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Get a 40% bonus with Virgin Flying Club ‘Points Booster’ – good deal?

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Virgin Atlantic has brought back its ‘Miles Booster’ promotion – now renamed ‘Points Booster’ following the transition from Virgin Flying Club miles to Virgin Points.

‘Points Booster’ IS a potentially very good deal.  This version is as generous as it ever gets, both in terms of the discount and the number of points you can buy.

Whilst this offer ran regularly pre-covid, it hasn’t been seen for a while so I will run over how it works in details.

Miles Booster only works if you have a Virgin Atlantic cash or reward flight booked or have taken one in the last six months.  With this offer, you are able to buy an additional 300% of the base miles you will earn from the flight for just 0.71p each.

Click here for details.

How Virgin’s Points Booster works

If you have a New York economy flight booked, for example, you would earn 6,916 base miles from your trip.

Miles Booster allows you to buy up to 20,748 additional miles for just 1p each. Plus, with this promotion, you would get an extra 20% to 40% bonus as well.

The bonus is staggered:

  • buy 1x miles flown and you get a 20% bonus
  • buy 2x miles flown and you get a 30% bonus
  • buy 3x miles flown and you get a 40% bonus

The maths in this article are based on buying 3x and getting the full 40% bonus.

Virgin Atlantic A350

If you maximised the Points Booster option for a New York economy flight, you would be able to buy a total of 29,047 Virgin Points for just £207.48.  That is 0.71p each, which is well worth considering.

You can retrospectively buy points via Points Booster for any Virgin Atlantic flights taken in the last six months, cash or reward, although this requires a call to Flying Club. Yes, even previously flown or currently booked redemptions count.

Note that – for flights which you have not yet taken – you will not receive your Points Booster points until after you have flown.

Even if you don’t have any current bookings, you may be able to take advantage of this based on recent flights you’ve taken.  At this price, I would consider the Points Booster deal if you know that you will be using them in the short or medium term. The only risk factor is that Upper Class seat availability with Virgin Atlantic is currently very tight, so you would be betting on the picture improving.

This offer runs until 30th June.

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.)

Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (33)

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

  • Nicholas Bradshaw says:
    7 Jun7 June 06:22

    Does anyone know of this offer works for redemption flights booked on partner airlines with virgin miles. I have an ANA trip coming up so am just interested.

    • ChrisC says:
      7 Jun7 June 06:38

      No.

      VS operated (and under the VS code) flights only.

      • lumma says:
        7 Jun7 June 09:36

        Don’t know if it was a glitch but I had the option of buying the extra miles when I flew ANA with VS points in Feb 2020

  • Amy C says:
    7 Jun7 June 06:32

    They ran points booster only recently, the last promo ending on April 22nd.

  • Ash Raj says:
    7 Jun7 June 07:12

    For flights previously flown you have to call customer services

  • AndyGWP says:
    7 Jun7 June 07:24

    Trying to get the miles booster when you have already taken the flight in question is extraordinarily painful 🙁

    (can only be done by phone is my understanding)

    • Amy C says:
      7 Jun7 June 12:16

      Yes and back in March/April it took me 54 (no exaggeration) phone calls to get them to do it! Every agent told me there was an IT problem that prevented them doing it and there was nothing they could do. Only on the day the promo closed did I finally get through to a woman who could do it.

  • Newbie says:
    7 Jun7 June 07:49

    Can I ask how this works on redemption flights? How many miles would you get using the points booster.

    Also if you use the upgrade voucher from the virgin atlantic credit card on a redemption booking, does this affect anything?

  • Mark says:
    7 Jun7 June 07:55

    I don’t seem to be able to get to the correct page … when you click on the link it takes you to the book page … any ideas?

    • Rob says:
      7 Jun7 June 08:42

      Stop using unnecessary extra online security products which don’t actually protect you from anything but just mess up your browsing experience 🙂

      https://flywith.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/flying-club/earn-points/points-booster.html

      • Mr. AC says:
        7 Jun7 June 09:13

        Preach! So many times a client reaches out about our product not working, and 90% of the time they have some “Anti-tracker”, “privacy enhancer”, ad blocker, “web antivirus” installed. Often that’s the thing that ends up selling your data, while the Facebook’s and Google’s of the world just care about selling you things and not getting sued so keep your data safer than you do!

      • AndyGWP says:
        7 Jun7 June 10:48

        … because its a crap system and you can’t boost old flights online (and you have no forthcoming flights booked so you get a 404 error)

        You need to phone 🙁

      • Dave P says:
        7 Jun7 June 12:13

        I have the same

  • richard says:
    7 Jun7 June 07:58

    Can I claim for a flight where a companion reward + points was used?
    Thanks

    • Mattb says:
      7 Jun7 June 08:18

      I’ve claimed for a reward flight in the past, never used a companion voucher though so not sure about that.

    • Chas says:
      7 Jun7 June 08:26

      Yes, unless anything has changed since 2018 when I last did this.

  • Simon says:
    7 Jun7 June 09:01

    I have a future rrewards flight I am considering doing this with but what happens if I have to cancel my flight? I know i get the price and rewards points I paid back but would I get the money I have paid for the points booster back as well?

    • Simon says:
      7 Jun7 June 11:07

      I have just spoken to Virgin and BEWARE. If you cancel a Reward flight while you do get back the taxes, fees and charges and the points paid you LOOSE yes you LOOSE the money paid for the points booster and of course you dont get the points from the points booster as you have not flown. I have challenged them on this but the agent was adament. I have complained and await a final ruling.

      • yorkieflyer says:
        7 Jun7 June 23:12

        This was not previously the case, when cancelled the booster points still credited

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