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Virgin Atlantic launches afternoon tea – on the ground and onboard

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One thing about running HfP is that you meet a far broader range of people than you ever do working in the City, as I did. 

Eric Lanlard is one of these people – I never really expected that I would get to know one of the best pâtissiers in the world, and owner of Cake Boy, the destination café, cake emporium and cookery school.  However, via various Starwood Preferred Guest events (he did a lot for Starwood), I did.

Lanlard has now partnered with Virgin Atlantic to launch afternoon tea.  From Monday, a formal afternoon tea service will be available – for free – in the Heathrow Clubhouse from 3pm to 5.30pm.  Banish images of the British Airways Club Europe afternoon tea from your mind!

Eric Lanlard Virgin Atlantic afternoon tea

You will get a pot of tea or Lanson rose champagne and a bespoke stand filled with items including:

  • Prosciutto, sunblushed tomato and rocket on a stone baked Campagne brown roll
  • Smoked salmon, cream cheese and dill mint mini croissant
  • Broccoli, goat’s cheese and cress savoury tart
  • Homemade plain and sultana scones with strawberry preserve, lemon and clotted cream
  • Eton mess verrine with strawberry coulis
  • Apple and blackberry cake
  • Dark chocolate brownie with salted caramel sauce

More interestingly, the service is launching onboard from “late Summer”.  Upper Class passengers will be able to have afternoon tea at the bar, whilst Premium and Economy passengers will receive a selection of items at their seat.

I have a friend in the Clubhouse on Monday so hopefully we can get some images.  

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 (130)

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

  • another_will says:
    19 Apr19 April 09:07

    As long as I can still take my golf clubs for free on RFS tickets, I’ll continue to fly BA short haul.
    When they take that away – and we seem to be on a race to the bottom – then I’ll look at other options.

  • Craig says:
    19 Apr19 April 09:15

    OT: Amex are refusing me 5000 for adding a complimentary credit card and spending the £500. They say I have already received a parallel offer, would adding a supp card at around the same time have blocked it? For info I was targeted through the portal but didn’t take a screenshot.

    • Craig says:
      19 Apr19 April 11:18

      Thanks, I’ve sent them a link to this page and it is now over a month since I hit the target.

  • xcalx says:
    19 Apr19 April 09:17

    OT Just got the curve debit card. do I get curve points for spending on it, I can’t see any points added. If not can’t see any advantage.

    thanks

    • Genghis says:
      19 Apr19 April 09:25

      As a new user or an existing “pre-paid” user? I changed to the personal debit from the previous version and still get Curve rewards at the previous list of selected retailers.

  • JPV says:
    19 Apr19 April 09:41

    OT: Are there any clever ways to get cheaper VTEC tickets from KGX to EDB? Either with points or some other scheme I don’t know about? I’m spending a small fortune on these tickets and only getting a pittance in virgin air miles in return

    • Genghis says:
      19 Apr19 April 09:53

      Keep signing up for the Virgin Red app discount code?

      • JPV says:
        19 Apr19 April 10:24

        I had no idea about this, thanks Genghis! Got an invite code? I searched but couldn’t find one from Rob

        • JamesB says:
          19 Apr19 April 16:52

          If you are using any type of railcard you will be unable to use the red code, if not then the red code or sales is the best you can do. Hopefully we will soon be back to something closer to old EC staff run structure, promotions, fares and rewards.

      • Rob says:
        19 Apr19 April 10:31

        That’s what I do for West Coast!

      • Chris A says:
        19 Apr19 April 18:48

        Is it possible to keep signing up for these, Genghis?! I used a code a couple months ago from Virgin Red and had just assumed that would be it.

  • Sam says:
    19 Apr19 April 10:04

    OT: Now that Avios is closing and transferring to BAEC, how does one make an Avios booking and have the Avios come out of specific accounts? Previously if I didn’t want to use Avios from one account, I’d move them all from BAEC to Avios temporarily and make the booking.

    • Rob says:
      19 Apr19 April 10:30

      Presumably you can still move them to Aer Club or Vueling Club accounts which are basically avios.com accounts using the avios.com IT platform and website.

  • Tom Cook says:
    19 Apr19 April 10:45

    OT:

    I hold the BAPP and the Amex Plat. Around early March I cancelled the SPG card after hitting the spend bonus – I can repay at the end of September. At the moment our BA avios come through my BAPP and Tesco. My Plat card gives MR which is sent through to hotel schemes.

    I’m thinking of keeping the Plat and the BAPP (haven’t churned the BAPP). We have plenty of BA avios and hols are sorted for the year. We want to build our hotel points.

    Would the following therefore be a decent next step – get my other half (or refer self) from plat to AMEX Rewards CC (which I presume I can hold as well). Hit spend target, cancel, then go back to the SPG card at the end of summer. Just conscious that at the moment I’m not benefitting from any sign up bonuses and I have referred a few friends / other half so have run out of options.

  • Anna says:
    19 Apr19 April 11:28

    OT – avios changes. I suspect there are going to be issues. have a BAEC household account where all family members share an email address as we like all our travel bookings to go to the same folder. I have just spoken to avios.com and they have said that to transfer mine and my OH’s avios, we have to have separate email addresses and must change this on our BAEC accounts! I told them I am not prepared to do this as BA don’t require separate email addresses. I was then told that this might prevent the avios from being transferred!

    I’m going to wait and see, but this isn’t mentioned in the notification email from avios.com so presumably people won’t know unless they speak to avios.com about it.

    • Margaret says:
      19 Apr19 April 14:12

      I don’t know if this is true (as the Avios site is still working), but customer services at Avios.com told me that Aer Lingus accounts which merge with the Avios account (and presumably Aer Lingus accounts generally) will allow transfer into a family account, as they have different rules.

  • Cate ⛱️ says:
    19 Apr19 April 11:46

    OT as bits, is anyone going to move their stays to another provider from Marriott and to who?. Going through the figures although we can do without lounge access the lack of breakfast plus lack of elite benefits on booking more than room means we’ll probably shelve them for the foreseeable future.

    • Alex W says:
      19 Apr19 April 12:31

      Hilton- free brekkie with gold

      • Cate ⛱️ says:
        19 Apr19 April 12:42

        Thanks Alex W, we’ve dropped Hilton and won’t pick back up for the foreseeable future.

        Anyone who runs a business here got a view? i’m thinking general employees for IHG HIX and biz meetings and entertainment perhaps Hyatt or MO location dependent.?

        • Pangolin says:
          19 Apr19 April 13:19

          Cste, mind saying why you dropped Hilton?

          For me it would be the obvious alternative to someone leaving Marriott.

          Are you sure that 50 nights is out of bounds? Remember that if the Marriott CC comes back in August we will hopefully get the 10 elite nights credit. That would mean 40 nights – the same as for Hilton Gold. Marriott Platinum will be a lot better than having that.

        • Cate ⛱️ says:
          19 Apr19 April 14:23

          Hi Pangolin, short and sweet Hilton took us for granted for too long and mistakenly thought we were loyal….

          It’s not about getting the status back with Marriott, we have plat anyway because we go away most weekends. It’s that the new changes mean it doesn’t matter how many rooms we book for a night only one of those rooms will get breakfast. So if we have nine contractors come down only one is getting breakfast.

    • Alex W says:
      19 Apr19 April 18:48

      I don’t know any chain which gives you 9 breakfasts based on your status?!

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

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