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Get a Virgin Premium Economy flight for £1 TODAY with its Golden Ticket game

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For TODAY ONLY, Virgin Atlantic has brought back its Golden Ticket game.

During today – and the website implies release will be staggered – Virgin Atlantic is adding 30 £1 Premium flights (its new name for Premium Economy) into its flight search system.  However, these are totally random flights.  We don’t know the dates or the destinations, so your chance of finding one is not huge.

Last time this offer ran, Virgin Atlantic was dropping big hints on its Twitter feed so you may want to keep an eye on that.

Slightly churlishly, Virgin Atlantic won’t pay your taxes and charges if you win.   The prizes cost “£1 plus taxes, fees, charges and carrier imposed surcharges”.  You can read the full rules here.

Here are the full rules:

A Golden Ticket will entitle the holder to purchase 1 adult Premium return flight for £1+ taxes, fees, charges and carrier imposed surcharges.

There are a total of 30 Golden Tickets being released in batches across a variety of our destinations throughout the day on 21 January 2019. 

The Golden Tickets are for UK return flights on selected dates:

a) Round trips are permitted.

b) Round trips where the destination of the outward sector and the departure point of the return sector differ are not permitted.

c) One way trips are not permitted.

d) Trips including sectors on airlines other than Virgin Atlantic including codeshares are not permitted.

All destinations a maximum stay of 12 months is permitted and a minimum stay is 3 Nights.  Stopovers and open-date returns are not permitted.

Once a booking has been confirmed:

a) Cancellations are not permitted;

b) No compensation and/or refund will be made available; and

c) Route or name changes are not permitted.

Flying Club miles, bonus miles and tier points are available on selected flights. Please check at time of booking.

If you’ve nothing else to do today than randomly flicking through the Virgin Atlantic reservation system (but check Twitter and possibly Facebook for clues), you will find full details here.


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 (32)

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

  • Andy says:

    So it says £1, but it’s really going to be more like £500?

    I can’t see that going down very well on social media with less flight-savvy people that don’t understand how ticketing works.

    • Jon says:

      Yes, any normal person would think that if you advertise something as costing £1 then it should cost £1. And let’s face it, they are right.

  • Alex W says:

    There must be an IT boffin out there able to write a script which does multiple searches very quickly…

  • Sam Collins says:

    Seems that JNB was their first destination, and taxes were £230 pp, so £462 for 2 in PE. Not bad.

    Seems the £100 BA offer in retaliation wasn’t planned or advertised die to the lack of coverage on HfP or FT etc? (a guess – Rob may just have had the information embargoed).

  • Simon Says says:

    Just received 2,019 avios from BA for my birthday even though I received 2,018 avios on my actually birthday! Anyone else get the same?

    • paulm says:

      thanks, yes just got the same (birthday is in October!)

      • Jill (Kinkell) says:

        You must all be special ! I’ve never had any kind of celebratory / birthday avios. Why do sme get and others don’t ?

    • BSI1978 says:

      Think the additional 2019 is in respect of their centenary.

    • Kris says:

      I got the 2019 last week but not the 2018. This my first birthday avios in 5 years collecting. I’m grateful cuz hardly any of my avios come from flying BA

    • Anthony says:

      Yes to both 2018 and 2019 dropping into my account.

  • Roger says:

    Rob,
    Please include in your BA article, if it can be booked on other OTAs including Amex Travel

  • Mike Parker says:

    Anyone know if these flights are appearing on ITA?

    • @mkcol says:

      I had a thorough scan of CPT and didn’t see anything that would indicate they were. Either that or they were getting snapped up super fast.

  • Robin N says:

    O/T – Will I get pro-rata refund of £160 card fee if I apply for Virgin Atlantic MasterCard to get the 25k miles and then cancel after 3 months?

    • Alan says:

      No, it’s only Amex that offer pro-rata refunds, it’s a sunk cost with Virgin.

    • Rob says:

      One reader has managed to get this but that is the one single data point so far ….

  • TripRep says:

    Miami is the current destination, one which is often under booked.

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

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