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I signed up to the Virgin Red ‘Inner circle’ which gives points in exchange for filling in surveys. It’s not much at all, 50 points.
Anyway, last weeks was interesting as it was a follow up from the previous week where they did a deep dive on reward seats and routes.
It suggested a few interesting things. Firstly, options to redeem more miles and pay less taxes seemingly like the BA change last year. Some seemed slightly incentivised so you benefit if redeeming more points. They also asked questions about the option to pay in points for all seats, saying this could be a bit more than the cash price but equally they could offer discounts or sales on some routes and cabins. There was also discussion of paying points for any seats even when availability is very low and hence the redemption amount would be high.
I used my answers as an opportunity to welcome the ideas but really bash the insane taxes. £1000 taxes and carrier surcharges don’t make a reward flight feel in any way rewarding especially when this plus the value of points redeems matches or exceeds cash prices.
Anyway, will be interesting to see what comes of this.
Rightly so!
I fear for the answers they’ll receive from less savvy respondents. Any survey one steps away from with a conclusion of “so you benefit” (where you is the passenger) is a survey whose intention the less savvy will have failed to grasp. Instead, suckered in by the concept of ‘enhancements.’
There won’t be any benefits for passengers with such changes. VS reward pricing is already sky high. At least now we know where the source material comes from that fuels these claims that passenger feedback leads to these enhancements.
Hilarious to think there’s an appeal to certain people of redeeming for points + insane CFTs at a cost higher than the prevailing cash price. Reminds me of the time I asked my dad where all his Avios had gone and he proudly announced he’d been running them down for a discount off the cash price of EI tickets during their booking process. He had genuinely never heard of nor seen Avios.com. Mind was blown.
I would definitely welcome the ability to use more points, and fewer taxes, similar to how RFS was introduced to long-haul on BA. But, the problem is that it’s nowhere near as easy to accumulate a high number of virgin points as it is avios.
The SUB on the Virgin card is also too low, only 15k on the paid card, and 30k when it was enhanced. Maybe they should ditch the 15k bonus just for using the card once, and go to £3k in 3 months, increase that to 25/30k as standard, and maybe 35/40k when they have an increased SUB. The other problem is that if you are Red only, the voucher is only a 2 for 1.5 in UC. For this reason, I have never applied for the card. The free card earning rate should also be 1 point for every £1, not 0.75.
Agree with all the above! Clearly no need for a survey – Virgin need look no further than the HfP forum for what is encouraging/discouraging loyalty to Virgin points 🙂
A) Fees on UC redemptions too high
B) Uncompetitive vs BA regarding 241 vouchers
(lack of RFS style pricing with more points/less cash options AND not a 241 in UC for virgin red members)C) Hard to accumulate points compared to Avios
Fair point on the free card earning too little also, however if A/B/C were better, I’d happily look at the paid-for premium Credit Card.
C) Hard to accumulate points compared to Avios
Is it? I barely try, and I have hundreds of thousands of both. Making it harder to accumulate is, arguably, a benefit for an airline – they don’t have to buy from the central bank.
Yes? There are many areas in which they are equal (e.g. amex transfers, premium mastercard earning 1.5point per £, shopping portals, etc)
But then there’s been a huge chunk more opportunities to earn with the sign up bonuses boon on Avios Barclays products, Avios also have Nectar, AirBnB, and the BA Amex which had a substantial sign up bonus.
Re: “Making it harder to accumulate is, arguably, a benefit for an airline”
By this logic why not cut points schemes completely? The above posts have been discussing what would incentivise them as the consumer, rather than how an airline can cut costs.C) Hard to accumulate points compared to Avios
Is it? I barely try, and I have hundreds of thousands of both. Making it harder to accumulate is, arguably, a benefit for an airline – they don’t have to buy from the central bank.
I find Virgin harder to come by. I get the bulk of my Avios from flying, so tend towards BA because once you have status you drift into the cycle of using that and perpetuating flying BA. Virgin have no short haul network, and I know nothing of crediting AF/KL to Virgin as no desire to transit in AMS or CDG on every short haul trip. Where I do use a shopping portal I find the Avios offered consistently higher than the Virgin offer. Given Avios can be earned with Amex directly, via Amex MR and with Barclays directly, compared to one Virgin credit card with consistently lower sign up bonuses I think it’s entirely fair to describe Virgin FC points as harder to come by than Avios.
I’m not a huge fan of Virgin and have never quite got why fans become so devoted. I typically take a Virgin flight every two or three years to try it again, whilst the Heathrow Clubhouse is vastly superior to BA lounges, the onboard never seems to me as great as others often describe, and the risk of that hideous flip over seat leaves me rather meh about it all.
Yes? There are many areas in which they are equal (e.g. amex transfers, premium mastercard earning 1.5point per £, shopping portals, etc)
But then there’s been a huge chunk more opportunities to earn with the sign up bonuses boon on Avios Barclays products, Avios also have Nectar, AirBnB, and the BA Amex which had a substantial sign up bonus.
Re: “Making it harder to accumulate is, arguably, a benefit for an airline”
By this logic why not cut points schemes completely? The above posts have been discussing what would incentivise them as the consumer, rather than how an airline can cut costs.Yes, exactly. Furthermore, on the Virgin card, you are also limited to points earning to what your credit limit is. If you had a low limit, you couldn’t even pay it down mid-month, and continue earning points.
Without much effort, my wife and I, each earned around 220k avios in SUBs from the BAPP, BC Avios Plus, and Barclays Premier banking in the last year or so, and that doesn’t even include avios rewards 1500pm, or from our spend. We didn’t even bother with the 25k account switching bonus.
You also have the benefit of the household account.
I signed up to the Virgin Red ‘Inner circle’ which gives points in exchange for filling in surveys. It’s not much at all, 50 points.
Anyway, last weeks was interesting as it was a follow up from the previous week where they did a deep dive on reward seats and routes.
It suggested a few interesting things. Firstly, options to redeem more miles and pay less taxes seemingly like the BA change last year. Some seemed slightly incentivised so you benefit if redeeming more points. They also asked questions about the option to pay in points for all seats, saying this could be a bit more than the cash price but equally they could offer discounts or sales on some routes and cabins. There was also discussion of paying points for any seats even when availability is very low and hence the redemption amount would be high.
I used my answers as an opportunity to welcome the ideas but really bash the insane taxes. £1000 taxes and carrier surcharges don’t make a reward flight feel in any way rewarding especially when this plus the value of points redeems matches or exceeds cash prices.
Anyway, will be interesting to see what comes of this.
The last question asked respondents to rank 3 “points plus £” options that ALL reduced both points AND money (vs 95K + £1,000 LHR-JFK return in UC), but failed to include an option that could measure true trade-off (eg 115K + £750). Too many variables/not enough equations to model a FC Gold’s behaviour, but maybe VR’s agency didn’t understand the brief?
Agree with all the above! Clearly no need for a survey – Virgin need look no further than the HfP forum for what is encouraging/discouraging loyalty to Virgin points 🙂
A) Fees on UC redemptions too high
B) Uncompetitive vs BA regarding 241 vouchers
(lack of RFS style pricing with more points/less cash options AND not a 241 in UC for virgin red members)C) Hard to accumulate points compared to Avios
Fair point on the free card earning too little also, however if A/B/C were better, I’d happily look at the paid-for premium Credit Card.
Agree with A) but not entirely with B) – since my older (but still valid) vouchers can be used for companion OR u/g (where the points saving is better than BA’s: eg 60K from Premium to UC vs 48K WT+ to CW LHR-JFK-LHR); or with C) – since AmEx MR earned from Platinum are worth the same whether converted to Virgin points or Avios.
Agree with all the above! Clearly no need for a survey – Virgin need look no further than the HfP forum for what is encouraging/discouraging loyalty to Virgin points 🙂
Today was the 11th day since I cancelled a reward flight, and am still waiting for the refund. They state up to 14 working days and are known for pushing it.
Nobody needs that long to return money, and it’s nearly a grand too, as it was an UC redemption. Testing my loyalty and I’m more inclined to spend the points on La Premiere instead next time.
I’m relatively new to Virgin and am only interested because they fly direct from MAN to some of the places we travel to or via. I think it’s really quite difficult to collect the points (unless you use them for a lot of cash bookings) and yes the surcharges are a deal breaker as they are. I can see us doing maybe one cash booking and one redemption booking (with the cc voucher) per year going forward, but only because JFK, MCO and ATL are good connecting points for us.
I dont know how people favor BA over VS, avios requirements for BA is sky high for reward seats. I can only speak for Uk-India as that is what I travel.
PE return ticket offpeak DEL-LHR (valuing each point/avios at 1p)
VS: 35k points + £500 = £850
BA: 95K avios + £330 = £1280Business:
VS: 75k points + £800 = £1550
BA: 180k avios + £450 = £2250BA has upgrade/companion, VS alao has upgrade/companion voucher
For myself – I use the Virgin Reward + Credit card really to get the upgrade/companion voucher. The points I get are merely a bonus.
Then if I have enough points I will use them to get premium tickets and use the voucher to upgrade to upper class; or failing that, without enough points I just pay cash and upgrade to upper class with the voucher.That I feel is where virgin>BA – where you can upgrade or use the companion voucher on cash bookings!
Though I do agree, it is much easier to use the BAEC shopping portal to get avios than it is virgin points, and I have more avios than virgin points due to this!
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