Virgin or BA loyalty

[ejhcardiff]

I am torn between which airline to prioritise over the next two years. Is it normal for those maxing promotional credit card miles to do one, followed by the other?

I like Virgin, I like the idea that you earn even when you fly redemption (I know it won’t be much). I like the photos of their new business class.

I don’t like the photos of their old business class, and it looks like that’s there to stay for another 5+years (!).

I fly economy 1-3 times a year to the States for work. I am hoping to book a premium economy flight for me and my wife to India at the turn of the new year. We may or may not do one or two more holiday flights in 2025. So not a massive traveller.

I’m put off by the 15k spend on the BA amex for companion (virgin 10k seems more manageable…I’m not rolling in wealth). And by the fact that I have to buy a points/redemption flight to use the companion (virgin I could cash buy and get the 2-4-1 companion). But BA serve Australia/New Zealand which may come into play for holidays a few years down the road/BA serve a lot more places.

Thoughts? Should I post this on the BA board too?

[as02]

Here’s my two-cents (with the admission that I am not the most knowledgeable here by any stretch):
While I have tried to maintain a balance between the two when it comes to earning through cards, I have earned far far higher value from Virgin for sure. The two main issues with Virgin are – (1) limited network, and (2) high taxes. But if (1) your desired destinations are covered, and (2) you want to maximise value per point and not minimise cash paid… then I think VA can provide really good value. Besides, I have found VA to always have better availability than BA (perhaps because Avios is a more popular currency).
I am from India and my wife and I regularly travel home on VA. Being able to do a round-trip in 20k points + £280 taxes is just amazing, when cash tickets are never below £600-650 on this route.
And since we are value maximisers, we found it hard to shell out £800 in taxes when redeeming the 2-4-1 in Business on BA. So we ended up using it on Iberia and saving on the taxes.
So the bottom line – if you have a set of destinations in mind and VA flies there, there are higher chances to earning better value from VA points than Avios… provided you are solving for £/point and not Min(£ paid).
Hope this helps!

[Froggee]

I would have totally said BA but India and the US as your destinations makes Virgin competitive.

I prefer Virgin’s premium economy seat from what I have seen of it and I think they offer better value premium economy redemptions. Sure fees are higher but you need way less points for it.

So I would probably go with Virgin in your shoes.

But please don’t think of it as loyalty. It is entirely transactional!