Get up to a 70% bonus buying Virgin Points!

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• Rob says:

  6 Feb6 February 05:42

  What’s the point? The wildly variable redemption costs mean this is risky. Only makes sense if you have a booking lined up, priced up and ready to book. Flying club is now a bit of a gamble to hold points with.

  • memesweeper says:

    6 Feb6 February 10:32

    … which is why Rob said don’t buy speculatively. Do the maths, if it works for you, buy the points and book immediately.

• Tariq says:

  6 Feb6 February 07:27

  At 340,000 you can almost buy enough for a one-way redemption in Upper Class!

  • paul says:

    6 Feb6 February 08:04

    There’s little point to Virgin increasing the value of buying points when they’ve devalued them so much when spending them.

    Stop buying, stop flying – only then will Virgin revert to a consumer focussed loyalty scheme.

  • Peter K says:

    6 Feb6 February 08:06

    😂
    70% bonus on points after a 200% devaluation doesn’t feel like a bargain to me.

• Domo1915 says:

  6 Feb6 February 07:32

  Had a virgin red account for some time but havnt booked a flight yet. Is there any eligible spend other then a flight? It won’t let me buy points.

  • Peter K says:

    6 Feb6 February 08:07

    If you have the virgin red app there is a tab which shows you your redemption options.

• Nigel T says:

  6 Feb6 February 07:47

  …..and given the stupid level of points needed for a redemption flight under Virgin’s new model, the point of this offer is?

  • memesweeper says:

    6 Feb6 February 11:05

    The point of the offer is to enable you to buy points and use for a flight that would cost more for cash — I would have thought that was obvious.

    There seems to be a large body of opinion here that it is no longer possible to get >1p since Virgin went to dynamic pricing. I’ve done the maths and that is not true. It’s also true that many redemptions are <1p or even <0.8p, so not a “no brainer” to buy points. The dynamic to cash price ratio is all over the place on different cabins/routes/dates.

    As Rob says, don’t buy speculatively and do the maths.

• John says:

  6 Feb6 February 08:07

  Picked up a 29k UC saver the other day, so they are out there. Unfortunately the return leg is 225k 🤣

  • NorthernLass says:

    6 Feb6 February 08:43

    I got UC to MCO for 7,500 each, upgraded by 2 cabins with the cc voucher. Inbound on BA, avoiding the problem of high-priced returns.

    • Mark says:

      6 Feb6 February 09:21

      Interesting… I didn’t realise you could upgrade by 2 cabins. Was that using one voucher or two?

      • Jonathan says:

        6 Feb6 February 10:36

        The full ins and outs of using the credit card vouchers haven’t been fully explained, mainly (almost certainly) due to lack of full understanding, it the new system still being in early days.

        A voucher is worth 75k points for Red, 150k for Silver and Gold, only at the time of booking. What status level you are or were when the voucher was credited to your account and or when you travel makes no difference whatsoever

        • MCO says:

          6 Feb6 February 10:59

          So you mean if I find a one way flight at 90k and the voucher is worth 75k I would only need to pay 15k?

        • Rob says:

          6 Feb6 February 11:52

          No. This is not allowed.

          However, if an economy ticket was 20k, Premium 50k and Upper 95k you could book the 20k ticket and use your voucher to upgrade to Upper.

          Even if it went Eco 20k, Premium 30k, Upper 75k you could NOT book Upper for nothing. You would need to pay 20k for the Eco ticket and only get 55k of value from the voucher.

        • Karl says:

          7 Feb7 February 08:38

          It may be an idea for Rob to do a post on the new (and improved) credit card voucher usage.

        • Rob says:

          7 Feb7 February 09:01

          It is already integrated into our existing articles on the cards, but in truth no-one actually knows the rules. Some readers upgrading cash tickets are seeing their cash ticket valued at the Saver points rate and not the actual current rate – is that correct? We don’t know.

          (If it was then in theory Upper upgrades would be free if priced below the Premium Saver rate, which makes no sense.)

      • NorthernLass says:

        6 Feb6 February 13:11

        One voucher. I’ve explained what happened a few times in various threads!

        • Mark says:

          6 Feb6 February 13:32

          Sounds like I’ve got some catching up to do on the forum 🙂

    • Mark says:

      6 Feb6 February 18:27

      With a couple of vouchers and Gold status I’m thinking this actually might open up an opportunity to do the opposite. Max out the voucher cap to get a decent choice of UC inbound bookings at the economy saver rate and use a Barclays voucher and Avios for the outbound if necessary. That way avoids the £675 charge for most UC outbounds whereas a CW outbound can be had for about £240 plus 52.5K Avios with the Barclays voucher.

• Bumblebee says:

  6 Feb6 February 09:01

  I saw some decent priced flights to SA , yes they were in 2 weeks time. We have decided to book 2 weeks off randomly, and see where is available .

  • memesweeper says:

    6 Feb6 February 10:35

    Don’t forget the visa/ESTA requirements… 😀

    • Jonathan says:

      6 Feb6 February 10:48

      Very few HfP readers are going to get caught out by problems clearing passport control

      • Throwawayname says:

        6 Feb6 February 11:24

        As long as you have a UK or EU passport, even Saudi Arabia, Russia, India, and the PRC are super straightforward to visit nowadays (either no visa or a simple evisa process). It’s only the likes of Iran, North Korea, and a few central African countries like Niger that can be tricky.

        • Jonathan says:

          6 Feb6 February 11:38

          Of course, it varies wherever you go, I’m in no position to going there anytime soon, but many have said that with Trump back, expect not to have an easy time clearing US CBP.

          As long as you’ve got everything in order, you’ll almost certainly be fine, and that’s something nearly all HfP readers are well on top of when making travel plans

        • memesweeper says:

          6 Feb6 February 12:05

          The Indian process is unbelievably crappy online. Assign plenty of time, if nothing else.

          PRC wasn’t super straightforward last time I checked, but perhaps things have improved.

          I managed to get P2 to the Vietnamese border in HCMC only to discover a missing visa from the pack I’d applied for in advance!

        • Throwawayname says:

          6 Feb6 February 12:47

          Most EU citizens can now enter China without a visa. With a UK passport, it probably works better for a visit on a way to somewhere else on a 144-hour visa-free transit.

          I had to get evisas for India and S. Arabia in November. Both systems were a bit clunky but worked fine in the end.

        • Jonathan says:

          6 Feb6 February 12:57

          The current Chinese visa policy that applies to most EU citizens is not permanent and a trial.

          Plus if using the visa free transit policy, you can’t travel wherever you feel like going within the country, you can only travel within the confinements of the city you’re travelling via

• Sadoldman says:

  6 Feb6 February 11:58

  Quick data point.Needed to bring my passport renewal forward because of changed work travel commitments- an extra trip to Europe with less than 6 months on my current passport.. Digital application Friday, old passport in the post Saturday delivered to Passport office Monday. New passport received Wednesday. Can’t complain at that turnaround

• IanT says:

  6 Feb6 February 14:00

  Fun and games with this so-called loyalty programme continue.

  I was looking for one-way Miami or Atlanta availability this morning, for just after Christmas. To Atlanta on January 2nd was Economy 150000, Upper 64000 and Premium 21000.

  Not that it made much difference because the system was unable to process reward bookings in any case.

  Has anyone made a reward booking online today?

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