You can now upgrade or downgrade your Virgin Atlantic credit card online – with a twist

Many travel rewards credit cards (British Airways American Express, Barclaycard Avios, Virgin Atlantic Reward) offer two versions – a free card and a paid premium card.

None of them make it easy to switch between the two. I have always given the card companies the benefit of the doubt and put this down to incompetence, because this isn’t something that customers of their non-airline credit cards would ever do.

It is probably worth an article one day comparing the three cards and how they differ in their approach to upgrading and downgrading.

Before we go on, we need to remind you of the APR details of the two Virgin Atlantic cards:

Virgin Money Reward Mastercard

The representative APR is 26.9% variable.

Virgin Money Reward+ Mastercard

The representative APR is 69.7% variable, including the annual fee.  The representative APR on purchases is 26.9% variable.

You can now upgrade or downgrade online

Today, I want to focus on Virgin Atlantic and a new development.

Historically, Virgin Atlantic was the worst of the three cards if you wanted to change. To switch from free to paid (or vice versa) this is what you had to do:

• cancel your existing card
• apply online for the ‘other’ card
• be automatically rejected, because you need a six month gap between cancelling a Virgin Money card and applying for a new one
• call up and explain you were trying to up/downgrade
• be accepted

Last year, Virgin Atlantic changed its rules.

You can now hold BOTH Virgin Money cards at the same time – and you will get a bonus on the 2nd one!

If you have the free card, you can apply for the paid card (review here, apply here) and get 18,000 Virgin Points as a bonus.

If you have the paid card, you can apply for the free card (review here, apply here) and get 3,000 Virgin Points as a bonus.

If you only want one card, you can cancel the original one at your convenience – probably when you’ve triggered your next annual upgrade or 2-4-1 voucher.

There is now a second option

The snag with the route above is that your spend to date towards your annual voucher does not carry over.

This wasn’t a problem if you’d just got your voucher for the year, but could be an issue otherwise.

Virgin Money has now introduced a new route to upgrade (or downgrade) and roll over your spend to date towards your voucher.

Click here and see.

This is how it works when upgrading – and it doesn’t work as you would expect:

• Your free Virgin Money Reward Mastercard is upgraded immediately to Reward+

• The £160 annual fee is charged immediately

• Your year-end is NOT changed so it could feel like you are not getting a full year for your £160, even though you are paying the full fee. But, you end up in exactly the same position as if you’d had the Reward+ card for the full year because your points and voucher earn rate are backdated. So any points earned on purchases will immediately double.

• To clarify, you get a Virgin Points bonus equivalent to your spending in this card year worth an extra 0.75 points per £1, taking your earn rate to 1.5 points per £1

• Your spend to date towards your annual voucher is carried over

• Your voucher is triggered immediately if you have already spent over £10,000, but less than £20,000, on the free card in your current year

Here’s an example of how the bonus points work.

• Your card anniversary is 11th January and you upgrade today. You have spent £12,000 on the free card so far this year.

• You will be charged the full £160 fee for the premium card

• However, you will get a bonus of 9,000 Virgin Points. This reflects the difference between the points you actually earned this year (£12,000 x 0.75 = 9,000) and the points you would have earned on the paid card (£12,000 x 1.5 = 18,000 points).

• Your annual voucher would trigger immediately because you are over the £10,000 threshold for earning the voucher on the paid Reward+ card

You can see your card anniversary date by going to the ‘Reward Lounge’ page in the Virgin Money app.

Do you get a sign-up bonus swapping your card this way?

No – with one exception.

If you upgrade your Reward card to Reward+ within 90 days, you will receive an additional 15,000 Virgin Points. This represents the difference between the standard bonuses on the two cards (3,000 and 18,000 Virgin Points).

Note that the 15,000 points additional bonus is fixed. You will not receive any more even if a special offer is running on Reward+ at the time you upgrade.

What about downgrading?

Downgrading is very simple, but not in your best interests! You use the same link.

You do NOT get a pro-rata refund of your annual fee, but you are immediately moved to the lower earning rate of 0.75 Virgin Points per £1.

The ONLY reason to downgrade would be if you are very close to the end of your membership year and don’t want to pay the fee for the next year.

The rules say “If you have not used your Reward+ card at all in the year you switch. If so, the full annual fee is refunded.”

If the fee for the next year has just arrived and your card is dormant, you can get a refund by downgrading.

Think carefully before doing this

This new upgrade option is a good idea if it is the only way of triggering your annual voucher. Perhaps you anticipated spending £20,000 on the free card but realise you won’t make it. You now have an answer – upgrade, see your spend to date carried over and trigger the voucher at £10,000 of spend.

For others, it makes more sense to apply for the paid-for card AS WELL AS your current free card, in order to get the 18,000 Virgin Points bonus. You can then cancel the free card whenever you feel like it. This assumes, of course, that Virgin Money is willing to give you an additional line of credit.

The special page for upgrading or downgrading your card is here.

If you don’t want to upgrade but simply want to apply for the ‘other’ card to have alongside your existing one, you need to apply here.

You can find out more about the benefits of the Virgin Atlantic Reward+ credit card in this article.  The free Virgin Atlantic credit card, with no sign-up bonus, is examined here.

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How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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):

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with 50,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 50,000 Virgin Points.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

Small business owners should consider the two American Express Business cards. Points convert at 1:1 into Virgin Points.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Virgin Points.