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Get 100% Amex cashback (up to £100) with Virgin Atlantic

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An intriguing American Express cashback offer launched yesterday with Virgin Atlantic.

It’s intriguing because it goes against the usual structure of these offers, which tend to be ‘get £100 back when you spend £500’, ‘get £200 back when you spend £750’ etc.

This one rebates ALL of your spending, but only up to £100.

Here’s the small print:

  • you must register for the offer, if targeted, via the ‘Offers’ section of the Amex app or website (don’t bother looking on British Airways American Express cards!)
  • you must make a transaction with Virgin Atlantic by 16th December
  • you must use it against a flight departing from a UK airport
  • you cannot use it to buy Virgin Points
  • you cannot use it at Virgin Atlantic Holidays

Obviously you can book a flight (via the UK Virgin Atlantic website here) and the £100 credit will trigger.

What is more interesting is what other things may trigger it:

  • if you have a Virgin Atlantic booking and you haven’t paid to select seats, will it trigger the cashback?
  • similarly, if you think you might need extra luggage, would pre-paying it trigger the cashback?
  • would the taxes and charges element of a Virgin Points redemption count?
  • would change fees if you had to amend a Virgin Points redemption count? (telephone transactions do not count)

If you think you may be doing any sort of transaction with Virgin Atlantic before 16th December, it is worth saving this offer just in case.

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How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards

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):

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.

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.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 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.

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.

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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. 

Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (54)

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

  • AL says:
    17 Sep17 September 04:28

    Grr – not targeted for that but I do like the £350 back on £700 UA spend that I’ve saved.

    • ianM says:
      17 Sep17 September 08:37

      The potential 50% rebate on United flights is by some margin the best offer out there but gets very little coverage here.

      • Rob says:
        17 Sep17 September 08:52

        We gave it a full article. Given that only a minority of our readers fly economy (67% fly Premium Economy or Business for long haul leisure flights according to our last survey) £350 still doesn’t move the needle much.

        • Andrew. says:
          17 Sep17 September 09:29

          There’s always going to be exceptions to the rule within the 67% cohort. Even the wealthy like a bargain.

          Make it the daytime flight from Newark, and flying Economy for 6h20m isn’t so bad when two adults can go HBO for £195 each with the £350 United offer.

          • ianM says:
            17 Sep17 September 10:06

            Plus, pay $50 for an extra leg room aisle seat and it’s pretty much Premium.

          • Paul says:
            17 Sep17 September 10:57

            I value my comfort over £350 and it is United Airlines. Sorry but my ( admittedly limited experience) is really awful and it does matter where you are sitting.

          • BJ says:
            17 Sep17 September 17:47

            In the early days of HfP I got the impression from some of his comments that @Rob considered every £ precious; twelve yeas on I get the impression he’s now more conscious that his minutes may be more precious than his £ as he now frequently refers to whether it is worth the time/effort.

          • Rob says:
            17 Sep17 September 18:08

            Not flown long-haul economy since 1999 and not going back now 🙂

            There has been a bit of a change of emphasis on HfP over the years, I agree, but I think that is partly down to the deals going away (eg we were running 2-3 Tesco Direct deals each week carrying crazy amounts of bonus Clubcard points). That said, it clearly hasn’t done the site any harm to move away from that – we’re about 90% up on 2019 page views at the moment, and the site was already 7 years old in 2019.

            There is a genuine gap for high end ‘value’ sites for the £50k+ income brigade. We cover the travel side of it but there are gaps for other niches. Someone who doesn’t care about 2-4-1 cinema tickets is still interested in knocking 0.1% per year off the management fee for their £1m pension pot for example.

  • Roger says:
    17 Sep17 September 05:32

    Will it work on Skyteam flight departing UK and booked via virgin atlantic?

    • BJ says:
      17 Sep17 September 05:52

      Good question, amex obviously get the PNR and flight data but does anybody know which bit(s) of this data they track to trigger the offers. This might also cause a problem using it for the likes of seats and bags if they are tracking new PNRs in addition to flight numbers.

    • BBbetter says:
      17 Sep17 September 06:21

      Yes.

      • BJ says:
        17 Sep17 September 06:59

        How can you be so certain?

        • BBbetter says:
          17 Sep17 September 07:28

          Because it’s ticketed on VS website. Same for award redemptions or seat fees.

          • BJ says:
            17 Sep17 September 07:34

            Terms refer to flights departing UK so the trigger might be a new PNR and/or Virgin flight number not just any old spend on the site. Still, if I were on it I’d throw my money begibd you.

          • BBbetter says:
            17 Sep17 September 09:11

            @BJ, that rule exists to ensure payment is billed in GBP. If starting from outside uk, obviously will be non-gbp payment.

            But I think Amex missing a trick not encouraging non-gbp payments. Wouldn’t they be earning fx fee that would offset some of the offer cost?

          • BJ says:
            17 Sep17 September 09:26

            If it were as clear cut as this the article would be more direct I think nut like I said I believe you’re right. Howver, what is clear is that I’ll not be trying it out as we were not targeted, I should’ve checked before I started thinking Amsterdam or Paris.

    • Andrew J says:
      17 Sep17 September 06:52

      Hopefully some data points will start to be posted on the forum.

  • Sam says:
    17 Sep17 September 06:10

    Would love to know if a seat booking counts,. I messaged Amex and they suggested it didn’t but only came back by copying and pasting the terms and saying “it appears you need to book a fresh flight”

    • Caps44 says:
      17 Sep17 September 09:48

      I’m sure it’s any transaction with Virgin Atlantic, so seat booking should count?

    • Mark says:
      17 Sep17 September 16:14

      I was able to use it earlier today to select two seats on an already booked flight. Shortly after I paid for the selection, I got the email from Amex confirming that the credit had been applied.

      • babyg says:
        18 Sep18 September 16:57

        hmm this (seat triggering it) is interesting, i have a reward booking done via the phone that didnt trigger it…but perhaps i could take a punt on the retreat suite fee triggering it…

  • Andrew J says:
    17 Sep17 September 06:22

    It should also be noted that the terms exclude telephone bookings.

    • babyg says:
      17 Sep17 September 09:50

      I did a redemption booking via phone (needed to use a voucher) last night whilst the 25% off redemptions was still running… so unlikely to get the £100 from amex.. but lets see… helps bring down the taxes and fees if it does trigger!

  • JRD says:
    17 Sep17 September 07:29

    It’s interesting to be targeted for this, since I just used the other VA a couple of weeks ago. I’ll try using it on a seat purchase / upgrading the return leg.

  • Nick says:
    17 Sep17 September 07:50

    Not targeted 🙁

  • Roger says:
    17 Sep17 September 08:24

    The error message when trying LHR-CDG
    “We’re sorry, but we are unable to find a flight with Virgin or our partner airlines that currently services this route. Please try again using the nearby airport options or modifying your origin and/or destination city.#101670R”

    • Nick says:
      17 Sep17 September 08:42

      you can not book a partner flight with money via VS website, only miles redemption flights I believe. Apart from Delta JV routes and partner flights where they connect with a VS flight.

      • Throwawayname says:
        17 Sep17 September 08:58

        By the way, it may be worth noting that AF uses married segment logic for partner redemptions. My recent award ticket to CDG had to be bought with CFE (Clermont-Ferrand up in the Alps) as the destination, I just happened to miss my connection (overnight, so no issues with retrieving luggage at CDG).

      • BBbetter says:
        17 Sep17 September 09:00

        The one other exception is the Seoul route where they are selling Korean air direct flights.

      • Mike Fish says:
        17 Sep17 September 12:04

        “you can not book a partner flight with money via VS website, only miles redemption flights I believe”

        You can book flights on LATAM, for example, LHR-GRU on the VS website. I have booked that flight and got tier points and miles.

  • Rob says:
    17 Sep17 September 12:46

    I had it worse – I didn’t save the recent £250 offer, suddenly decided to book Cape Town for Easter and the offer had gone, having reached its cap.

    • gundam says:
      17 Sep17 September 14:46

      I’ve always wondered why they don’t explore the possibility for cardholders to release the offer back into the pool? Though the IT cost of this capability probably outweighs the benefit.

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

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