Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Earn Virgin Atlantic miles with the American Express and Red Carnation Hotels cashback deal

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You may have received an email from American Express yesterday offering you £50 cashback if you spend £250 at Red Carnation Hotels.

Assuming you were targeted, it is valid at their nine UK hotels for stays completed by 19th May.  In London, they are dotted around Kensington and Belgravia – The Milestone, The Rubens, The Egerton House Hotel, The Chesterfield, 41 Hotel etc.  The full list is here.

What Amex didn’t remind you is that 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 recently announced that Red Carnation will cease to be a partner on 13th April.  Oddly, the wording has now disappeared from the Flying Club website so I don’t know what is happening.  Assuming it is ending, you still have three weeks to take advantage and £50 cashback PLUS 2,000 Virgin Atlantic miles per night is not a bad deal at all.

The Red Carnation website is here if you want to find out more.

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 (106)

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

  • Geoff says:
    20 Mar20 March 06:08

    Just a note re Blacklane. They provide an excellent service, but your card is charged a few days before the ride, not after.

  • iain wilson says:
    20 Mar20 March 06:37

    I missed this amex offer. does it work on gift cards? can you use it more than once?
    ta

  • Gavin says:
    20 Mar20 March 06:49

    The amazon Amex offer worked on my “Money supermarket” issued gold card (and supp card) which was the predecessor to the Rewards card

  • Roger says:
    20 Mar20 March 06:59

    OT I have an upcoming bill (non-Amex) to pay – lets say 10K bill.

    Is there any new card launch offers coming next couple of weeks?
    If not I will use my current cards.

    • JamesB says:
      20 Mar20 March 09:11

      If you don’t have IHG card already then that spend would get you a free night plus 20k dign up plus 20k spend points.

    • Rob says:
      20 Mar20 March 09:12

      The new Virgin cards may be along in the next month.

      • FM says:
        20 Mar20 March 12:16

        Related OT – I have a similar charge, the retailer is old fashioned enough only to accept cheque or bank transfer – are there any tools that would allow me to place this charge on a card?

        • Tom1 says:
          20 Mar20 March 13:01

          Billhop I think. Articles on here, but there is a charge.

        • Scallder says:
          20 Mar20 March 15:00

          Hi FM – As Tom1 mentions there is BIllhop:

          Rob’s article is here: https://headforpoints.com/2017/09/18/billhop-review/

          They’re also running a promo at the moment where if you’re referred before 31st March, you get £250 of fee free payments, and you can then refer others and get £500 for each referral up to £1500. This is my personal referral so please feel free to use this (ROb has previously said it’s ok to post!): https://secure.billhop.com/r/8f256

        • FM says:
          20 Mar20 March 15:06

          Thanks! Charge is a bit much for it to be worthwhile…

        • Mike says:
          20 Mar20 March 19:01

          Billhop – I have used them loads to put non Amex spend onto my Amex

        • memesweeper says:
          20 Mar20 March 19:22

          You can use billhop for free for the first £250 using the code below. Which means you may as well try it 🙂 the fees mean, for me at least, it only makes sense to use it ongoing to get over a bonus threshold more quickly or where the fees themselves can be expensed. My referral code: https://secure.billhop.com/r/e20548

          I used it today to (hopefully) get over the line for my Lloyds companion voucher this month rather than waiting the 3 months more this will take with ‘natural’ spending. As soon as I get the voucher I’ll spend it, assuming the redemption is still available!

  • Roger says:
    20 Mar20 March 07:17

    Another related OT-

    Did anyone manage to successfully churn IHG Black or white card i.e. received another set of bonus points?

    • Alex W says:
      20 Mar20 March 10:11

      IMO it’s barely worth trying. The signup bonus of 20k is not that much and I would earn most of that anyway using the card. Not having the card for 6 months means I would be missing one of the most generous MasterCards in existence. Also, people reported having trouble getting the free night voucher after cancelling, I for one can’t be bothered to deal with that hassle.

  • Anna says:
    20 Mar20 March 07:20

    OT – there’s been some discussion on here of upgrading the gold Amex MR to platinum. Is this targeted, I can’t find any reference to it on my gold account?

  • Matt B says:
    20 Mar20 March 07:53

    Anyone been able to use the amazon voucher again i after upgrading from gold to plat? Obviously you have a new card number but I guess it’s linked to same Amex account?

  • anttelli says:
    20 Mar20 March 08:01

    Just linked my Amex Rewards Credit Card on Amazon.

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

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