Get 20,000 Virgin Points by opening a Virgin Money current account

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• James says:

  31 Jul31 July 06:04

  OH needs to create a 2nd bank account (will make switching much eaiser) is there an offer which is available for new customers (as opposed to a switch)

  • Rob M says:

    31 Jul31 July 09:41

    No – you could start a new account with someone like starling and switch from there though. You would still need to put two DDs etc.

  • BuildBackBetter says:

    31 Jul31 July 13:59

    Remember that if you open a Starling or similar account and switch out immediately, you won’t be able to open another account with them for sometime. They want to discourage such behaviour.

    • Alex Sm says:

      31 Jul31 July 21:24

      well, you need to sacrifice something and choose the lesser of the two evils. I was forced to open a Monzo account – but I was very happy to kill and switch to VM. For some reason, I have a strong animosity against Monzo (maybe because of the colour of the card?)

  • Lumma says:

    31 Jul31 July 23:37

    If you already have an account with Halifax or Lloyds you can open a second account with them to use as your “switch” account

• Vit says:

  31 Jul31 July 06:08

  Morning Rob, I have just switched based on this offer. Had to call in yesterday to ask for the 20k code but was ensured it will be emailed out coming Monday.

  As per barclays account you mentioned, I have only has my first month payslip with the required income, is it okay to apply now or will need to wait for a few months?

  Cheers,
  Vit

  • Alex Sm says:

    31 Jul31 July 21:42

    Two questions:

    1) I received a PAPER letter (for a fully online account) dated 25 July that my switch had been completed – how soon will the points be posted?

    2) how strict are they about 45 days? Normally it’s 60 days with other banks. It looks like it was 48 days in my case, because the initial switch didn’t work. Could this be a problem?

• TimM says:

  31 Jul31 July 06:49

  It is worth noting that the Virgin Money current account counts as a real bank account. My main account is Revolut but there are a surprising number of cases when Revolut is not accepted, e.g. anything to do with gambling including the quite respectable CityIndex and some banks flag it up as risky for payments in, so my fallback is Virgin.

  • BuildBackBetter says:

    31 Jul31 July 14:00

    Be very careful with Revolut as main account. So many cases where funds were blocked or account closed for no reason.

    • Harrier25 says:

      31 Jul31 July 22:46

      Well, they say, for no reason…and probably not in their eyes.

  • AirMax says:

    31 Jul31 July 14:05

    Funny if old school gambling is a problem considering that they allow digital coin wallets

  • Max says:

    31 Jul31 July 16:51

    No FSCS compensation scheme with Revolut either.

    • Harrier25 says:

      31 Jul31 July 22:50

      That’s not entirely true. The savings vaults are covered by the FSCS as they are deposited with FCA regulated banks.

  • Alex Sm says:

    31 Jul31 July 21:22

    BTW, Virgin Money did not accept Revolut for a switch!

• Tazzy says:

  31 Jul31 July 06:52

  I’ve spent the last few years loyal to BA and collecting many avios and companion vouchers. I’ve been really disappointed by customer service over the last 6 months (during the pandemic I generally thought they were pretty good). It’s time to switch my loyalties and I think this week will be spent researching virgin !

  • TimM says:

    31 Jul31 July 07:21

    I did the same around 8 months ago and I am now in line for their convoluted ‘2-4-1’ or ‘1.5-4-1’ or ‘upgrade’ voucher and 80k+ Virgin points. The issues appears to be 1) lack of redemption availability and 2) having to telephone to use the voucher at all. A streamlined, easier to use product is direly needed.

    • The Original Nick says:

      31 Jul31 July 09:07

      I got through to Virgin in 3 minutes this week (twice) to redeem an upgrade voucher. Very efficient and professional I found them to be. I might have got lucky though.

      • Panda Mick says:

        31 Jul31 July 09:14

        with regards to timing: maybe

        with regards to professionalism & efficient: I’ve yet to call and not get this

        VS’s IT is essentially Delta’s. As bad as this may be, it’s still better than the woeful BA effort

    • JW says:

      31 Jul31 July 11:01

      When I have been calling to use the voucher (which I find annoying too) I have found the key to calling virgin is calling early, before 10. After 3 ish the wait times are up to 2 hours… and the call system likes to cut calls off at 2 hours, even if you’re mid conversation.

      Another shortcut I have found when searching for dates for reward flights online, look for dates by searching for 2x one ways – outbound first then return. The roundtrip search experience on the website can be annoying as if either date doesn’t have availability, you can get bounced back to the beginning of the process almost at random

• Molly says:

  31 Jul31 July 07:34

  What’s the easiest “seed” account to open to switch to Virgin? I’ve had my Barclays account for years and want to leave as my main account.

  • Roehydes Finest says:

    31 Jul31 July 09:23

    The first requirement noting a full Current Account switch suggests this route won’t work.

  • Alex says:

    31 Jul31 July 11:16

    Opening a 2nd account with your main bank is normally really straight forward but I’ve got no experience with Barclays. Otherwise the online only banks are simple, I’ve used Starling for it and had no issues.

    • BuildBackBetter says:

      31 Jul31 July 14:03

      Don’t open a second account with your main bank just for switching. Banks don’t like it and may block your main account.

• Harrier25 says:

  31 Jul31 July 07:38

  If the paid for account paid say, 1 Virgin Red point per £1 spent, then it would make it a very attractive current account to own and Virgin Money would clean up

  • Peter K says:

    31 Jul31 July 11:05

    Or lose out as they have to pay Virgin for the Virgin points.

• Roberto says:

  31 Jul31 July 08:18

  Do you have to switch to get this , the article implies yes of course but would it be possible to set up a second (or third) bank account leaving the existing current account(s) in place?

  If not have people set up a disposable account with a bank and then used that to swap to Virgin? If so , what intermediary disposable account did you use please..

  • James says:

    31 Jul31 July 08:28

    I imagine something like Starling

    • Alex Sm says:

      31 Jul31 July 21:26

      I opened a Monzo account and used that for a Switch – it did work

  • Marcelo says:

    31 Jul31 July 09:01

    I did this last time. You can check the list of banks that support switching here:
    https://www.currentaccountswitch.co.uk/banks-building-societies/

    If I recall correctly, I had created an account with Smile to then switch to Virging.

  • The Original Nick says:

    31 Jul31 July 09:10

    Hi Roberto. Do you have any experience of my comment in the IB thread?

  • Peter K says:

    31 Jul31 July 11:08

    You need a secondary account in places for something like this. Go for a bank with no switching bonus. Have it a short while, then you can switch it between various switching offers when you fancy… keeping in mind that each time you open a new account it is recorded on your credit file.

• RussellH says:

  31 Jul31 July 09:12

  I have had a Clydesdale Bank a/c (now called “Virgin Money”) for about 5 years. The account is fine, in spite of now being apparently run by virgins (ie people who still have to learn what to do), but their website, for some reason, always takes minutes to load.
  It even makes the Amex website seem fast!

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