Get a 30% bonus when you buy Virgin Flying Club miles – good deal?

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• Jammy Dodger says:

  9 Jun9 June 03:54

  Waste of money.
  I buy the cheapest economy ticket & slip the check-in staff £50 & upgraded to Upperclass with Clubhouse access.

  • Nicholas Shaw says:

    9 Jun9 June 07:01

    No you don’t

  • ChrisC says:

    9 Jun9 June 08:56

    Why do people post such rubbish? It’s notclever or funny.

    These days upgrades are decided by algorithms in advance and staff have little control over them.

    No employee is going to risk their job over £50 quid.

• Devin says:

  9 Jun9 June 07:32

  Doesn’t anyone have insight into whether VS will eventually expand its network, or stay pretty much as-is with main focus on NA?

  • Devin says:

    9 Jun9 June 07:32

    *does

  • the real harry1 says:

    9 Jun9 June 09:27

    Sure, it has been announced that there will be integration fairly soon between VS and FB, so we’ll get all the possibilities that using KLM and AF offer, including redeeming Virgin miles to fly short haul in Europe.

    Don’t get your hopes up too much – regular FB redemptions in Europe seem rather expensive to my eye and I doubt whether Virging joining up with Flying Blue will change the points requirement. The real attraction might lie in using Virgin miles on the regular FB promotions, eg recently there were heavily discounted redemptions (up to 50% off) on flights to USA etc.

    • the_real_a says:

      9 Jun9 June 13:26

      The tax element is VERY expensive indeed. To the point of making it useless, especially if you live in the regions and have low cost operators out of your local airport. There are few direct flights unless you want to go to Amsterdam or Paris so you are hit with full airport taxes for two airports (change of planes at the hubs). ONE way taxes are between £50 and £70 short haul economy on the routes i was looking at.

    • David says:

      10 Jun10 June 01:04

      eh?

      “The real attraction might lie in using Virgin miles on the regular FB promotions, eg recently there were heavily discounted redemptions (up to 50% off) on flights to USA etc.”

      Why are you expecting to get access to that? Unless I’ve missed something nobody has mentioned FlyingClub joining FlyingBlue. All that is expected (again unless I’ve missed something) is the ability to earn and redeem on AF/KLM.

      Nor (again unless I’ve missed something) is anyone expecting anykind of miles transfer to be possible.

      What you are talking about above would be equivalent to Lufthansa M&M having a points redemption sale/promo on certain routes and expecting to get a cheaper redemption when redeming (say) Krisflyer miles on the same route. Which obviouslyis not going to happen.

• Jovanna says:

  9 Jun9 June 09:07

  My Avis / Virgin bonus points failed to credit again. In February I put it down to not following the link – not that there were instructions to do so. Last month, I followed the link but still only awarded 500 miles. No sign of the 5000 bonus. Webpage isn’t much help in claiming. Group C, 4 day rental etc. Given up on these type of promotions now.

  • Catalan says:

    9 Jun9 June 10:27

    Virgin Wines are exactly the same. I’m still missing two sets of 750 Flying Club miles after orders made last year and this February.

    • the real harry1 says:

      9 Jun9 June 14:07

      Just claim them online with your purchase details & they’ll get awarded straight away

  • palcsaky says:

    9 Jun9 June 11:02

    I also only got the 500 base miles. Comments on flyertalk suggest it takes 2-3 months for the bonus miles to post automatically. I will probably wait before chasing up.

    • Leo says:

      9 Jun9 June 12:15

      My two full awards posted within a week or so of the actual bookings – no issue either time, used the link both occasions. I chalk this up to luck more than anything else. Some you win etc. and Virgin seem remarkably flaky. I’m not being smug here as I half expect Virgin to scoop back the points at some later date.

• William PH says:

  9 Jun9 June 22:51

  I’ve been flying with Delta a bit over the last year and crediting the flights to VS. Looking at the taxes on redemptions I worry that I should have been joining Delta Sky Miles and posting there- but so many people refer to them scornfully as Sky Pesos. My main interest is LHR SEA flights. Should I stick with Flying Club or move to Delta??

• Rob says:

  9 Jun9 June 23:30

  Delta is already a full Virgin partner. KLM / AF will become Flying Club redemption partners and you will also be able to earn FC tier points when you fly them.

• Henry Young says:

  10 Jun10 June 16:31

  The best value redemption is off peak one way Prem Eco HKG->LHR. Last time I ran the numbers a couple of months ago it works out at 4.6p per point. This is helped a lot by fuel surcharges not being permitted until HK law. The only downer is that VS closed their pretty good HKG lounge last year. Maintaining a branded un-shared lounge for one flight per day did seem rather profligate. The generic lounges at HKG are often rammed. I just worry that HKG may get dropped from the VS network. Anyone have any insight into this ?

  • Rob says:

    10 Jun10 June 16:57

    VS will be doing a lot of expansion. The Air Berlin planes they borrowed temporarily to cover for the 787s are getting a £10m refit, will be around for at least 4 years and – assuming the A350 are on time – will give them an extra fillip of capacity once the 787 issue is sorted.

• geoffthesaint says:

  16 Jun16 June 19:01

  How do you see a points per purchase break down in the Virgin flying club or Virgin Credit card like we do with Amex or B.A?
  I only see the total per month once per month.

  Thanks
  Geoff

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