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Get a 70% bonus when you buy Virgin Points – worth it?

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Virgin Atlantic is repeating its biggest ever deal for buying Virgin Points – see here. The offer runs until 7th July.

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.

The bonus depends on how many points you buy:

Get a 70% bonus buying Virgin Points
  • 5,000 to 24,000 points – 20% bonus
  • 25,000 to 69,000 points – 40% bonus
  • 70,000 to 124,000 points – 60% bonus
  • 125,000 to 200,000 points – 70% bonus

The maximum number of points you can buy is 200,000 which is double the normal annual cap.

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.

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. That said, as always, we don’t recommend buying speculatively.

Virgin Atlantic has now joined the SkyTeam airline alliance. This has opened up redemptions across new partners such as Aeromexico, Czech Airlines, Garuda Indonesia, Korean Air and Vietnam Airlines. SAS will be added later in 2024. This article explains what it costs to redeem Virgin Points on the new SkyTeam partners.

The link to buy points is here.

The 70% bonus offer runs to 7th July. The discounts will then drop to 20% / 30% / 50% / 60% depending on quantity and continue at this lower level until 4th August.

If you want to earn more Virgin Points more cheaply, our review of the Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard credit card is here and our review of the free Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard credit card is here.


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 (28)

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

  • John says:

    Does Virgin offer upgrade with points (to upgrade premium economy to upper on an existing cash booking)? How much to upgrade one leg LHR-LAS?

  • Chris says:

    Can anyone remember if there are any restrictions on upgrading or booking a reward seat due to your status level?

    • Rob says:

      Only if using a credit card voucher, and even then it ONLY applies to 241s in Upper – not upgrades, not 241s in any other cabin.

  • Talay says:

    Qatar again (as always) offering a theoretical discount but ramping up fares by 100% to 200% and giving 10% off.

    No-one, absolutely no-one, is paying them £4/5k+ in business to go LON-DOH-BKK when Etihad are doing it for £2k.

  • Ben says:

    Both my fiancée and I bought the max amount of these points last year – we’ve got decent use out of them, but the biggest issue is the crazy high taxes they charge. They’re useful if we’re flying last minute or need the ticket to be fully flexible, but otherwise you’re better off booking cash tickets during a sale

  • emma says:

    If you take advantage of the virgin points offer, do they have a redemption date?

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

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