Virgin Flying Club Silver or Gold? You can still gift your annual credit card voucher

In late 2021, Virgin Atlantic announced a mini-overhaul of Flying Club. Easily missed as it was during the pandemic, it introduced features such as:

• Household Accounts for Silver members (a feature which was rolled out this month to ALL members)
• a one-off gift of Clubhouse lounge passes for new Silver members
• the ability to earn tier points from Virgin Holidays

There was another change which Virgin Atlantic didn’t bother to mention but just slipped out via their website: Silver and Gold members of Virgin Flying Club can gift their annual vouchers from the Virgin Atlantic credit card.

This benefit seems to have survived the recent upheaval at Virgin Flying Club.

As you can see on the Virgin Atlantic website here (scroll down to the tier comparison table), Silver and Gold members have as a benefit:

“Gift companion and upgrade vouchers to your loved ones”

There is literally no more information provided. I am guessing that you need to call Virgin Atlantic and give the agent the account number of the Flying Club member who is to receive your voucher.

How do the Virgin Atlantic credit card vouchers work?

Your annual voucher is triggered IMMEDIATELY upon hitting the spending target.  The target is £20,000 in a card year for the free Virgin Atlantic Reward Credit card and £10,000 in a card year for the £160 Virgin Atlantic Reward+ credit card.

You can see details of your unused credit card vouchers on the Virgin Atlantic website. You will also see a line on your Flying Club account statement showing ‘Virgin Atlantic Credit Card Voucher – 0 points’ which confirms it has been issued. The voucher can only be redeemed by calling Virgin Atlantic.

Unlike British Airways American Express vouchers, there is no difference between the voucher you receive for spending £20,000 on the free Virgin Atlantic Reward credit card and the voucher you receive for spending £10,000 on the £160 Virgin Atlantic Reward+ credit card.

Both vouchers are valid for two years and both vouchers have the same value.

How can you use your annual Virgin Atlantic credit card voucher?

There are two ways of using your voucher:

• if you bought a ticket, for either cash or Virgin Points, you can use your voucher to pay for a 2nd ticket (same flight, same cabin) for a companion
• if you are travelling alone, you can use your voucher to upgrade a cash or reward ticket by one class

Your voucher has a fixed value:

• Flying Club Red members can redeem their voucher up to a maximum of 75,000 Virgin Points
• Flying Club Silver or Gold members can redeem their voucher up to a maximum of 150,000 Virgin Points

The value of your voucher will be calculated by your status at the time of booking, not when you fly or when you receive the voucher.

No ‘change’ is given if you use your voucher for less than its maximum value.

Let’s talk about ‘dynamic pricing’

In October 2024, Virgin Atlantic opened up ALL seats for points redemption. However, most are priced at stupid levels, eg 700,000 Virgin Points plus £1,000 of taxes and charges for an Upper Class return flight.

The only good value flights are ‘Saver’ flights. These are priced at substantially lower levels and are no more expensive than reward seats were under the old structure. Virgin Atlantic does NOT guarantee to release ‘Saver’ seats on all flights, however, and many leisure routes have virtually no Upper Class availability.

You can top up your voucher

You can use your voucher even if it doesn’t cover the full amount of the companion ticket or upgrade, as Virgin Atlantic will let you top it up.

For example, if you book an Upper Class reward ticket to New York for 170,000 Virgin Points for yourself, you could book a second ticket for (170,000 – 75,000) 95,000 Virgin Points if you have no elite status, or (170,000 – 150,000) 20,000 Virgin Points if have have Silver or Gold status.

For a companion ticket, full taxes and charges are payable. For an upgraded ticket, additional taxes and charges may be payable if there is a difference between the cabin you booked and the cabin you are now flying in.

You can’t use your voucher for a totally free ticket for yourself

You cannot use a credit card voucher for a straight 75,000 or 150,000 points discount on a ticket for yourself. If you are travelling alone and only using points, you need to pay the points cost of the cabin below the one you wish to fly in and then use your voucher to cover the difference between the cabins.

For example, let’s assume an Upper Class ticket is 130,000 points and a Premium ticket is 50,000 points. You CANNOT use a 150,000 points voucher to cover the full cost of the Upper Class ticket. You need to spend 50,000 points booking the Premium ticket and then use the voucher to cover the upgrade.

Is transferring vouchers now less useful?

There is, of course, a slight spanner in the works now when it comes to transferring vouchers.

Only a Silver or Gold member of Flying Club can transfer their voucher. As we showed above, the voucher is worth 150,000 Virgin Points to such a person.

However, if you transfer your voucher to a Red member of Flying Club, it is only worth 75,000 Virgin Points. Half of the value is lost.

Conclusion

The ability to transfer your credit card voucher to anyone if you have Virgin Flying Club Silver or Gold status is an interesting perk.

The snag, of course, is that unless you transfer to a fellow Silver or Gold member, it will lose half of its value. You need to think very carefully about whether transferring it is the right thing to do.

Our full review of the free Virgin Atlantic credit card is here (3,000 Virgin Points sign-up bonus). Our review of the fee Virgin Atlantic credit card with 18,000 Virgin Points bonus is here. You can apply for both cards here.

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How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (January 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.

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

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. 

(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.)