Virgin Voyages finally joins Virgin Red for full earn and burn …. but is it good value?

One of the quirks of Virgin Red, the central portal for earning and spending Virgin Points, is that it does not cover all of the Virgin Group brands.

In fact, very few Virgin Group businesses are fully integrated, with Virgin Atlantic being the ‘anchor’ partner.

This is a function of how the Virgin-branded operations are set up, with Virgin Group usually only having a minority equity stake and sometimes none at all. There has been progress (Virgin Wines, Virgin Hotels and Virgin Active have joined recently with differing levels of integration) but there are still gaps.

Virgin Voyages has now gone live on the scheme, offering full earn-and-burn opportunities on all of its cruises.

This is good news because, unlike Virgin Wines or Virgin Active, you are likely to be dropping serious cash on Virgin Voyages given that the cruises retail for thousands of pounds. It adds a new way of earning a lot of Virgin Points.

Or does it?

What is the Virgin Voyages earn rate?

Unfortunately, although you’re likely to be spending upwards of £2,500 per person per cruise, you only earn a fixed 100 Virgin Points per sailor per night.

This is not a typo. You only get 100 points per person per night. This is a paltry contribution when you consider that a £2,500 Upper Class flight on Virgin Atlantic will earn you 10,000+ Virgin Points.

In contrast, a seven day Virgin Voyage for two will net you exactly 700 Virgin Points each. At our 1p valuation, these have a base value of £7 – and even that assumes you use them on premium Virgin Atlantic flights. They are only worth £3.50 if used for majority of Virgin Red redemptions.

There is even small print to restrict who qualifies for such generosity – only full-fare sailings are eligible, not discounted rates.

Even worse, the points won’t automatically drop into your Virgin Red account. You’ll be emailed a voucher at the end of your sailing which you will need to manually credit.

The Virgin Voyages earning page is on the Virgin Red website here if you don’t believe me.

How many Virgin Points do you need for a Virgin Voyages cruise?

Let’s turn to spending Virgin Points on a Virgin Voyages cruise.

The days of sub-100,000 point sailings for two are long gone, sadly. Since covid, it appears that Virgin Voyages cruises have got steadily busier and it no longer needs to offer steep discounts to attract passengers for its new ships.

(New readers to HfP should know that, when Virgin Voyages was ramping up, it was virtually giving away cruises to Virgin Red members in order to fill the ships, make them look busy and generate positive word of mouth.)

On the flip side, Virgin Red now offers Virgin Voyages for redemption year-round, albeit at dynamically priced rates. Here are some examples:

• 4-night Fire and Sunset Soirées from 305,000 Virgin Points 
• 5-night Dominican Daze from 375,000 Virgin Points 
• 7-night Portsmouth to Amsterdam and Bordeaux from 515,000 Virgin Points 

The pricing is for two passengers and includes itineraries for multiple dates, rather than fixed sailings. They book into Central Sea Terrace cabins (photo above) rather than the cheapest Insider cabins.

You can see the full list of sailings currently available here – you need to toggle the results to ‘Spend’.

Is it good value? Let’s do a comparison.

Here are the lowest and highest cash prices for the above itineraries for the remainder of 2025 and 2026:

• 4-night Fire and Sunset Soirées from £1,634 to £1,943 for two
• 5-night Dominican Daze from £2,043 to £2,504 for two
• 7-night Portsmouth to Amsterdam and Bordeaux from £3,164 for two (2025 only)

The prices above include the current April/May Virgin Voyages promotion which takes 75% off a second sailor.

Using the highest cash prices available, it means you are getting:

• 0.53p per point on the 4-night itinerary
• 0.66p per point on the 5-night itinerary
• 0.61p per point on the 7-night itinerary

This is not spectacular value, particularly when you factor in that I have based it on the most expensive cruise in each category – often, you’ll find the cash fares a few hundred pounds lower.

In terms of overall value, it matches the value of ‘base’ redemptions such as wine or other partners on Virgin Red, most of which work out at 0.5p per point. It does not offer outsize value as you can find on Virgin Atlantic on a good day.

If you’re particularly price sensitive, you can find sailings even cheaper than the examples above. The cheapest cabins (generally the windowless ‘Insider’ cabins, pictured above) are as low as:

• 4-night Fire and Sunset Soirées from £916 for two
• 5-night Dominican Daze from £1,145 for two
• 7-night Portsmouth to Amsterdam and Bordeaux from £1,638 for two

If you are not bothered about having a sea view and simply want to be on the ship, using cash for an Insider cabin is a better deal than using points for a Central Sea Terrace one.

Conclusion

Overall, whilst Virgin Voyages is a welcome addition to the Virgin Red family, there is definitely room to sweeten the deal.

The earning rate is desperately low – just 100 Virgin Points per person per day – which doesn’t get you very far. You’d have to cruise for 45 days (!) to be able to redeem for the cheapest Virgin Wines redemption, a ‘Premium Prosecco in Wooden Gift Box‘.

The redemption rate is, admittedly, competitive when compared to other non-flight redemptions across Virgin Red. However, there’s still plenty of room for Virgin Red and Virgin Voyages to improve redemption deals to drive bookings, particularly for off-peak sailings.

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