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I’ve had the virgin Atlantic reward credit card for a few years, this is the card with no annual fee. Iv just received a letter from virgin money saying “your card is due to expire soon but unfortunately we won’t be sending you a new card. There are a few reasons behind this decision including your account history and information from credit ref agencies”
This is very odd as my credit rating is very good, Im in the process of getting a mortgage on my own with no issues but virgin don’t want to renew my credit card with a tiny £2500 limit.
I feel the issue is that I pay the balance off in full every month so they aren’t making any money from me.
I normally I only spend a few hundred pounds on the card each month but last month I accidentally went over my credit limit by £15.00 this may have given them the excuse to get rid of me.?
I believe if you don’t use or increase your virgin Atlantic miles balance for a period of time they disappear? I have 113,000 points so don’t want to lose them. I now won’t have the credit card miles going in every month. Is there a way round this or do I need to make sure I use my balance of air miles but a certain time? ThanksThat’s very odd, you are far from the only person who pays off their balance each month!
Re the miles, I think you have 3 years before they expire (?). Fairly easy to earn a few through the Virgin Red app which doesn’t require you to have the card. A friend of mine has been collecting VS points for years but never held either card.
Could well be the few hundred a month means you’re not worth their while in printing statements costs etc? Agree is very odd.
Virgin points no longer expire
https://www.virginatlantic.com/bb/en/flying-club/points.html
I believe your flying club miles have become virgin points and virgin points never expire. That is one positive.
I suspect they didn’t like you going over your credit limit and computer says no.
Could well be the few hundred a month means you’re not worth their while in printing statements costs etc? Agree is very odd.
They could just move to online statements.
I pay my MBNA bill off every month. They still make money from the merchant fees.
There must be something more to this than a single, minor going over credit limit to cause this.
Credit scores are meaningless as credit card companies use their own scoring.
My friend will be pleased anyway! She has never used any points and was worrying the other day that they might expire. She pays cash for economy (I know, I know!)
Sounds like there might be something the OP has not told us or that they themselves are unaware of. I’d be double-checking credit files and asking VM for more information..
These cards have always been a bit odd so nothing should be surprising. Are they still renewing the paid card months early and refusing refunds on the fee when doing so?
Sounds like there might be something the OP has not told us or that they themselves are unaware of.
This.
Yep, as always, something else is at play here.
I’d forgotten but my C.C. voucher turned up ridiculously early, 9 days into the start of my earning year and no way had I spent £10k, even after the early charging of the annual fee.
So maybe there’s some sort of winding up process going on? The card has served its main purpose for us, anyway, paying 2 years of school fees!
Creationgate part 2 🙂
Sounds like there might be something the OP has not told us or that they themselves are unaware of.
This.
There’s nothing else at play, at least as far as I know. I recently changed my address. Which can’t be the issue.
Im at the final stages of a mortgage application. Maybe the credit checks ran by the mortgage company have affected my rating. I will query with virgin. Would be surprised if they give me an exact reason. I think frogeees right (Computer says no). Good to know points don’t expire tho thanks for the reply’sSounds, incomplete.
There’s already been a totally plausible reason given by the OP:
Went over the credit limit of the card.Virgin reference account history. Likely entirely automated too (agree with computer says No). Don’t have to look much further than that.
There’s nothing else at play
You’ve already given us several things at play here –
1. You’ve gone from spending ‘a few hundred pounds per month’ to 2,515 last month, an enormous jump
2. You went over the credit limit
3. You recently changed your address – are you on the electoral roll there? Virgin may consider that address a higher risk than your previous address
4. There have been more credit checks on you recently (mortgage).Take a step back at how this all looks. You’ve gone from being a low spender paying on time and on the electoral roll, to being a high spender, going over your limit, with a new address (was this customer made homeless…), applying for lots more credit – it sounds like you are scrabbling around desperate for money in dire financial straits.
For clarity, I’m not suggesting you are in dire financial straits, but that’s how it may look to a bank computer system (and even a lay person).
I suggest it’s the combination of all or some of those things happening at a similar time that caused fright – any one or two of these things happening you probably would have been OK.
I’m bemused that you think this is odd! If you want virgin to reconsider, I imagine you would need to show that you have secure income/ savings or the like – you might be better waiting until you are settling in your new place for a few months.
my C.C. voucher turned up ridiculously early, 9 days into the start of my earning year and no way had I spent £10k
This is just Virgin IT being crap. Awarding of vouchers has lots of bugs. Awarded early, multiple vouchers awarded, no vouchers awarded. And impossible to resolve if the error is detrimental to you (Virgin Money says they can’t do anything and you have to call Flying Club; Flying Club says they can’t do anything and you have to call Virgin Money).
There have been threads about this here before if you search.
Sounds like there might be something the OP has not told us or that they themselves are unaware of.
This.
There’s nothing else at play, at least as far as I know. I recently changed my address. Which can’t be the issue.
Im at the final stages of a mortgage application. Maybe the credit checks ran by the mortgage company have affected my rating. I will query with virgin. Would be surprised if they give me an exact reason. I think frogeees right (Computer says no). Good to know points don’t expire tho thanks for the reply’sThere’s quite a bit going on here with a credit risk perspective.
Change of address.
Change of residential status (own to rent to buy?).
Application for Home Loan
Potential variances in income between what’s disclosed to Virgin and new lender in the credit application (OpenBanking?)
Breach of Credit Limit.Plus never forget if you are the Director of any organisation listed on Companies House (or even the Charity Commission) and your organisation is tardy with the accounts or returns, that red flag can hit you too.
@roy, I’ve never seen anyone else post that their voucher appeared before they’d even spent the £10k. It’s a bit different to the system not working and the voucher not appearing – something has to actively trigger it.
Well, a year or two ago I had the exact same thing re voucher awarded a few days into the year. I was actually a bit peaved because I’d rather have had it awarded towards the end of the year and had an extra year’s validity – but there’s literally no one to talk to about voucher issues so you just have to accept it.
I’m not sure if I ever posted about my voucher oddities at the time, but I certainly remember seeing a thread in which someone said that – more than once I think – they’d had multiple vouchers awarded at random points in the year. Plus someone say they had a missing voucher. Their IT is buggy.
I only got the one voucher, though, as far as I’m aware. Just one, about a week or two into the year. No second voucher when I actually hit £10,000 spend – so I wouldn’t go getting your hopes up.
I always find “I went over my credit limit” an odd statement
“Virgin allowed me to go over my credit limit” would surely be more accurate statement so why penalties ?
I don’t think going over the credit limit one month made Virgin close the account. Virgin money focuses on those with low incomes where penalties, interest and fees are common.
There’s something else OP isn’t telling us. Most likely the type of spending. Business spend on personal card? Cash like payments? Being a self employed and overstated income?
I’ve had similar with Virgin in day back when MBNA ran their card, they declined to rewnew -> paid off in full monthly and earnt > 200k miles via them (which I did use!). Went to amex (plat then gold) and not looked back. However I was wildly insconsistent in spending month to month mostly down to things like wifes annual rail season ticket (£7k) going on the card one month every year, with other similar high value purchases varying month to month. Not a single payment was missed.
I looked at it simply as fact they didn’t want to give to a person who actually used the miles regularly on upper flights, and had consistent earnings, and didnt make them much profit due to the lack of interest paid to the card company.
I may reapply in future, but I found the Amex MR points more “useful” as multi currency. We now only have BA card and Amex with the latter thankfully having no real limit allowing our wild variations in monthly spend from 1k a month to 20…
Any online gambling? High cost credit (payday loans, etc)? Buy now pay later (Klarna, etc)? Those are more likely to be the cause than going a tiny amount over the limit on one occasion, provided that was promptly rectified.
I came on to this site this evening just to see if anyone else had the same issue as i have just received the same letter too!
I can confirm that i have never gone over my limit, or missed any payment, my credit rating is excellent too, the only thing i did two months ago was to change my address, the first change in ten years, my guess as to why they are closing the account is that i also have the Virgin Atlantic plus card (£160 annual fee) and i did read back along that you can only apply for only one Virgin card now (i had both cards when they were launched) so i think anyone with two cards will also get the same letter, they will let you keep the one with the annual fee, but will close down the free one, in my letter it does say they are not renewing it when the card expires which is April this year but i can use it fully up to this date.
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