About Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

Ask Alisha: Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

At Reward Flight Finder we often get asked questions about Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.

So we asked our “master of miles”, Alisha Collins, to help answer some of the questions we’ve received from Reward Flight Finder members.

Join Reward Flight Finder Today!

Does Virgin Atlantic have a frequent flyer programme?

Yes, and it is one of my favourite airline loyalty programmes too. It is called the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.

How much does the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club cost?

It’s free to join Flying Club, but you won’t get many benefits from being a member until you earn Virgin Points or Tier Points.

What are Virgin Points?

They’re the loyalty currency, used in the UK, to reward customers of the companies within the Virgin Group. Several other big brands in the UK offer Virgin Points perks too, including ASOS, MADE, Just Eat and Samsung.

Image courtesy of Virgin Red

How can I earn Virgin Points?

Here are a few of the ways you can earn them: - Fly with Virgin Atlantic Whilst you can earn points with your Virgin broadband, mobile phone contract or when you sail on their new cruise ship, Scarlet Lady, the fastest way to earn a large number of Virgin Points for most people will be to fly with Virgin Atlantic.

They will even let you earn new points for taking flights you booked as reward flights, not many other airlines do that - With a points booster You can buy a Virgin Atlantic Points Booster to increase your points balance from either past or future flights with the airline, even if they were booked as reward flights.

- Fly with Virgin’s partner airlines If you link your Flying Club membership number to a booking on one of Virgin Atlantic’s partner airlines, you can earn Virgin Points even though you are flying with someone else. It almost feels like cheating on them, but you’ll get rewarded for mile-high flings with Delta, Air France, KLM, SAS, Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand, South African Airways, ANA or LATAM. - Book hotels, rental cars and train travel

Virgin Atlantic lets you earn points with a huge variety of partners, from hotels and car hire companies, to travel magazine publishers and train companies. Among the bigger names on their partner list are Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, Best Western, Avis, Hertz, Enterprise and Eurostar.

Check out the latest partner list on their website.

- Join Virgin Red Virgin Red is the loyalty programme which lets you earn Virgin Points across all Virgin group companies and their selected partners in the UK. It’s free to join and you can link your account with a Virgin Flying Club account to spend the points you earn on flights. Outside the UK you can earn points with Virgin Hotels, Virgin Limited Edition and get spacey offers from Virgin Galactic.

- When you shop Virgin Atlantic is the exclusive airline partner of the UK’s largest supermarket loyalty scheme, Tesco Clubcard. Check out the latest offers for converting Clubcard points and vouchers into Virgin Atlantic flights on the Tesco website or Clubcard app.

The rewards don’t end there. You can earn extra Virgin Points when you buy from John Lewis, Currys or Apple Store, just by clicking through from featured promotions on the Virgin Atlantic website. Virgin’s “Shops Away’’ portal awards points for purchases at hundreds of online stores and the airline also has its own inflight and online shopping service called “Retail Therapy”.

- With a payment card Virgin Atlantic promotes branded credit cards, in the US and UK, that award their cardholders with Virgin Points on all eligible purchases. Some American Express payment cards let you earn loyalty points called “Membership Rewards'' on eligible spend. These can also be converted to Virgin Points on a one to one basis.

We can’t recommend financial services to you and you should do your own research into whether any of these cards is appropriate for your needs, based on your personal circumstances.

What are Tier Points?

In recent years airline membership programmes have evolved to offer benefits to people who might not even fly that regularly with them. But they still want to incentivise people to fly with them more often. The way many of them do this is by introducing membership tiers to their clubs. When people fly with the airline, or its partners, they get awarded tier points. If they earn enough tier points in a membership year they get upgraded to a premium level of club membership that offers extra benefits, such as access to fancy lounges at the airport.

Virgin Atlantic follows this approach with Flying Club too. There are three membership tiers: Red, Silver and Gold. New joiners start with Red. From April 2022, members can earn Virgin Atlantic Flying Club elite status more easily, with reductions announced in the tier point requirements to achieve each level: ● Silver status can now be achieved with just 300 tier points per rolling 12 months (reduced from the usual 400 points required) ● Gold status can be gained with only 800 tier points per rolling 12 months (reduced from the usual 1,000 points required) One of the great things about these lower-status thresholds is that Silver and Gold members earn bonus Virgin Points with each flight they take. With Silver, you earn 30% more points, every time you fly Virgin Atlantic and with Gold, it's a huge 60% bonus. That makes Virgin Atlantic reward flights easier to earn than ever and, unlike most other airlines, Virgin lets you earn more points on redemption flights too.

What are Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Miles?

Before Virgin created a common loyalty currency, across all its businesses, Virgin Atlantic had its own: Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Miles.

Since 24th September 2020, Flying Club Miles have been replaced with Virgin Points (any existing balances of Miles were converted 1 for 1 into the new points). At the time many people thought it was just a name change, but in fact Virgin Points can be earned and redeemed in more places and more ways, through the Virgin Red loyalty scheme.

Something else important happened in September 2020 too: Virgin decided that both existing points balances and future points earned would never expire.

What are the benefits of Virgin Flying Club?

The benefits you will receive from Virgin Atlantic Flying Club vary according to which status tier you have reached. There are three levels: Red, Silver and Gold. Your level is determined by how often you have flown with Virgin Atlantic and its partners during your membership year. For every flight taken you will earn tier points, get 300 of these in your membership year and you’ll earn Silver, 800 will earn you Gold (from April 2022).

The basic level is Red. If you are planning to fly with Virgin Atlantic- or their partners which include Delta, Singapore Airlines, Air France and KLM- it is worth joining since you’ll earn some Virgin Points.

All airlines also have a tendency to treat their loyalty club members slightly better than other passengers, so since it is free to join Flying Club it strikes me as a bit of a no-brainer.

Red members can save on the cash price of future flights by using “Points Plus Money”, redeem Virgin Points for reward flights and access deals with a wide range of partners. They can also link their membership to their Tesco Clubcard and Virgin Red accounts to increase their opportunities to earn points and easily exchange points between programmes.

Flying Club Silver is far less generous than the equivalent tier in BA Executive Club but it does offer 30% more Virgin Points on every flight taken, premium check and free seat assignment in Economy.

Gold is the tier where things get more interesting. Gold members get a massive 60% more Virgin Points for every flight, can use Upper Class check-in desks- regardless of which cabin they are flying in, priority seat assignment, extra baggage allowance and access to Virgin’s Clubhouse and Revivals lounges. That last one is my favourite perk, flying has become a commoditised experience but Virgin Atlantic’s wonderful lounges bring back a bit of glamour to the whole experience.

What are Virgin Atlantic reward flights?

A Virgin Atlantic reward flight is a ticket bought with the airline that has been purchased entirely with points. You will still have to pay taxes such as air passenger duties or local surcharges, but you can save huge sums of money redeeming points for your flights instead of paying with cash.

Sometimes this type of booking is informally referred to as a “Virgin Atlantic award flight”, a “points flight” or an “air miles flight”.

Just don’t use the term “air miles reward flights” if you speak to anyone from Virgin. The UK rights to the Air Miles brand were bought by Virgin’s nemesis, British Airways, way back in the 1980s.

You don’t need to have flown with Virgin Atlantic to earn the points required for a reward flight, you could have earned them all through Tesco Clubcard, Virgin Red or flying with their partner airlines. You will need to be a Virgin

Atlantic Flying Club member to book a reward flight, but since it’s free to join, that’s not an onerous restriction.

When do Virgin Atlantic reward flight tickets get released?

Virgin Atlantic put their flights on sale 11 months in advance of departure.

The timing is the same whether you want to make a cash or points reservation.

What is Virgin Atlantic “Points Plus Money”?

Like British Airways, Virgin Atlantic allows you to reduce the cash amount you have to pay for your ticket by part paying with points. Unlike with BA you get the same value per point, regardless of the number you redeem and the airline seems to fix this value for long periods of time, whereas British Airways frequently runs promotions or plays around with the cash equivalent value for part-payments with points.

You can also pay the whole price of your ticket using ‘Points Plus Money”, unlike on BA which caps the discount you are allowed. To do this you will need to use more points than you would for a reward flight redemption, but more seats will be available to book in this way than for “true” reward flights, since Virgin restricts the availability of reward flight deals for each flight.

Whilst the number of Virgin Points you can redeem for “Points Plus Money “ flights is unlimited, you can only redeem your points in multiples of 3,000.

Currently the cash value you will get per point redeemed in this way is 0.55p a point or £16.50 for every block of 3,000 points.

A rather peculiar quirk with Virgin is that they only let you part pay with points online through their desktop website at the moment. (That may have changed by the time you read this, since it seems a rather antiquated approach).

These tickets are also only available on Virgin Atlantic operated flights, not on those flown by partner airlines, not even under a codeshare. However there are no blackout dates or other inventory restrictions.

You can apply vouchers to your booking or make upgrades, just as with tickets bought entirely with cash. You’ll also earn both Virgin Points and tier points for your journey.

One thing to watch out for, if you cancel either a refundable ticket which you partly paid for with points, Virgin will only refund the cash element, not the points or a cash value for the points you used. If you cancel a non refundable ticket you lose your money and your points- unless Virgin Atlantic are applying any exceptional rules on flexibility at the time of your flight, due to the pandemic.

If the airline cancels your flight you will be entitled to get both your points and money back.

Is Virgin Atlantic “Points Plus Money” a good deal?

Not really, well not if you base the value of the deal on the cash equivalent value of your points. The cash value of Virgin Points redeemed for flights using Points Plus Money is.0.55p.

If you earned your Virgin Points by converting your Clubcard points, you could have achieved a higher value per point by keeping your balance with Tesco and taking advantage of a wide range of other deals they offer.

Even Virgin themselves offer better deals. For example, you can exchange your Virgin Points for Heathrow Rewards, on a 1:1 basis, and get a pound off your airport shopping for every 55p you would have saved on Points Plus Money flights.

Of course, if you book a reward flight, instead of a ticket using points plus money, you can quite easily achieve a cash value of 0.8p-1p per point on your Virgin Atlantic tickets. If you qualify for some of the promotions and vouchers available, such as those for companion tickets and upgrades, an even higher cash equivalent value is quite easily achievable.

You might take the view that it didn’t cost you any money to earn your Virgin Points and therefore you’re happy to take the Points Plus Money discount. That’s fair enough but there are plenty of ways you can achieve a higher redemption value per point, such as by saving enough points for a reward flight, rather than part paying with your points.

Is there a Virgin Atlantic Companion Voucher?

Yes there is, though it works slightly differently to the British Airways 2-4-1 voucher.

Some holders of the fee-free BA card didn’t like the changes that were made to their BA Companion Voucher perk in September 2021, limiting them to Economy Class redemptions. So for anyone looking to get cheap Business Class tickets to the US or Caribbean, Virgin’s voucher scheme is definitely worth looking at as an alternative.

First of all you will need to look at the Virgin Atlantic Reward credit cards, issued by Virgin Money and decide if they are suitable products for you.

There is a fee-free version of the card and one with an annual fee called the Reward+ card.

We can’t recommend financial services to you and you should do your own research into whether any of these cards is appropriate for your needs, based on your personal circumstances. Seek advice from an approved professional if necessary.

Cardholders receive a voucher, valid for two years, when they spend £20,000 in a year on the free Virgin Atlantic Reward credit card, or £10,000 in a year on the Virgin Atlantic Reward+ credit card, which has an annual fee. They also earn Virgin Points for every pound they spend on the card.

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Members can use their voucher to redeem the same number of points for two reward flight tickets as they would normally need for one. I.e. Two tickets for the points price of one.

Unlike with BA, it doesn’t matter which version of the card you hold, you can use your voucher when you book reward flights in any cabin class, including Upper Class, so long as eligible seats are available. But if you are only on the Red tier of the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club you will need to pay 50% more points for your companion ticket, if it is in Upper Class.

If you don’t want to book a reward flight you can decide to use your voucher for a lounge pass with Virgin, Delta, KLM or Air France, so long as you are flying with one of those airlines on the day you redeem. Anyone who has achieved Gold status in the Flying Club will get two lounge passes instead of one.

The third option is to use your voucher for a one class upgrade on a return ticket, for example from Economy Class to Premium Economy or Premium Economy to Upper Class. (There does need to be reward seat availability in the higher cabin for you to do this.)

The Virgin Atlantic voucher also lets you get 2 for 1 airline tickets on cash bookings or a one class upgrade on a return flight, without using any Virgin Points.

There is also another option, for people looking to save money on flying with a partner, that doesn’t require you to operate a credit card account.

The Virgin Atlantic companion ticket lets you redeem points for adding a companion seat reservation to a new or existing booking. The easiest way to book a companion ticket is to call the Flying Club helpline on 0344 412 2414 (from the UK).

What’s the difference between Flying Club and Virgin Red? There are a wide range of Virgin branded businesses from wine merchants to broadband companies, cruise lines and airlines such as Virgin Australia and Virgin Atlantic.

Flying Club is a loyalty programme specifically for people who fly (or plan to fly) with Virgin Atlantic and its partner airlines. It has three tiers: Red, SIlver and Gold which allow you to earn more benefits, the more frequently you fly within each year of membership.

Virgin Red is a loyalty club which offers earnings and rewards on everyday spending, across all the Virgin branded businesses operating in the UK and many other popular British shops and services.

Both Flying Club and Virgin Red let you earn a loyalty currency called Virgin Points. You can join both schemes then link your memberships. So, for example, you could earn points with Virgin Media, through the Red programme, then redeem them on Virgin Atlantic flights via your linked Flying Club membership.

Is Virgin Upper Class Business or First?

Virgin Atlantic doesn’t offer a traditional Business Class on its flights.

Instead it has “Upper Class'' which, in theory, offers First Class service at Business Class prices. That was probably true when it launched but, as other airlines have upped their game in the subsequent years, I would consider Upper Class as equivalent to a very good long-haul Business Class, when compared with competing alternatives from leading European, Middle Eastern and Asian airlines.

A piece of advice though, if you want the full Upper Class experience, on a trip to or from the US, check that your flight is operated by Virgin Atlantic and not Delta. The two airlines codeshare and personally I don’t think the quality of food, drinks, service or seats on Delta are anywhere near the standard of Virgin Upper Class.

Does Virgin Atlantic Fly to Europe?

Well, that depends where you are starting your journey!

Virgin Atlantic is based in the UK and operates to and from a number of airports within the United Kingdom. However it is a long-haul airline and it doesn’t currently operate short-haul flights between the UK and continental Europe (though it has dabbled with trying a few feeder routes in the past).

The lack of a short-haul European network is one of the reasons Flying Club has never been as popular as BA’s Executive Club. There is some good news though. It’s now possible to earn and spend Virgin Points on hundreds of short-haul flights across Europe and beyond.

In early 2020, Virgin Atlantic, Air France, KLM and Delta agreed a formal joint venture, involving codeshares (selling each other's flights as their own) on a wide range of routes. The timing of the deal meant it didn’t get much attention at the time and flight restrictions in the early stages of the pandemic meant few people could actually take advantage of it. Now most European countries have relaxed their rules, there are some reward flight bargains to be had, by redeeming Virgin Points on trips to Europe, operated by Air France and KLM. KLM is a particularly attractive option for Brits, their main base at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport is a convenient hub and flight taxes and fees are lower in The Netherlands than the UK.

How do I contact Virgin Atlantic Flying Club?

Flying Club offers a 24 hour telephone helpline for members in the UK on 0344 412 2414.

They also have some international helplines, dedicated to members: USA South Africa Hong Kong China India Caribbean

+1 800 365 9500 +27 11 340 3535 +852 2532 3000 +86 21 5353 4600 +1-800-102-3000 (toll free), +91-124-4693030 +1 800 744 7477

At peak times it can take a while to get through on the phone, so it’s well worth looking to see if you can solve your problem online.

Flying Club offers a range of help, support and advice on this page.

There is also a general enquiries support page for Virgin Atlantic here.

I hope you found these answers helpful, don’t forget you can always find more help and advice on reward flights at Rewardflightfinder.com Original Source https://rewardflightfinder.medium.com/ask-alisha-virgin-atlantic-flying-club-a f69d79692a6