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Morrisons has gone from Virgin Atlantic’s in-store points scheme

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Less than a month after it came back, supermarket chain Morrisons has gone from the Virgin Atlantic ‘points from instore shopping’ scheme.

Yesterday, 2nd December, was the last day to earn.

Earning rates varied, but I was on a whopping 8 miles per £1 if I spent over £30 per transaction:

Let’s see if it returns again. It was clearly unaffordable in the form above.


How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (October 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 50,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 50,000 Virgin Points.

The Platinum Card from American Express

50,000 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

Up to 80,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

Get up to 40,000 points as a sign-up offer 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 (38)

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

  • Sina says:

    If you get Melia Gold, you also get 3x 20% discount codes 👌🏼

    • Tariq says:

      Which can also be used on points bookings, as per my experience booking Innside NYC a few weeks ago.

      • Sina says:

        Oh thanks! I didn’t know that!

      • MattB says:

        I never even thought to try as the t&C’s specifically say they can’t be used in either a points or points plus cash booking. Might look at cancelling and rebooking.

        • meta says:

          Melia had dynamic pricing. I think the way it works is reduces the cash rate and because of that points rate as well.

        • Tariq says:

          Correct – I tried it on the off chance after I had already bought the points I needed. Which in the end, meant that the amount of points that I had stretched to a Terrace room instead of the King that I was originally going to book..!

  • Gtellez says:

    How long take to receive the Virgin points from Morrison’s offer? I registered my card and shop few times last month and I haven’t received any points yet.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      About 1 week to track and 2-3 months to actually post.

      Hope you used the card directly and not Apple Pay etc.

    • memesweeper says:

      Takes about a week normally. Don’t complain if a gift-card based transaction doesn’t track, they are excluded (and in general complaining is a waste of time on these types on sites anyway — I’ve given up after having lodged dozens of legitimate claims and only having one allowed…).

  • The Urbanite says:

    Not surprised they have pulled the plug, doubt it will be back in that form anytime soon! One of a few crazy points earning opportunities of 2020, good on Morrisons for paying out.

    • S says:

      Why not? It was there earlier in the year and it came back for seconds.

      • ThinkSquare says:

        Well I for one wasn’t aware of it earlier in the year but I took full advantage this time.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        It was around 4x last year. I don’t see why it wouldn’t be back.

      • The Urbanite says:

        I suspect the campaign has gotten more “expensive” each time with an increasing number of people taking them up. What was different with the last campaign was the addition and apparent enforcement of additional terms which weren’t there before.

    • Yuff says:

      Especially when they were paying you to take the points 😄

  • Alan says:

    Morrisons only came back for some people anyway, was some sort of trial I think. Has it gone from Airtime Rewards too? I didn’t come back for me there either but I know it did for some

  • Jay says:

    Not one of my Morrisons points have been tracked since the offer started. I have a lot of claims outstanding and a few more to submit. Luckily I’d kept the receipts.

    • Jonathan says:

      Presumably if you’re making a claim that will require manual intervention then the T&C’s will actually apply so you won’t get points for GC’s etc?

    • MT says:

      If your receipts show gift cards then I think you will run into an issue when submitting and only get the points for the rest of the balance.

    • Liz says:

      Mine hasn’t tracked from a purchase on 15/11

  • RussellH says:

    Pending Virgin points from Morrison’s last Saturday have just posted.

  • cinereus says:

    Am I the only one who felt a few thousand Virgin points isn’t exactly anything to get excited about.

    • Rob says:

      With the new Virgin Red redemptions there is actually quite a bit you can do with them. Think of all those free Gregg’s sausage rolls for a start!

      • Brighton Belle says:

        I would rather not think about all those free sausage rolls 🙁 as I might only fit into business class seats next year. Memories of US flying in coach where my fellow passengers required armrests permanently up. I can survive in the aisle seat but getting a window under those conditions was like suffocation. Now if Gregg’s does natural yogurt I might have a use for my 0.5 squillion virgin points

        • The Savage Squirrel says:

          It’s a Safety requirement to have the armrest down on takeoff/landing as raised armrests can cause serious injury if the plane halts suddenly. No exceptions. If the other passanger can’t manage it then that’s their problem.

          • John says:

            If the passenger is so big they physically block the armrest from coming down it’s probably ok…

          • Lady London says:

            That’s why flying Domestic in the US can be really unpleasant.

            A couple of times I used newspapers as sweat barriers.

    • MattB says:

      Didn’t someone say they spent around £10k? 80k virgin points is not far off an East Coast redemption.

      • Jonathan says:

        There’s much less risky ways of generating 80k Virgin than 10k GC’s. It was a nice bonus on top of Amex rebate or NHS discount but not something I’d actively look to exploit.

      • David says:

        My mind jumped to the former train operating company, and I was thinking that’s a terrible rate…

  • Dev says:

    Is there anyway to keep Melia points from expiring?

    Just before COVID, i stayed at the Melia in Zanzibar with my family and my parent earning a decent slug of points but being based on Africa, I haven’t been able to travel anywhere. I need to save the points before they expire in Feb!

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