Thought this might be useful to some, lifted from an excellent frequent travel blog:
http://www.headforpoints.com/2015/09/05/virgin-flying-club-credit-card-bonus/Virgin Atlantic has boosted the sign-up bonus on its credit cards again. This is not entirely surprising given that British Airways increased the bonus on its cards recently.
This new offer is as high as the sign-up offer on the Virgin cards has ever been.
Here is a quick overview of the Virgin credit cards. If some of the text sounds familiar, it is because I have cut and pasted some of it from the last Virgin promotion!
Virgin Flying Club offer two different credit card options. There is a free ‘White’ card and a £140 fee ‘Black’ card. Each comes in the standard MBNA double-pack of an American Express and a Visa.
Unlike the British Airways American Express cards, MBNA is happy for you to have BOTH of the Virgin cards. Whilst I would not recommend this, I know that some HFP readers in the past have applied for both at the same time and received both. This does put you under some pressure to hit the spending targets on both cards at the same time.
The free card is the Virgin Atlantic White Credit Card.
There is NO annual fee with this card, and the sign up bonus is 10,000 Virgin Flying Club miles. The usual bonus is just 3,000 miles and it never goes above 10,000 miles so this is as good as it gets.
You will receive 3,000 miles immediately and a further 7,000 miles when you spend just £1,000 in the first 90 days. Should you decide to keep the card, you will earn 1 mile per £1 spent on the Amex and 0.5 miles per £1 spent on the Visa.
My full review of Virgin White is here. The application page is here.
The representative APR of the card is 17.9% variable.
Virgin credit card bonus
The more generous fee-carrying card is the Virgin Atlantic Black Credit Card.
This card comes with an annual fee of £140, with a sign-up bonus of 32,000 Virgin Flying Club miles. The standard offer on this card was recently increased to 18,500 miles, so the additional bonus is 13,500.
You will receive 18,500 miles with your first purchase and a further 13,500 miles when you spend £3,000 in the first 90 days.
The earnings rate for the Black card is EXCELLENT. You earn 2 miles per £1 on the American Express and a whopping (compared to the competition) 1 mile per £1 on the Visa.
My full review of Virgin Black is here. The application page is here.
The representative APR of the card is 52.0% variable including the fee, assuming a £1200 credit limit. The annual fee is £140.
And vouchers too ….
There are also two long-term incentives available with the Virgin cards. The White card offers an upgrade voucher (from Economy to Premium Economy only) for a miles redemption when you spend £10,000, and a second at £20,000. The Black card offers the same vouchers at £5,000 and £10,000.
Both cards also offer what I consider a worthless incentive – a voucher at £15,000 (White) or £7,500 (Black) for a free companion seat – excluding heavy taxes – when you buy a flexible ticket in any class. This is likely to require you to buy a ticket which is usually hundreds of pounds more expensive than the cheapest ticket available for sale and is likely to be more expensive than buying two discounted tickets in the first place.
More information on these can be found in the reviews which I link to above.
Terms & Conditions
The key facts you need to remember before you apply are:
The application deadline is 27th October and you have 90 days from application to achieve the £1,000 / £3,000 target
MBNA does NOT offer a pro-rata refund when you cancel your card. Your £140 fee for the Black card is a sunk cost. You are therefore (effectively) paying £140 for the additional 22,000 miles on the Black card, since you could get 10,000 miles for £nothing by getting the White card instead.
You CANNOT combine this offer with the ‘refer a friend’ bonus I normally offer, which would have got you an additional 3,000 miles. However, this is still a far better deal than the usual bonus even without the additional 3,000.
How can you earn more miles?
It is very easy to earn further Virgin Flying Club miles to top up your account. The options are numerous:
Transfers from Tesco Clubcard (at a higher rate than BA, £2.50 = 625 Flying Club miles)
Transfers from American Express Membership Rewards (1:1) – transfers from Amex to Virgin are instantaneous as well, once your accounts are linked, unlike transfers to BA
Transfers from Heathrow Rewards (1:1)
Transfers from most hotel programmes, including Starwood Preferred Guest
There are also some hotels which credit to Virgin even though they do not credit to Avios
Car rentals – Virgin offers a generous 1,000 miles per Hertz rental for example
Receive 5,000 Virgin miles for taking out a Virgin Money ISA
Receive 3,000 Virgin miles with your first order from Virgin Wines
The ‘1 mile per £1′ rate on the Black Visa also allows you to run up miles very quickly
It is also worth remembering that you can transfer Virgin Flying Club miles into Hilton HHonors points (at 2:3) and IHG Rewards Club points (at 1:1). Getting one of these cards may be a way of giving your Hilton or IHG account a boost.
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