Virgin paid card 1st year soon up – do I continue?

[JackDusty]

Hello All,

I got the card in early August last year, promptly put nearly every payment through the card and last month passed the £10K threshold. That was with last year’s opening offer and the other main bonuses being for taking out Virgin Media broadband and O2 sim card plan.

I have got the reward seats in Economy from the points accrued and then used the Award from Virgin credit cards to be bumped forwards a cabin. Have had to pay circ £500 for return taxes too.

Now – if I keep the card and pay the £160 again, then as points are gained at 1.5 points per £1 spent, if I need circa 45K points for return flights across the Atlantic, then I need to put through £30K through the card. I see the £30K as a too big an amount!

I have regarded the pay card as a 1 year experiment (that I do regard as a big sucess), but for 2nd year users will there be very predictable ways to get points boosted?

Any other strategies welcome.

Thanks in advance.

[Bill_B]

The main avenues I can think of are:

1.) Earning points via offers on the Virgin Red app. (eg. there is a current 8000 points offer for opening a Stocks & Shares ISA and putting in £5k.)
2.) Transferring points from Tesco Clubcard at a 2.5X or soon to be 2X rate. (There is currently a 2500 points auto-conversion offer: https://www.headforpoints.com/2023/05/28/get-2500-virgin-points-by-activating-tesco-clubcard-auto-conversion/)
3.) Shopping via the Virgin portal
4.) Booking hotel stays through Rocketmiles

I think it’s probably similar to Avios in terms of the point earning opportunities once you have exhausted the SUBs available. But one thing to think about is you can use the upgrade voucher on cash tickets. So you could earn the points (and 2 upgrade vouchers) over 2 years and pay with cash in first year.

[JackDusty]

Bill_B

Thanks very much for your ideas!

Great minds have already thought alike as my Tesco clubcard has been drip feeding points into Flying Club for some time already.

But the best plan is the one about saving up points over 2 years and paying for cash seats in the 1st of the 2 years. I will definitely consider this. 🙂

[ChasP]

remember that unlike AMEX 2 year wait Virgin currently only puts a 6 month delay on getting another SUB.
While it has been around 2 years since an enhanced SUB they used to be fairly common