Get a 60%-70% bonus buying Virgin Points
Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission. See here for all partner links.
Virgin Flying Club is currently running a repeat of its biggest ever deal for buying Virgin Points – see here.
The maximum bonus is 70%, but you need to have Gold or Silver status in Virgin Flying Club to get this. To put this in perspective, before 2020 Virgin Atlantic had never even run a 50% bonus. 15% to 30% was the best you could expect. 50% was big but the current 70% is huge.
For those without any status in Virgin Flying Club, the bonus is 60%.
The closing date for the bonus is 18th November.
The bonus is staggered and is based on whether you have Silver or Gold status or not:
- 15% or 20% bonus when you buy 5,000 – 24,000 points
- 20% or 30% bonus when you buy 25,000 – 69,000 points
- 40% or 50% bonus when you buy 70,000 – 119,000 points
- 60% or 70% bonus when you buy 120,000 – 200,000 points
At the top end, 200,000 Virgin Points, which comes to 340,000 points with the 70% bonus, will cost you £3,000. This works out at 0.88p each. If you only qualify for the 60% bonus, you are paying 0.94p each.
0.88p is exceptionally cheap for a direct miles purchase. Most Virgin Atlantic commercial partners will be paying the airline more than 0.88p for their miles.
What sort of deals can you get with 0.88p miles?
The issue with Virgin Points is that there are virtually no short haul opportunities to spend them. The best deals are long haul Business Class flights across the Virgin Atlantic network, and of course the route network is limited.
You can see the Virgin Atlantic reward chart on this page of their website.
Unsurprisingly, the numbers are not dissimilar to the Avios chart and you will find that taxes and charges are also very similar.
There is no point paying 0.88p per point unless you want premium cabin flights.
The Virgin Red app (download here) has a huge number of interesting redemptions but they are almost all based on giving you 0.5p per point. Similarly, using your Virgin Points to part-pay for a cash Virgin Atlantic flight or a Virgin Holiday will get you around 0.55p as we show here. This isn’t any good if you paid 0.88p for them.
Here is the upside:
- The fact that you can now book Air France and KLM flights with Virgin Points is HUGE. Suddenly, parts of the world which were not available to you because of the limited Virgin Atlantic network are bookable. Our in-depth look at redeeming Virgin Points on Air France and KLM is here. You will probably need to call to book due to IT issues.
- ANA remains, by far, the best value partner redemption. This article explains how to book ANA’s amazing business class seat to Tokyo for just 95,000 Virgin Points return, or for 120,000 points in First Class.
- There is huge value in Delta redemptions from the US to Continental Europe, because the one way taxes are just £5 as we explain here
More importantly …. Virgin Atlantic is joining the SkyTeam alliance in January. This will open up redemptions across new partners such as Aeromexico, Czech Airlines, Garuda Indonesia, Korean Air and Vietnam Airlines.
You can get good value with Virgin Points. I am typing this in Dubai, having flown my family down in Air France business class, booked via Virgin Flying Club. I will do a review of that trip soon.
The link to buy points is here.
How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (March 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.
SPECIAL OFFER: You receive a huge 120,000 Membership Rewards points if you apply for American Express Business Platinum by 9th April 2024. You receive 80,000 points for spending £12,000 within 90 days and a further 40,000 points if you retain the card for 14 months. Click here to apply.
SPECIAL OFFER: You receive 60,000 Membership Rewards points if you apply for American Express Business Gold by 9th April 2024. Remember that the card is FREE for the first year. You receive 40,000 points for spending £6,000 within 90 days and a further 20,000 points if you retain the card for 14 months. Click here to apply.
American Express Business Platinum
Crazy 120,000 points bonus (to 9th April) and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review
American Express Business Gold
Huge 60,000 points sign-up bonus (until 9th April) 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.)