Virgin point value

[lftbeach]

Are they similar to Avios ? 1p per point ?

[conspicuous-capybara]

The general consensus is they’re vaguely comparable, but things that don’t work in their favour vs Avios are:
– More limited route network
– Ridiculous fuel charges in Upper without an equivalent of BA’s Reward Flight Saver to take the edge off

Things that do work in their favour:
– more frequent points sales
– more flexible credit card vouchers

These are things you’ll have to balance when deciding their true value to you. But yeah, in my head I consider them broadly comparable to Avios in their valuation.

[Froggee]

I expect to get 1pm from Avios whereas I am happy to get 1p from Virgin points.

If there were just two of us then it would be much easier though given the number of guaranteed seats Virgin release.

[ekposh]

I find the fact that the credit voucher is only a 1.5 for 1 in Upper very annoying (I don’t have status).

[NorthernLass]

Use it for an upgrade instead, you don’t get charged any extra points for that.

[ekposh]

Thanks, never thought of that and have no clue what that entails but I’ll look it up on here!

[ChasP]

Last trip I made to SFO was £1k +135k points compared to £3.5k so around 1.85p per point.

My gut feel is that you can do better with AVIOS but might do worse.

Virgin voucher drops it to 55k points (the cost in Premium) while BA only halves the Avios So with an upgrade voucher you are getting near 5p per Virgin point

[Sean Mc]

@ekposh – dont forget you can also use the virgin voucher to upgrade a cash pe ticket to upper. Flying to LAs choice was 55k points + voucher and £997 cash or £1,340 cash plus voucher to buy pe and upgrade.

[ekposh]

Thanks all for the advice. I think the answers is yes but can I also upgrade a reward flight? So use points for PE and then voucher to J? Might not be the best value but that’s possible? The article on this site suggests so…

[ChasP]

ekposh wrote:

Thanks all for the advice. I think the answers is yes but can I also upgrade a reward flight? So use points for PE and then voucher to J? Might not be the best value but that’s possible? The article on this site suggests so…

Don’t see why this is different from the way i use my voucher. Find an UC reward seat call and pay the UC charges + PE points ?
You dont need to have PE reward seats available

[NorthernLass]

@ekposh, yes. I paid 55k points plus $600 ish taxes for PE NAS-LHR (wanted to secure at least some seats home), then called and used the voucher to upgrade those to UC for an extra $173 dollars cash each. Peak UC points is 67k pp on that route so I “saved” 80k points with the voucher, which I think was a pretty good deal!

Rob has done a couple of articles on the VS voucher if you have a look.

[ekposh]

“Don’t see why this is different from the way i use my voucher. Find an UC reward seat call and pay the UC charges + PE points ?
You dont need to have PE reward seats available”

If you don’t have status, I assume it’s less miles. Say Barbados for example, that’s 35k return in Premium and 115k in Upper. The way I see it that’s costing me 115+50% (57.5k) so 172500 for 2.

If I do premium one way (17.5k) and Upper the other (57.5k), that’s a total of 75000 miles. Do that for 2, that’s 150k and then I use the voucher to UG 2 people one way to Upper. So I’m saving 22.5k?

I could be wrong. I think with status, you’re better just booking direct and then don’t have to worry about availability in the lower class too as you say?