Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

The best Upper Class and Premium deals in the Virgin Atlantic September flight sale

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Virgin Atlantic has launched a September promotion, competing directly with the British Airways sale.

We have done two lengthy article in recent days on the BA sale.  First Class and Club World deals are covered herePremium Economy deals are covered here.  You can find Economy deals directly on the BA sale website.

You can see the Virgin Atlantic deals on this special page of their website.

Virgin Atlantic sale

Upper Class

Whilst our review of the Heathrow Clubhouse lounge yesterday was a little unenthusiastic, it remains an excellent facility which everyone should visit once.  The full Upper Class experience is outlined on the Virgin website here.

Here are the headline US prices.  However, the small print here is very cheeky.  These prices are ONLY available in March 2019.  You will pay more at other times.

  • Boston £1329
  • New York £1359
  • San Francisco £1459
  • Detroit £1529
  • Miami £1539
  • Los Angeles £1659

The Caribbean deals have better availability although you won’t find anything at these prices over November-January or Easter 2019:

  • Jamaica £1212
  • Tobago £1718
  • St Lucia £1512

There are NO date restrictions on Delhi, Dubai or Shanghai:

  • Dubai £1699
  • Delhi £1749
  • Shanghai £2399

Premium Economy

We did a side-by-side comparison of British Airways World Traveller Plus and Virgin Atlantic Premium earlier in the yearclick here.  Virgin wins on virtually every metric.

Here is the promo pricing to the US – these fares are available from 28th October onwards, except for two weeks before Christmas:

  • New York £707
  • Boston £707
  • Miami £720

Caribbean deals vary but are generally only available from March 2019:

  • Barbados £735
  • Havana £839
  • Tobago £775
  • Jamaica £794
  • Antigua £745
  • St Lucia £774

The other deals are widely available from late October to the end of March apart from Christmas and New Year:

  • Shanghai £773
  • Hong Kong £886
  • Johannesburg £1049

Flight & Hotel packages now available for Economy flights

You can see the Economy deals on the sale website here.

However, you may get a better deal booking a Flight & Hotel bundle – details of those can be found here.  Unfortunately these deals are only available with Economy flights.  Whilst you will be offered a chance to upgrade your economy flight to Premium or Upper Class during the booking process, in my testing these prices do not offer much in the way of savings.

All in all, this is not the strongest Virgin Atlantic promotion ever.  The cheapest prices come with very tight travel dates, often well into the future.  As usual, though, if they fit around your travel plans then you may well get a good deal.

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.


How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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 – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with 50,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 50,000 Virgin Points.

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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

Comments (11)

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

  • Taza says:

    Off topic question:

    I am in need of 743 miles and more points to top up my account balance to nice total of 30k. Since the MBNA M&M cards have been cancelled, I’d just want to redeem the points on two economy return flights.

    An y ideas?

    Thanks

    • pablo says:

      3000 Marriott -> 1000 M&M
      Or do a cheap Hilton mattress run stay for 2500 M&M. They post within a fortnight.

    • Peter K says:

      Can you move a handful of points from Marriott? 3000 Marriott miles = 1000 miles and more.
      Or stay one night at a Hilton and get the bonus 2.5k miles and more per stay offer running currently (see Rob’s article).
      But the points direct?
      I think there is a miles and more car hire offer on currently with Avis.

    • Rob says:

      Ring and ask LH nicely. Bizarrely this does often work with programmes.

      • Taza says:

        Thanks everyone and apologies for the typos (Android keyboard thinks it knows best!)

        I will give them a call and hope for the best!

      • Alex Sm says:

        Really? I was short of 1026 M&M miles when the credit card stopped working. Got 1000 miles from LOT as a requested goodwill compensation for the luggage delayed at WAW. But was seriously thinking of going to Bicester Village or asking my German friend to buy something at MUC duty-free / LH WorldShop

    • Jonathan says:

      Easy solution. Don’t use the miles and more website. You can redeem odd amounts of M&M points on the Lufthansa website plus a small amount of cash. It uses a sliding scale system. So you can book a flight with your 22057 miles plus €50. Another advantage is that the LH website will offer you every single flight time for that day.
      The M&M website requires you to redeem exact amounts eg 30000 miles and it offers only some of the flights on the day.

    • TripRep says:

      750 miles for a case of Virgin Wines?

  • Joe J says:

    OFF TOPIC:
    I have just booked a trip on Qatar Airways CPH/DOH/DPS on J. I want to credit my BA account with the points. But when I try to add it into my MMB it says the following “Sorry, we are unable to add bookings that do not contain any British Airways flights to your account”

    Will I not be able to get points for this trip?

    Thanks

    • Ali says:

      Put your BA executive number in the frequent flyer number bit of your booking on the Qatar website

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

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