Virgin Atlantic Flying Club: How to earn and redeem points, elite status and more

Flying to over 30 locations throughout 5 continents, Virgin Atlantic could also be a provider that you’ve got neglected when planning your travels. Whereas reserving money and award flights with the U.Okay.-based provider could be expensive, particularly with added surcharges, the airline’s loyalty program, Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership, provides enticing companion award charts and noteworthy Saver fares.

Since Flying Membership companions with main bank card rewards applications, factors and miles lovers can snag an incredible deal. For instance, you will discover one-way business-class lie-flat seats from John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport (JFK) to London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR) for simply 29,000 factors.

Regardless of this system’s recent switch to dynamic pricing for flights operated by Virgin Atlantic, Virgin factors presently stand out for providing unimaginable worth with many makes use of. Hold studying to seek out out extra about Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership, together with how you can earn, redeem and maximize your reward factors.

Associated: How I booked lie-flat business-class seats to London for just 21,000 points

You’ll be able to earn Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership factors by merely flying with the provider. The variety of factors you earn is predicated on the flight distance, reserving class and whether or not you maintain Flying Membership elite standing. To simply calculate what number of factors you’ll earn in your flight, you should use the airline’s earning calculator.

Since Virgin Atlantic is a member of the SkyTeam alliance, you too can earn Virgin factors when flying with one of many provider’s companions, together with Delta, Air France-KLM and extra. To seek out out the variety of factors you’ll be able to earn on companion airways, you’ll want to navigate to Virgin’s partner page and click on on the airline you might be flying. You’ll earn redeemable award factors primarily based in your cabin, reserving class and distance flown.

Earn Virgin factors by way of bank card rewards

In case you are trying to simply top off on Virgin factors, the Virgin Red Rewards Mastercard® is providing the next welcome bonus: Earn 40,000 factors after spending $3,000 on the cardboard in your first 90 days. Plus, cardholders can earn extra factors with the next incomes charges:

• 3 factors per $1 with Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Lodges and Virgin Voyages
• 2 factors per $1 on eating, groceries, electrical automobile charging and choose streaming companies
• 1 level per $1 on all different purchases

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The data for the Virgin Crimson Rewards Mastercard has been collected independently by The Factors Man. The cardboard particulars on this web page haven’t been reviewed or offered by the cardboard issuer.

Nonetheless, if opening a brand new bank card shouldn’t be interesting or when you’re not a frequent Virgin Atlantic flyer, Flying Membership companions with each major credit card rewards program. Due to this fact, it is easy to spice up your Virgin factors steadiness when you’ve got a rewards credit card that earns factors inside the following applications:

Observe that Capital One miles switch to Virgin Crimson, not on to Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership. Nonetheless, you’ll be able to easily use your Virgin Red account points with Flying Membership.

Since Flying Membership companions with each main transferable bank card rewards forex, there are sometimes transfer bonuses, which implies you’ll be able to redeem your factors for much less.

Many of those applications provide playing cards that function terrific welcome bonuses. This is only a pattern of the travel rewards credit cards that earn these transferable factors that may be transformed to Virgin factors:

Buy Virgin factors

Virgin Atlantic permits you to buy as much as 100,000 Virgin factors per calendar 12 months at a price of two.5 cents in intervals of 1,000 factors every, plus a transaction price of $22, whatever the variety of factors bought.

TPG values Virgin factors at 1.4 cents per level, per our November 2024 valuations; subsequently, since the price of buying factors is far increased, it isn’t a superb deal to buy factors at full worth. Nonetheless, Virgin generally runs bonus promotions when buying factors. For instance, in March, the provider supplied up to 70% bonus points, plus elevated caps on annual buy limits. This may carry the value right down to a extra cheap value and could also be value it to high off your account or to ebook an award flight.

Virgin Atlantic Factors Booster

Should you’ve flown a Virgin Atlantic-operated flight — whether or not you paid money or factors for it — you should use Flying Club’s Points Booster to attain additional factors for affordable. You’ll be able to normally pay 0.01 British kilos (or $0.013) per level for the bonus factors.

You’ll be able to even use the Factors Booster for flights you could have already taken as much as six months again.

Different Virgin Atlantic incomes companions

There are a number of companions by way of which you’ll earn Virgin factors by purchasing or touring:

• Hotels: You’ll be able to earn Virgin factors reserving stays with Virgin Lodges, Marriott Bonvoy, Greatest Western, Hilton Honors, IHG One Rewards and World of Hyatt
• Car rental partners: Virgin Atlantic companions with Avis, Alamo, Enterprise, Nationwide and Sixt
• Virgin Trains Ticketing: Earn factors for prepare journeys throughout Nice Britain
• Heathrow Rewards: You’ll be able to earn factors for purchasing or parking at London’s Heathrow Airport and switch them to Flying Membership
• Rocketmiles and Kaligo: You’ll be able to earn between 500 and 10,000 Virgin factors per night time for reserving accommodations by way of the lodging platforms Rocketmiles and Kaligo
• Shops Away: Earn Virgin factors whenever you select to buy at over 1,000 retailers by way of Virgin Atlantic’s purchasing portal

There are additionally methods to earn Virgin factors by way of airport lounge purchases, finishing on-line surveys and airport parking.

Associated: The beginners guide to airline shopping portals

Virgin Flying Club offers three elite status tiers: Crimson, Silver and Gold. If you fly with Virgin or its companions, you earn Tier Factors, and the upper the standing you could have with the airline, the extra perks you may obtain.

You may obtain the next advantages at every elite standing tier:

Crimson (new member)

• Board first in economic system
• Free normal seat choice in Financial system Gentle and Traditional (7 days earlier than departure with Virgin Atlantic Holidays)
• Free seat choice in Financial system Delight (7 days earlier than departure with Virgin Atlantic Holidays)
• Devoted Flying Membership telephone line
• Discounted entry and earn factors at No1 Lounges

Silver (400 Tier Factors required)

You may obtain the identical advantages as Crimson tier members, in addition to the next advantages:

• Premium check-in
• Precedence boarding
• 30% extra bonus factors on flights
• One extra checked bag
• Tier renewal bonus
• Present companion and improve vouchers to family and friends
• Member advantages with Virgin Lodges
• Family account for as much as 9 folks
• Standing extension for maternity, paternity and/or adoption

Gold (1,000 Tier Factors required)

You may obtain the identical advantages as Silver tier members, in addition to the next:

• 60% extra Virgin factors on flights
• Assured Higher Class seat
• Free normal seat choice in Financial system Gentle and Traditional (anytime for you and your celebration)
• Free seat choice in Financial system Delight (anytime for you and your celebration)
• Most popular seat choice earlier than your flight in Premium (member solely)
• Higher Class check-in (it doesn’t matter what cabin you fly in)
• Lounge entry for you plus one visitor (when flying in any cabin class)
• Entry to London Heathrow Revivals Lounge
• 2,000 bonus factors in your birthday
• Earn a Flying Membership reward voucher whenever you renew your Gold standing
• Present Flying Membership reward vouchers to household and buddies
• Present Silver standing to a buddy
• Assured economic system seat on any flight
• Obtain two reward vouchers whenever you attain 2,000 Tier Factors in your membership 12 months

In October, Flying Club drastically changed its loyalty program and moved to dynamic pricing. Now, each seat on a Virgin Atlantic-operated flight is out there to ebook with Virgin factors. Like with money fares, seats booked with Virgin factors are priced in line with demand. Nonetheless, the variety of Virgin factors required to ebook an award seat shouldn’t be linked to the money costs, which has resulted in some glorious and a few terrible redemption charges.

When looking for award redemptions, search for Saver seats marked with a crimson tag. These award seats at the moment are the most affordable choices, although they won’t be supplied on each flight.

You should use Virgin’s useful Reward Seat Checker to seek out the lowest-priced seats.

Should you’re fortunate sufficient to snag this redemption, you may be reserving the bottom award price for business-class flights to Europe in comparison with different main airline loyalty applications.

Sadly, the draw back of dynamic pricing is that the factors required could be astronomical if you wish to journey on peak dates like faculty holidays and in the course of the summer time months, with some routes requiring 150,000 factors for a single flight in economic system or 350,000 factors in enterprise class.

At these charges, test the value of money fares, as you might discover a higher deal than redeeming your Virgin or bank card reward factors.

A serious draw back when reserving with Virgin is the carrier-imposed surcharges that will probably be tacked on to your ticket. Nonetheless, in the course of the loyalty program’s overhaul, these charges have been considerably decreased, so now they’re extra cheap. Moreover, when departing the UK, the U.K. APD Tax should even be paid, which may add a whole bunch of {dollars} to your redemption in premium courses.

Associated: Flexibility is key: Why I (mostly) like the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club changes

As for Air France-KLM and Delta-operated flights, you’ll want to try Virgin’s website to view the award charts for these carriers.

You may discover that companion redemption charts don’t embrace first-class fares. This implies you’ll be able to’t redeem your Virgin factors for SkyTeam airways that supply top quality, together with Garuda Indonesia, Korean Air, Saudia Airways and Xiamen Airways.

Air France additionally provides top quality however restricts redemptions to elite members of its personal Flying Blue program.

Along with the 16 SkyTeam airways you’ll be able to redeem your Virgin factors with, you too can ebook award flights with the next airways utilizing Virgin factors:

You can even earn Virgin factors — however not redeem them — with companion IndiGo.

Every non-SkyTeam companion has a distinct award chart. Some are distance-based and others are zone-based, so every airline can have totally different phrases and circumstances.

The next companions could be booked on the Virgin web site:

• Air France
• Delta
• El Al
• ITA Airways
• Kenya Airways
• KLM
• Korean Air
• LATAM
• Saudia
• Scandinavian Airways
• Vietnam Airways
• Virgin Atlantic

You will need to name Virgin Atlantic at 800-365-9500 to ebook award tickets for carriers that don’t seem on-line.

Nonetheless, you’ll be able to nonetheless seek for availability on different web sites. For instance, the United Airways web site is great for locating out there seats on Star Alliance carriers. As soon as you discover what you need, word the journey dates and flight numbers. Then, name Virgin Atlantic and feed that info to the customer support consultant.

Associated: How to book Delta award flights with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points

Greatest methods to redeem Virgin factors for max worth

With so many alternative airline companions, listed here are a few of our favourite methods to redeem your Virgin factors.

Saver fares on Virgin Atlantic

On dates with low demand, equivalent to transatlantic flights on sure days over the northern winter interval, the brand new Saver fare flights will now begin from as little as 6,000 Virgin factors in economic system from JFK to Heathrow, 10,500 Virgin factors in premium economic system and simply 29,000 Virgin factors in enterprise class.

Provider-imposed surcharges for Saver fares have additionally been decreased, ranging from simply $45 in economic system, $78 in Premium and $227 in Higher Class on a flight from New York to London. Minor extra authorities taxes and airport charges are additionally payable, which differ from path to route. Do not forget that the taxes for flights departing London will probably be dearer than these to London due to the U.Okay. APD Tax.

These are the bottom redemption charges to fly to London in comparison with any main airline loyalty program.

All Nippon Airways

Virgin Atlantic’s unimaginable redemption charges for ANA-operated flights ought to at all times be thought-about if you wish to get between the U.S. and Japan. This route is among the finest award journey candy spots, although availability could be powerful to seek out.

Check out Virgin Atlantic’s award chart for ANA flights. These costs are for one-way journey, so you should double the value for a round-trip redemption.

Associated: Feels like first class: Flying ANA The Room business class from LA-Tokyo

Should you have been to ebook a round-trip, first-class seat to Japan from the West Coast in one among ANA’s fancy suite seats, you’d spend simply 145,000 factors for a seat costing $20,000 or extra. Enterprise class can be a wonderful deal at simply 105,000 factors.

It is also value noting that round-trip award flights are extremely low cost for infants beneath 2 years previous who do not want a seat of their very own:

• Financial system seats value 2,000 factors
• Enterprise-class seats value 10,000 factors
• First-class seats value 14,000 factors

Air France-KLM

Virgin Atlantic has several award charts for both KLM and Air France. It divides the world into 10 zones and calculates your award worth primarily based in your origin and vacation spot zones. Listed below are some notable worth highlights from the U.S. on off-peak dates:

• One-way economic system flight to Europe from the West Coast for 15,000 factors
• One-way economic system flight to the Center East from the East Coast for 25,000 factors
• One-way business-class flight to Europe from the East Coast for 48,500 factors
• One-way business-class flight from the East Coast to North Africa for 66,500 factors

You may typically incur gasoline surcharges in your flights, however they’re typically not as excessive as for Virgin Atlantic awards. In our expertise, surcharges are beneath $300 for a one-way business-class ticket from the U.S. to Europe, making Air France-KLM a less expensive possibility for business-class European redemptions.

Virgin Atlantic is intricate — a few of its luster has disappeared after devaluations and diminishing availability from its companions. Whereas the brand new dynamic pricing mannequin favors those that are versatile and may journey throughout off-peak durations, these eager to journey over main holidays and peak summer time months might doubtless now have to look to different applications for respectable award redemptions.

Nonetheless, this system remains to be extremely priceless for worldwide journey, notably for flying ANA, Air France or KLM in premium cabins when availability permits. Moreover, as a result of this system has so many switch companions, its factors are simple to earn. Due to this fact, this loyalty program shouldn’t be neglected.