.

Launching on 28th October, the service will use a new Boeing 787-9, assuming Virgin Atlantic still has one that is working properly.

Flying daily, it will leave Heathrow at 16.45 and land in South Africa at 5.40.  This makes it the first Heathrow service of the day to arrive.  Unfortunately for Virgin, the $200m aircraft will then sit on the ground earning nothing for the next 17 hours as the return flight to Heathrow does not leave until 22.20.  It arrives back in Heathrow at 7.30am.

Seats will be bookable from 24th March.  Whilst Virgin does not guarantee to make a certain number of reward seats available per flight, you may have a decent chance of finding something for Christmas or New Year with your Flying Club miles if you jump in early.

To maximise your miles when paying, your best bet is one of the two Virgin Atlantic Reward credit cards.  These earn double miles (3 per £1 on the paid card or 1.5 per £1 on the free card) when you book at virginatlantic.com or via Virgin Holidays.  Another option is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold which offers double points – 2 per £1 – when you book flight tickets directly with an airline.

PS.   If you are wondering what has happened to the 2nd South African Airways landing slot, it has been leased to British Airways for five years.  It is not clear what BA will do with it, but you would imagine that a valuable early morning Heathrow landing slot would end up being used for a North American or Asian service.

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (April 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 – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

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

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a 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

40,000 points sign-up bonus 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.)

Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (54)

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

  • gastrocnemius says:
    16 Mar16 March 10:12

    I have struggled to get any avios from Melia.

    The points leave my Melia account, and then haven’t arrived in my Iberia account. I submitted an claim online, but haven’t heard back from them….

    Has anyone else had this issue?

  • Alan says:
    16 Mar16 March 10:50

    Any news on when I can use VS miles on KLM?

    • Rob says:
      16 Mar16 March 11:23

      The JV won’t be approved until Spring 2019. I believe they are hoping to have cross-redemptions available before that though, since that does not require regulatory approval.

  • Graham Walsh says:
    16 Mar16 March 11:27

    Virgin Atlantic makes first loss in 4 years https://www.ft.com/content/a81e071a-2847-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d57a0

    • Lucinda says:
      16 Mar16 March 11:50

      More likely due to their disastrous “Upgrade” to their web site last year.

      Absolutely shocking and AFAIK still awful.

  • Tom Cook says:
    16 Mar16 March 11:49

    Cancelled my SPG card this morning – only had it for 10 weeks, hit the spend within 6 weeks and transferred all the points over. Closed the account down over the chat function which was fine (used Genghis’s line of not using the card anymore)!

    No mention / threat of not getting any other sign up bonuses when cancelling, all very painless. We now have 30k of SPG points. My other half has just got the SPG card and so I presume that we can combine SPG accounts to get her 10k to add to the fund?

    • mark2 says:
      16 Mar16 March 12:04

      Yes you can transfer between accounts at the same address.
      I transfer to Marriott as they give breakfast with Gold (from Amex Platinum) whereas SPG don’t.

      • Tom Cook says:
        16 Mar16 March 12:09

        So could she give my SPG account number to transfer points to?

        TBH we have booked up our hols and accommodation this year so I planned to leave the 30k SPG where they are though it seems that some say that transferring to Marriott at 3:1 results in them getting more value.

        • mark2 says:
          16 Mar16 March 12:18

          That is a different question. Probably not; it depends on the checks made. With same surname and address you may get away with it. I forgot to say that you can only transfer in multiples of 1,000 so earn accordingly.
          I find Marriott to be better value, but as ever it depends on your individual requirements, and in 2019 the schemes may have been merged. Another big advantage with Marriott is that you can make a booking before you have earned the points.

  • Jack says:
    16 Mar16 March 12:51

    OT regarding CW on a 777 – I am flying back from LAS to LGW in May. The seat map shows 48 seats in J instead of 40 – I understand that the usual Gatwick fleet has 40 (due to reduce to 32)

    In short, does a 48 seat J cabin mean my plane might be a bit nicer (in terms of refurb, IFE) than if it were a 40 seat cabin?

    Thanks a lot

    • Catalan says:
      16 Mar16 March 16:02

      Not necessarily so. The LHR fleet of 3 class B777s have the 48J configuration. So it’s likely you’ll be travelling on one of those during the LGW fleet upgrade.

  • will says:
    16 Mar16 March 16:23

    Is anyone able to see the 3 x 20% vouchers for melia this calendar year as a Gold member?

    I have none in the promotions section of my melia account, I’m gold courtesy of Amex plat. They seem to have been removed as the calendar year turned over and I’m not sure if they are gone for everyone or gone for renewals through amex (or maybe even just for me)

    • Nick says:
      16 Mar16 March 19:48

      Just you I think. I auto-renewed and can still see mine. Not that I ever seem to be able to use them!

    • TGLoyalty says:
      17 Mar17 March 16:33

      Never had them this year.

      Seems hit and miss as to who gets them on amex upgrade to gold

  • Nick says:
    16 Mar16 March 19:46

    Remember how you were asking why it didn’t fly for a few days last week? It was removed to have wifi fitted.

  • Paul says:
    16 Mar16 March 22:03

    Any room for 1 more flight to JNB?

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

NEW: Sign-up bonuses boosted to 3,000 and 18,000 points

Latest Forum Posts

Get 40,000 bonus points (worth 40,000 Avios) and £300 dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get £10 when you spend £150 on your free Currensea card

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? SPECIAL OFFER TO 12TH MAY EARN POINTS WORTH 30,000 AVIOS WITH CAPITAL ON TAP

Get 20,000 bonus points, four airport lounge passes and your first year free with American Express Gold

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.

Got it!