Is it worth me starting to collect Virgin points?

[gw57]

I am travelling to Antigua in October and paid cash for premium out, upper class back so will get my first virgin points. So it got me thinking if I get myself a virgin credit card how long would it take me to accumulate a decent number of points to use a companion voucher to say Antigua.

I would get the 18,000 sign up bonus and probably put circa £20k a year across the card so as a RED member I am figuring out it would take me 5 years to get a decent amount of points.

Any views

[phantomchickenz]

Amex Membership Rewards transfer across, so if you haven’t started on that train yet there are plenty of signup bonuses to be had.

[sturgeon]

You’d earn 96k points by the end of year 3. You’d also earn several upgrade vouchers. So you’d have enough to upgrade a PE to Upper Class and have points spare, or could pay for a round trip in upper class without using a voucher.

Bear in mind the £160 annual fee and have a plan to use each voucher earned. Also, research routes and taxes. The taxes/fees on virgin are very high, close to £1k for most routes in upper class return and you don’t pay half of that for one way.

Make sure you really want to redeem for Virgins limited routes too and bear in mind they chop and change most unless it’s North America.

I’ve accumulated a ton of points and not used them for this reason. I’ve actually transferred some to Hilton ( the transfer rate isn’t good though) as a result.

I’d consider an Avios earning card as a good alternative. I’d only suggest Virgin if you’re earning on an Avios card and earning your reward voucher there and have a good Avios balance.

[Froggee]

I’d say it totally sounds like it is worthwhile you collecting the points.

Assuming you can fit into off-peak dates, Antigua would only be 35,000 points in premium economy and the voucher would then put you into upper class saving 80,000 points. Yes the surcharges suck but 35,000 points, an upgrade voucher and £872 for return upper class seems good value to me.

So you don’t need to collect that many points at all and remember you can use the voucher on cash fares with Virgin also (assuming redemption availability).

[ChasP]

An upper class ticket costs around £3k cash or 115k points +£1k on a ticket to WI or 25k, £1000 and an upgrade voucher You can also use a voucher to upgrade 2 tickets one way – eg PE out and UC back

Unfortunately the voucher isnt a true 241 unless you have status – but on the bright side reward flights do count towards status

Vouchers are good for 2 years and if you cancel after a year you can get another signup bonus 6 months later. Alternatively smaller amounts of points can be got from Tesco shopping and Virgin Red shopping portal.
5 years is very pessimistic

[gw57]

Thanks for the insight.
Both my wife and I have BA premium cards and will earn two more companion vouchers by October 31st, also have circa 240,000 AVIOS.

So was thinking on cancelling one of our BA cards and taking up a Virgin card, only issue is my wife is a teacher so we still holiday at peak times. And interestingly best value we get with our AVIOS is flying club Europe to Faro at half term and in August

[Aardvark]

It all depends on your future holiday destinations, if it fits with the limited selection of Virgin routes then I think it is a great idea. We used to have 2 BA Premium Plus cards, stop one but you have to wait 2 years for the decent offer. So as we fly/holiday in South Africa twice a year now (Nov & Feb/March), we have one Amex that we keep all the time and the Virgin Plus that we stop and start in each others names. As you say you only have to wait 6 months to get the decent offer. Amex is now quite widely accepted but I still had over £10k spend on Mastercard (Barclays). So for South Africa we go BA Bus Return for one trip and Virgin Upper Class out Premium back for the other holiday. Yes you may be short of points but by paying for extra pts when offers come up it is a still a no brainer when compared to paying for the full cash fare. The actual cost of my flights work out somewhere between the price of a normal Cash economy and premium economy, for this you get Bus Return and Upper Class/Premium. Course this only works because of our holiday requirements. Getting Virgin reward flights (pts) on the Caribbean routes I have found quite difficult in the past but the for the USA routes it is ok, for Capetown you have to book 11 months ahead. Also we travel mostly at off-peak times, one problem you have to watch for is triggering the vouchers too early because if you have to book almost a year in advance, you need to trigger the voucher just before you book or closer to the end of the account year to give you more flexibility. As the cost of living has gone up in the last few years, spending £15K on Amex and £10K on Mastercard isn’t a problem. The advantage of the Virgin plus CC is definetley the mastercard spend. Hope this helps but it always depends on personal circumstances/needs.

[gw57]

thanks really helpful

Aardvark wrote:

It all depends on your future holiday destinations, if it fits with the limited selection of Virgin routes then I think it is a great idea. We used to have 2 BA Premium Plus cards, stop one but you have to wait 2 years for the decent offer. So as we fly/holiday in South Africa twice a year now (Nov & Feb/March), we have one Amex that we keep all the time and the Virgin Plus that we stop and start in each others names. As you say you only have to wait 6 months to get the decent offer. Amex is now quite widely accepted but I still had over £10k spend on Mastercard (Barclays). So for South Africa we go BA Bus Return for one trip and Virgin Upper Class out Premium back for the other holiday. Yes you may be short of points but by paying for extra pts when offers come up it is a still a no brainer when compared to paying for the full cash fare. The actual cost of my flights work out somewhere between the price of a normal Cash economy and premium economy, for this you get Bus Return and Upper Class/Premium. Course this only works because of our holiday requirements. Getting Virgin reward flights (pts) on the Caribbean routes I have found quite difficult in the past but the for the USA routes it is ok, for Capetown you have to book 11 months ahead. Also we travel mostly at off-peak times, one problem you have to watch for is triggering the vouchers too early because if you have to book almost a year in advance, you need to trigger the voucher just before you book or closer to the end of the account year to give you more flexibility. As the cost of living has gone up in the last few years, spending £15K on Amex and £10K on Mastercard isn’t a problem. The advantage of the Virgin plus CC is definetley the mastercard spend. Hope this helps but it always depends on personal circumstances/needs.

[NorthernLass]

VS redemptions aren’t great value at peak time, but you’re probably used to paying over the odds for holidays if you partner is a teacher!

As above, if you’ve only got basic VS status, the best value is to book PE and use the voucher to upgrade to UC. Taxes to the Caribbean are lower than to the US, but also as noted, VS have been doing a lot of chopping and changing on these routes recently (including dropping Nassau, Turk & Caicos, and St Lucia), so be prepared to be flexible!