Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Upgrade for £30 to Virgin Atlantic Economy Delight – which I highly recommend

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Starting today, and running until Saturday, Virgin Atlantic is offering upgrades from Economy Classic to Economy Delight for just £30 each way.

This is an EXCEPTIONALLY good deal and you’d be mad to turn it down.  There are two good reasons – one relating to comfort and one relating to miles.

First up is comfort.  Here is the difference between Economy Classic and Economy Delight:

Virgin Economy Delight offer

Economy Classic:  Standard Economy fare with checked luggage included, can be upgraded to Premium Economy with miles

Economy Delight: Extra legroom (34″ pitch), priority check-in and priority boarding, can be upgraded to Premium Economy with miles

So …. for £30 you are getting extra three inches of legroom, priority check-in and priority boarding.  This is clearly worth doing.  Both tickets types come with free seat selection.

And that’s before we get to reason two to upgrade – more miles.

Economy Classic:  earns 50% of miles flown plus 25 tier points each-way 

Economy Delight:  earns 150% of miles flown plus 50 tier points each-way

This makes the £30 deal a no-brainer.  Flying to San Francisco, for example, you’d earn an extra 5,350 Virgin Flying Club miles (which I’d value at £53.50) each way.

We reviewed Economy Delight last year on a flight to New York which you can read here.

This page of the Virgin Atlantic site shows you the differences between the fare classes.

The Virgin Atlantic booking page is here.  Date restrictions apply.

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 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 15,000 Virgin Points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

A generous earning rate for a free card at 0.75 points per £1 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.)

Comments (137)

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

  • tartan says:

    OT Just a heads up for anyone thinking of crediting United flights to Aer Lingus for Avios. It appears that the crediting process seems to be happening regularly now. My wife and I have just had ours awarded for our flights to NYC over Christmas so it looks like 4 weeks is a reasonable expectation now. Much better than the 18 months I had to wait for flights taken in early 2017 which finally posted in October last year!

  • Graeme says:

    OT – trying to buy Premium Bonds on Curve with Virgin CC underlying, but it keeps failing. Other cash-like transactions work perfectly. Has anyone been able to get this to work?

    • guesswho2000 says:

      Have you tried using a different linked card? I’ve found that the issues generally lie there, rather than with Curve itself, even if other, similar transactions work.

    • Tom1 says:

      Worked for me this week with curve/Virgin

      • Graeme says:

        Really? Then it’s pretty odd that it won’t work for me. Were you buying large amounts?

        I wonder if it’s because I’m a new NS&I customer.

        • Tom1 says:

          I was new customer also but only few hundred as I didn’t expect it to work either! Just waiting to see if virgin treat it as a cash like transaction

        • Graeme says:

          £500 had just gone through – thanks for the advice, chaps.

  • Leafwarbler says:

    OT: Anyone else still not been served notice on their Lloyds Amex card? Mine is still active.

    • Rob says:

      April is last month to get served, I think, with final closures in June.

      • guesswho2000 says:

        I’ve had nothing yet.

        What’s the basis for this Rob? I was hoping I could squeeze another couple of months out of it, August would do! Never mind.

      • Neil says:

        This is very interesting! I have received nothing but I have held the card for 5 years. Is there any order to those receiving notice?

        • Rob says:

          No, random. It seems Lloyds can only easily send out a certain number of new cards each week.

          • Alan says:

            Long may the delay and slowness continue – am getting more and more hopeful I’ll be able to squeeze in one more voucher. Once year resets plan to put through £6.5k then put final £500 through once notice served (to maximise time until voucher expiry).

        • Louise says:

          No notice here and I have just started a new year.
          Just added it to my curve so hope to put the spend through quickly

        • Tom1 says:

          @alan good point. Was going to put the £7k asap until I read this.
          Do we assume that once the year starts, they can’t suddenly remove the ability to earn a voucher?

          • Alan says:

            I can’t see how they would – haven’t heard from anyone that’s received a letter yet but I can’t see how they’d just get away with a £24 fee refund if you’d put (for example) £6.5k of spend through already. I’d definitely take them to the FOS for the value of the Avios foregone in that situation!

    • Ant says:

      My husband and I have not heard anything. Been using our cards and I even got a voucher last month.

  • Nick says:

    Possible to status match into raddisson rewards platinum?

    I am currently gold. Tried or status match using Hilton diamond, was told platinum status can only be earned. Is this true

  • Antonio says:

    A bit OT but do we know exactly when the changes to IHG Ambassador will go into effect, and if I renew before then, will I get the new benefits when it changes?

    • Alan says:

      IIRC next month and no grandfathering – everyone moves across. Really hope lots of properties don’t try to ‘buy out’ of upgrades or 4pm checkout for 10k points (unless of course I was on a stay where I didn’t need that!)

      • AndyGWP says:

        I’m going to upgrade to Ambassador later this year. I think the 4pm checkout will be super useful for me but there’s also a few stays I’ll have where I don’t need a 4pm checkout… I’ll definitely be asking for one tho 🙂

  • guesswho2000 says:

    OT – Any ideas on what’s going to become of the UK Amex SPG card? I see on OMAAT they’re launching an Amex Marriott Bonvoy card, amongst many others, to replace various Marriott/SPG cards in USA, so presume other SPG/Marriott markets will be soon after?

    Maybe that explains Creation’s delay in relaunching (I’ve no basis for this, just a random thought).

    • Rob says:

      Nothing, not even rebranding. Marriott website confirms. Am covering tomorrow.

      • guesswho2000 says:

        Thanks, that’s interesting. Well, better than killing off the card I suppose!

  • Cool Guy says:

    Rob, do you know if Virgin Atlantic £30 upgrade applies to new bookings only or any existing bookings as well?

    Sorry, I could not find the information in the article and Virgin website is yet to be updated.

  • Yawn says:

    OT What would be the best Star Alliance scheme? I’m flying Air Canada. I guess the only criteria would be no or distant expiry date. I already have a Miles & More account but it’s rubbish. The balance always resets to zero.

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