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Virgin Atlantic announces four new A350 routes and an extra daily flight to Delhi

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Virgin Atlantic has now confirmed its Summer 2020 schedule, which will begin on the 29th March.

Virgin has been slowly ramping up its UK-India routes, which suffered a loss when codeshare partner Jet Airways went into administration.

It clearly thinks there is extra flying to be had which hasn’t been mopped up by other airlines, and is introducing a second daily flight to Delhi.  This is in addition to the new Mumbai route which launched a couple of weeks ago.  The new Delhi flight goes on sale on 23rd November.

Virgin Atlantic announces new A350 routes

Next summer Virgin will also start putting its A350s on other routes. Up until now, all the A350s were going on the London-New York route but we will now see a bit of variety in the schedule.

This means that you will still find a variety of Virgin Atlantic aircraft flying to New York, since Virgin will not have enough A350 to run them on all seven daily flights as well as the new destinations.

This is where you will find the A350:

Johannesburg will see the A350 from March, on VS 449/450
Los Angeles gets a daily A350 in April, on VS 23/24
San Francisco gets a daily A350 in May, on VS19/20
Lagos will get a daily A350 in August, on VS 411/412

As a reminder, Virgin Atlantic’s A350 comes with a new Upper Class Suite reviewed here, as well as a redesigned social ‘Loft’ area for business class passengers.  It is a major improvement on the current Upper Class product.

As always, there may be last minute equipment changes or timetable alterations.  These new services will be using aircraft from the 2nd batch of A350 deliveries and the dates may slip.

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 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 – 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.)

Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (137)

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

  • wz says:
    20 Nov20 November 06:13

    Hi Rob,
    “As long as there is activity on your Etihad Guest account every 18 months, your miles are secure”.
    Does it stipulate what counts as activity, amex/hsbc transfers counted?
    Does the 18 mths count from your last activity or must it be new activity since the announcement?
    Thanks

  • meta says:
    20 Nov20 November 06:35

    I regards to Etihad Guest, we still don’t know the date when miles will stop expiring. The email last week just said coming soon. Rob, could you find out when exactly it starts?

    • Rob says:
      20 Nov20 November 08:20

      Didn’t know that. Great way to pee off your members – tell them you’ve stopped expiry but keep expiring miles until it goes live!

      You would hope before month end when the next batch of expiration happens …..

      • Chrisasaurus says:
        20 Nov20 November 10:46

        Expiring miles is a great way to pee off your members in any case

        By all means write them down on your balance sheet as they become less likely to be redeemed but the act of writing them off is nasty and only serves to alienate previously loyal travellers.

        I lost my entire Enterprise Plus balance this year, they expired it two days before a 16 day hire of an E-Class in Spain which had I been less busy I would have cancelled (as would most I should think)

        Needless to say I dont make an effort to use Enterprise now…

        • EwanG says:
          20 Nov20 November 12:14

          To give credit to Enterprise, they do have a long expiry (36 months of no activity), better than some others (e.g. Hertz at 18 months).
          They have also been running the Plus Your Points late last year and again currently. An easy way to pick up a small number of points which reset expiry. I have mentioned it a couple of times in comments, but Rob has not included it in a ‘bits’ article – too niche perhaps?

        • meta says:
          20 Nov20 November 12:18

          Just received an email from PPB (Lufthansa Business Loyatly programme) that I haven’t logged in a while (since May) and if I don’t log in within next 30 days they’ll wipe my account and points! Don’t have much, but every 3 years I do get something out of it. I think this surely classes as worst pee off!

          • Lady London says:
            20 Nov20 November 15:56

            I wonder if that requirement was in the terms and conditions? Another reason to get p’d o55 with Lufthansa. Alongside the ridiculous 3 year expiry in LH Miles&More program regardless of activity. Which only benefits fat cats as everyone else loses their miles.

  • Benylin says:
    20 Nov20 November 06:42

    OT: I’ve never purchased points before so just checking my maths here. The Hilton 100% bonus, I can buy 5,000 + the 5,000 bonus points for $50 total right?

    I am eyeing a 10K redemption which is going for $110 after taxes cash rate non-refundable so looks like I can save more than half my money?

    How quickly do the points deposit?

    • Benylin says:
      20 Nov20 November 06:50

      Ok scratch that, it’s a 20k redemption my mistake 😥 so you could save taxes and SC.

      • BJ says:
        20 Nov20 November 07:15

        Still worth buying the points versus your rate because the points stay is almost certain to be flexible (there are very few exceptions). Furthermore, if you need 5+ nights, on points the 5th night is free. Points will be in your account immediately. However, you need to factor in points earned if you pay cash, so unless you value flexibility or 5th night free then cash is a better option for the property rate you quote.

  • BJ says:
    20 Nov20 November 07:22

    I think I may have read someplace that the car transfer is included in premium award flights again too?

    • Rob says:
      20 Nov20 November 08:18

      For status members. I didn’t go into the changes because they are not hugely relevant and if impacted you will have been emailed anyway.

  • Matt says:
    20 Nov20 November 07:31

    OT – but on topic – New Points Earning Opportunity
    Given the lack of opportunities in the points space at the moment, I thought I’d share something with HFP that I’ve been using pretty successfully for the last 12 months – Ratesetter.

    RISKS – This is not going to be something that will suit everyone – as it is peer-to peer lending, and obviously involves a degree a risk, like some of the investment ideas (i.e wealthify) or robo-advice investments that generate points opportunities that have been discussed here – but I think this can be more lucrative on a points basis over time.
    You have to do your own research to be comfortable with it – Ratesetter is regarded as one of the UK’s biggest and safest peer-to-peer lenders by reputable sites such MSE (which orginally gave me the idea) and WHICH, amoungst others, with good reviews on trustpilot. I like it because there is a compensation fund which looks after the depositors whenever any of the lenders go under or fail to pay back capital or interest – they have been running for 8-9 years and advertise that no-one has lost a penny with them yet – but again YOU have to decide if this works for you.

    The Ratesetter website allows deposit by debit card – and works great with a number of our HFP favourite card providers, the main ones I have been using are:
    1) Curve-multiple underlying cards
    2) Tesco Debit card (Paying out at 1 Clubcard point for every 8 pounds deposited) – which does not use up any allowances.
    as well as others. Revolut and IHG cards are 2 noteable exceptions that do not work with Ratesetter.

    I don’t abuse the current setup, as I think people always should with these types of scenarios, you want to keep the vendor happy with you as a customer- so I always maintain a balance of a couple of thousand in the account at any one time, and the rest of the time I will deposit circa 5,000 at the start of a credit card cycle in the “Access” product (designed for easy access withdrawal), and then withdraw it again after about 35-40 days and repay the card. I get points for each transaction and interest of 3-4% whilst invested – then Repeat again the next cycle.
    I have turned over more than 50,000 thus far after just over a year – I’ll let you do the math on the points that generated.

    There are different incentives to sign up, but if you are nice enough to use my referral link below, you will get a 100 pound bonus for keeping 1000 pounds in the account for a year, which is a good sign-up bonus, and one that has the least conditions attached to it.
    That means you would receive 13-15% on your first 1000 pounds invested, which is a great return from a proven provider that has always paid out over 8-9 years

    http://link.ratesetter.com/8C3SGMB

    I look forward to the comments/feedback with interest – and hope to read some more creative points opportunities in the comments soon!

    • Nick_C says:
      20 Nov20 November 08:09

      Well you can probably expect that particular Tesco loophole to disappear now you have written about it publicly!

    • John says:
      20 Nov20 November 09:56

      Thanks for sharing a detailed points idea that might generate a few more miles.
      Anything to avoid long-haul economy!
      Will look into it.

    • Chrisasaurus says:
      20 Nov20 November 10:48

      Matt the altruism is admirable but the first rule of fight club…..

    • the_real_a says:
      20 Nov20 November 12:22

      Matt must be new. Matt will be looking for another points earning opportunity after this…

    • Harry T says:
      20 Nov20 November 12:56

      Matt, you are going to kill another one of the few remaining golden geese…

  • Tom says:
    20 Nov20 November 07:47

    OT – anyone ever cancelled an AmEx card with a negative membership points balance?

    ie. if you achieve a sign up bonus, then withdraw the points, but then refund something to your card which take you back below the bonus spending threshold (so the bonus is removed and gives a negative balance)

  • Liz says:
    20 Nov20 November 07:56

    I wish Singapore Airlines would relax their expiry date rules. I could drip feed MR pts and SPG pts in for a future trip to Oz.

    • BJ says:
      20 Nov20 November 08:13

      Why do you want to dripfeed a flexible currency into an inflexible one which expires? Why not just keep in Bonvoy and MR and transfer a lump sum when required? I’ve got a feeling I’m missing something here 🙂 Harsh expiration dates do benefit loyal FF at the expense of members who collect miles mostly or exclusively elsewhere so I’m a bit surprized that airlines don’t go in for them in a bigger way. Probably as most now perceive their loyalty schemes as standalone money making ventures and not really/mainly a scheme to retain and reward FF.

      • Rob says:
        20 Nov20 November 08:16

        I have never met anyone who runs a loyalty scheme who is deliberately trying to make things worse for members. Usually the programme head is fighting the FD and CEO who see cutting the programme as a short term win.

        • BJ says:
          20 Nov20 November 08:35

          That’s good to hear. I wish M&M and FB would relax their rules a bit.

          • marcw says:
            20 Nov20 November 09:08

            FB is quite relaxed tbh. M&M is very restrictive, but then you either focus on that program or you just give it a pass.

          • BJ says:
            20 Nov20 November 11:34

            @marcw, my FB miles have been extended a few times. Unless I get the LH cc I’ll be giving up on M&M.

      • Liz says:
        20 Nov20 November 08:40

        We only have 22k MR pts and not earning too many as spend currently going in to SPG card as I am holding back spend on BAPP as i don’t want to trigger 241 yet. MR pts sitting in free Amex rewards card but early in 2021 I will need to cancel to refer hubby for a new cycle of churns so will need to cancel MR account to reset my clock. So those 22k MR pts will likely go to Hilton instead of Singapore Airlines as we don’t currently have plans for another Oz trip but we will definitely do one in a few years time to visit family. Currently have around 145K SPG pts which I would also love to convert to Singapore but the expiry rule stops me. I’ve checked back my credit card records and we have both done one self refer so if Amex bring in their claw back or shut down accounts rule then these pts are at risk. So a looser expiry rule would let me transfer out now – but that is not to be….

        • Liz says:
          20 Nov20 November 08:49

          We also have enough Avios for 4 big USA trips a Virgin miles for 1 big trip somewhere. We flew SIN-BNE last year in business which was lovely and would like to do this again but it is now increased to 62k miles I think. In the last few years it’s gone from 55k to 58k to 62k for that route.

          • BJ says:
            20 Nov20 November 11:36

            Liz, good to see you are still playing the miles and points game with a double deck of cards 😉

        • rams1981 says:
          20 Nov20 November 10:25

          Hi Liz, can you remind me of your Aus trip redemption with Singapore Airlines? Was it easy to get seats etc?

          • Liz says:
            20 Nov20 November 11:21

            Yes it was easy but I booked the year before as soon as they came available – had been saving for the points for the 2 years before that. When i first looked it was 55k and by the time we came to book back in jun 2017 i think, they had gone up to 58k. Booked on 2 separate tickets then I phoned to link the 2 bookings.

          • Liz says:
            20 Nov20 November 11:23

            It was just the SIN – BNE leg on Singapore cos we didn’t want to fly in to Sydney as family are near Brisbane. The rest we did on BA with 241.

          • rams1981 says:
            20 Nov20 November 13:27

            Thanks. I have a pile of hsbc points so may well investigate Singapore airlines further.

  • Stuart says:
    20 Nov20 November 08:13

    Saw on another site that BA are putting the 787-10 on the Atlanta route once deliveries start in January

    • Rob says:
      20 Nov20 November 08:15

      I think you’ll find we broke that story on Twitter last night, because I was standing next to Alex Cruz when he announced it 🙂

      Too drunk to rewrite today’s content to accommodate it though.

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