Bits: Can you beat 2 tier points?, Tesco / Virgin conversion bonus, Virgin Trains Ticketing bonus

News in brief:

Can you beat two tier points from a transatlantic flight?

Yesterday we showed you a screenshot from someone who had earned 3 British Airways Club tier points and 24 Avios from a one-way flight between London and New York.

There were snorts of derision from some readers …. who thought the person involved should have been grateful for doing so well.

Reader James sent in a similar screenshot from a London to New York economy flight.

As you can see, he managed to earn 13 Avios and 2 tier points, leaving him just 19,998 short of retaining his Gold status ….

Virgin Points / Clubcard conversion bonus launched

Virgin Red has brought back the exceptionally generous offer it ran twice last year for activating auto-conversion from Tesco Clubcard.

You will receive 5,000 bonus Virgin Points if you switch your Tesco Clubcard account to auto-convert points to either Virgin Flying Club or Virgin Red.

In addition, to celebrate Clubcard’s 30th birthday, one auto-converter will win 1 million Virgin Points. There’s also 100,000 Virgin Points for five runners-up.  Anyone who is already on auto-convert will be automatically entered.

5,000 Virgin Points is an exceptionally generous deal and there is no logical reason for not doing this if you qualify.

We’d value 5,000 Virgin Points at £50 if used for premium cabin flights, and in the worse case scenario you can order £25-worth of bits and pieces from the Virgin Red app.

Before you do anything, please note:

• this bonus is for setting up a conversion into either Virgin Red or Virgin Flying Club – to go via Virgin Red, you will need to have downloaded the Virgin Red app to your phone and – if applicable – linked it to your Virgin Flying Club account to pool the points

• you do not qualify for the bonus if you currently, or at any time in the past, have received a bonus for activating auto-convert into Virgin Flying Club

• you will need to have 250 Clubcard points in your account on 20th July, which may require you to divert some of your supermarket or petrol shopping to Tesco in the next few weeks (1 point per £1 in-store, 1 point per 2 litres of fuel)

How do you set up your Clubcard account to auto-convert to Virgin Atlantic or Virgin Red?

To turn on auto-convert, you need to visit the Clubcard website here.

Sign in to your account and click on ‘Clubcard Account’.  Select ‘Clubcard Management’ and then ‘Voucher Schemes’.  From this page you can select the “Virgin Points” box to enable auto-exchange.

Here are the rules for getting the 5,000 Virgin Points:

• you must not have received a bonus for turning on auto-convert to Virgin Flying Club in the past

• you must activate auto-convert to Virgin Flying Club or Virgin Red by 20th July 2025

• you must have at least 250 Tesco Clubcard points in your account on 20th July 2025, which is the next cut-off date for transfers to Virgin Points

• you must keep auto-convert activated until at least 20th July 2025

• your 5,000 bonus Virgin Points will be awarded later (usually 6-8 weeks)

Is it worth auto-converting Clubcard points to Virgin Points?

The days of lucrative offers from other Tesco Clubcard partners seem to be over.  5,000 Virgin Points is a VERY good incentive – you’d usually need to spend £2,500 in Tesco to earn £25 of Clubcard vouchers to receive 5,000 Virgin Points.

On this basis, assuming you’d only generate a few pounds of vouchers per quarter, you are far better off activating auto-convert for a while and seeing how it goes.

You can see details of this new Tesco / Virgin Points bonus on the Virgin Flying Club / Tesco Clubcard page here.

Earn double Virgin Points with Virgin Trains Ticketing

In 2021 Virgin Red launched a new way of letting you earn Virgin Points – its own train ticket booking platform called Virgin Trains Ticketing. It was originally part of the Virgin Red app but is now a standalone smartphone app.

It is a very simple structure:

• you earn 3 Virgin Points per £1 spent
• there are no booking fees

Until 30th June, you will receive double rewards – 6 Virgin Points per £1 spent. Your ticket can be for travel at any future date.

As long as the rail company you are using does not have exclusive discounts for users of its own website, you will be getting the same price as you would pay elsewhere.

Virgin Trains Ticketing also offers split tickets, so you could actually pay less than booking direct – although you may need to swap seats part-way through your trip. The company claims that split ticketing saves an average of £14.

However, at the moment LNER is offering 5% to 10% cashback on many American Express cards and some Mastercard / Visa cards. You can use the LNER website to book tickets for any train company.

Most Uber users will have an offer for 5% back in Uber credit for train tickets booked via the app, and this includes Eurostar.

If you don’t have access to an LNER offer, and especially if you don’t have access to a 10% offer, Virgin Trains Ticketing should be competitive.