Virgin Flying Club miles splitting from the airline to create a Virgin-wide loyalty scheme

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• Leo says:

  21 Aug21 August 12:44

  Does anyone have any thoughts as to how this may or may not impact on the suggested potential for redeeming on KLM/AF?
  Since this became a possibility my O/H and I have been stashing away FC miles rather than Avios as I was planning to run down the Avios pot and thought FC miles might become a bit more useful. I’d hate to see Flying Club ape the Delta system.

  • Lady London says:

    21 Aug21 August 22:41

    Problem also is that with Delta so much of this everything will be swamped by the wall of points and demand that is the Delta FF base. I can’t see UK users doing any good out of this.

    Can Virgin miles be transferred into anything useful other than hotel points? So far as Virgin is concerned, this news means I’m out and I just want to transfer my points for whatever I can get.

• Gail says:

  21 Aug21 August 12:46

  Can we have an article and discussion on best value for using Virgin Flying Club Miles right now if one wants to use them up. I have 105,000.

  So far I use them to upgrade to PE.

  Also, what will happen to new VA credit cards?

• Anthony says:

  21 Aug21 August 13:17

  From long and bitter experience I don’t trust anything about the Virgin brand particularly where Beardy is fronting. This doesn’t feel like it’s going to benefit the frequent flying punter. I’ve used the VC at T3 but only as part of the Centurion card and am now an air tart and buy only on price and service. My wife has BA Gold and HH Diamond and is getting more unimpressed by the month. Switching to partners like Qatar and Finnair reduces cost to the business and gives, often more, Avios (that are increasingly difficult to redeem). Recent Qatar trip in business to Seychelles was infinitely superior to BA First. Roll on the Qatar sale!

• vlcnc says:

  21 Aug21 August 13:21

  I have just redeemed and virtually cleared my VA Flying Club account in the last couple of weeks on a Delta flight from London to Portland in the last couple of weeks to visit friends – which is pretty much the only use I could find for them at reasonable cost. Unfortunately due to the lack of eastwards network which I tend to fly more, and the fact awards in UC have been made ridiculously expensive in miles I gave up on FC a long time ago.

  I am glad I cashed out as like many others I don’t see this development as anything but ominous. Let’s face it the redemptions on KLM / Air France were never going to be good and this development just solidifies my thoughts that FC as a scheme is going to get worse.

• darkwingduck says:

  21 Aug21 August 13:50

  The Virgin Group thing is getting rather confusing to me. Virgin is a brand, other companies pay to use the name. Trains is Stagecoach, airline is practically Delta with a Union Jack on it and the gyms are owned by a private South African firm. Yet still they are happy to peddle the belief that Richard Branson sits at the top table. At JFK a few weeks ago a Brit was ranting about luggage at check in and shouted at his mate to film him and post it on Twitter so he could send it to Richard Branson. Virgin are trying to build this model of loyalty yet with so many firms they have no idea who is loyal to who, other than verifying through the Virgin Red app (which gives you points to enter prize draws). So if I book a Virgin train from Manchester to London, they will have no idea if I have a gym membership or how many recent Virgin flights I have taken.

  • Will Avery says:

    21 Aug21 August 18:01

    One of the great ghost brands. Has their logo on everything but service delivery wildly different. Can you really compare Stagecoach to VA to Virgin Active. And VA another classic brand whereby customers are conned into thinking it will be a super duper Branson operation only to find it’s just another overpriced gym!

    • Lady London says:

      21 Aug21 August 22:23

      You mean like Pierre Cardin?

      • Alex Sm says:

        22 Aug22 August 19:36

        Or easyJet and Stelios – oh, Stelios!

• VK says:

  21 Aug21 August 14:41

  loyaly is a failure these days. I am loyal to my bank and my own money.
  I pay where the best fares are for the best possible service/hard product I can buy.
  I credit miles and points to the best possible locations.
  if I have enough somewhere, I use them.
  If I dont I dont care as I have the best experience I can afford.
  eg – I will never fly BA J at a non deeply discounted fare just so that I can credit miels to alaska where I can get a lot more bang for mile + accelerated status and huge 50k bonus miles when hitting status targets.

  • John says:

    21 Aug21 August 14:57

    For the same reasons as you stated, it doesn’t make sense to be loyal to a bank either…

• Mark Vreeswijk says:

  21 Aug21 August 15:27

  I have 2 Lloyds flight upgrade vouchers (in my name and wife’s) and 2 BA 2-1 vouchers (in my name) and I would like to end up with 4 business class seats to Johannesburg for the family (2 adults + 1 child + 1 infant). What is the cheapest strategy in terms of points?

  • Tom H says:

    21 Aug21 August 20:33

    I have the same situation, i use the 241 for myself and the 5 year old and the upgrade voucher for the wife. The upgrade voucher can easily be applied to any name online so could be in your name yet redeemed in your wife’s. Where as you cant redeem the 241 in someone else’s name, unless you use 2x 241 in your name and you are travelling, and in your case the infant cant use the second part of the 241.

    • The Streets says:

      21 Aug21 August 22:11

      I tried this to apply the upgrade voucher to another name online and Avios wouldn’t process it for me

      • Mr dee says:

        21 Aug21 August 23:19

        Upgrade vouchers don’t work online anymore it literally breaks their website now.

• Colin JE says:

  21 Aug21 August 15:33

  Virgin will have to put its house in order to make this scheme work. Here’s a warning if you are applying for the Virgin Atlantic Mastercard. My wife got an offer in the post with extra miles if you spend over a certain amount for the first few months. For the Reward+ card, in addition to 15k miles on the first purchase, the offer said you get: ” – 6,000 miles a month in your first 3 months, when you spend a minimum of £1,000 each month.” I’d already had the Reward+ card for a month so when I called them they said the offer would apply to me too even though I’d not spent enough, I upped my spending. But the offer is misleading. It turns out that you have to spend £1k in each and every month after the card is issued, otherwise you get nothing! Calls to Virgin Money CS have been equally misleading, with the first agent saying I’d still be eligible even though I’d missed the target in my first full statement month, then the second agent said it was based on calendar months and I should get payment in September, then her supervisor told me I’d not get anything. He kindly (!) offered to escalate it as a complaint, as CS couldn’t award points. We’ll see.

  • Neil Spellings says:

    21 Aug21 August 16:10

    Not sure why you felt you were mislead..the small print in the email offering you the bonus points clearly state there are three “qualifying periods”; the first beginning June 18th and lasting until your next full statement period. The next two periods are based on your next two statement periods. There is no mention of calendar months so the agent you spoke to was incorrect. There is also no mention of having to reach the spending limit in every period, so if you missed the bonus in the first one, you should still get the bonus miles from the second and third. Note that the miles seem to be posted a month in arrears, so I doubt many will have actually received them yet.

    • Roberto says:

      21 Aug21 August 20:48

      The 18th of june was an example date. Its of no relevance except if your first billing cycle started on the 18th of June.

      Its not relevent to every body. You need to spend the £1000 ( or what ever your target is ) durring your first 3 billing cycles to qualify for the bonuses.. simples

      • Rob says:

        21 Aug21 August 21:06

        Actually, just realised that I have messed up now. I applied for my wife and the card would have arrived on Saturday. Unfortunately we’re not back home for 2 weeks. This means the first £1500 will need to be done in a 2 week period …

    • Jon Arnold says:

      21 Aug21 August 21:12

      I’ve met the spend required in the 1st period and received my statement with no mention of the 6000 bonus miles. It seems they add it to the next statement (clause 4) so let’s hope…..

  • Relaxo says:

    21 Aug21 August 16:37

    As Neil says, the periods were very clearly described in the fine print. I’m in the similar position that I got the card before receiving the promo email, so hoping they can retroactively apply the offer to me. Have sent them a secure msg about it but havent heard back yet.

    • Memesweeper says:

      21 Aug21 August 21:37

      Count yourselves lucky to get the damn card! I’ve applied, declined, appealed and declined again. Every other lender sends me plastic at the drop of a hat… but this is the card and these are the points I want!

  • Mr dee says:

    21 Aug21 August 23:24

    It’s going to be statement periods not Calender months

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