Does VA still make sense for me?

[silvershower]

I live in the north, about 20 mins from manchester airport. I have been collecting virgin red points for about 10 years nearly now. I originally took the card out as it was the most ‘rewarding’ and didn’t really thinking too heavily about what I could use the points for (don’t give me grief about this, it was a long time ago).

I have been exchanging pointsfor other virgin red rewards other than flights mostly, but really want to start using for flights and less of the other stuff (esp now virgin have closed the red room at manchester arena). I have 500k points or so remaining.

The issue is not really with the credit card itself, but whether it makes sense for me to continue having the card and collecting red points, if I live in manchester and don’t really have that much of an interest in flying to america!! The flight options are quite limited, and i notice that the points value of flights has gone through the roof. 5 years ago you could get an upper return to new york (from heathrow admittedly) for like 100k or less. Now it seems like 900k is the going rate.

Unfortunately though, another issue is that both avios and VA only seem to really make sense if you live near london. This is just a total pain and not fair at all, however I’m not going to be able to change that so I just have to deal with it.

what do people suggest please? thanks

[ChasP]

The new (or nearly new) system is actually what everyone has always claimed they want
1) Every seat is available
2) Chances for some real bargains – low points AND reduced fees

However as we now know these are overshadowed by the huge points increase on nearly all seats

If you are flexible (on dates and/or places) then there are some real bargains to be found but for the majority its much worse

[dmm27]

If you’ve not got reward vouchers, then look at redeeming VA points on KLM/AF, as the connections via AMS/CDG etc from the north open up additional options.