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

1 month ago 12

Flying to over 30 destinations across five continents, Virgin Atlantic may be a carrier that you have overlooked when planning your travels. While booking cash and award flights with the U.K.-based carrier can be costly, especially with added surcharges, the airline's loyalty program, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, offers attractive partner award charts and noteworthy Saver fares.

Since Flying Club partners with major credit card rewards programs, points and miles enthusiasts can snag a great deal. For example, you can find one-way business-class lie-flat seats from John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to London's Heathrow Airport (LHR) for just 29,000 points.

Despite the program's recent switch to dynamic pricing for flights operated by Virgin Atlantic, Virgin points currently stand out for offering incredible value with many uses. Keep reading to find out more about Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, including how to earn, redeem and maximize your reward points.

How to earn Virgin Flying Club points

There are several ways to earn Virgin Flying Club points directly.

Fly with Virgin Atlantic

You can earn Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points by simply flying with the carrier. The number of points you earn is based on the flight distance, booking class and whether you hold Flying Club elite status. To easily calculate how many points you will earn on your flight, you can use the airline's earning calculator.

Since Virgin Atlantic is a member of the SkyTeam alliance, you can also earn Virgin points when flying with one of the carrier's partners, including Delta, Air France-KLM and more. To find out the number of points you can earn on partner airlines, be sure to navigate to Virgin's partner page and click on the airline you are flying. You will earn redeemable award points based on your cabin, booking class and distance flown.

Earn Virgin points through credit card rewards

If you are looking to easily stock up on Virgin points, the Virgin Red Rewards Mastercard® is offering the following welcome bonus: Earn 40,000 points after spending $3,000 on the card in your first 90 days. Plus, cardholders can earn additional points with the following earning rates:

3 points per $1 with Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Hotels and Virgin Voyages
2 points per $1 on dining, groceries, electric vehicle charging and select streaming services
1 point per $1 on all other purchases

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The information for the Virgin Red Rewards Mastercard has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

However, if opening a new credit card is not appealing or if you're not a frequent Virgin Atlantic flyer, Flying Club partners with every major credit card rewards program. Therefore, it's easy to boost your Virgin points balance if you have a rewards credit card that earns points within the following programs:

American Express Membership Rewards (1:1)
Bilt Rewards (1:1)
Capital One (1:1)
Chase Ultimate Rewards (1:1)
Citi ThankYou Rewards (1:1)
Marriott Bonvoy (3:1 with a 5,000-point bonus for transferring 60,000 points)
Wells Fargo Rewards (1:1)

Note that Capital One miles transfer to Virgin Red, not directly to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. However, you can easily use your Virgin Red account points with Flying Club.

Since Flying Club partners with every major transferable credit card rewards currency, there are often transfer bonuses, which means you can redeem your points for less.

Many of these programs offer cards that feature terrific welcome bonuses. Here's just a sample of the travel rewards credit cards that earn these transferable points that can be converted to Virgin points:

Purchase Virgin points

Virgin Atlantic allows you to purchase up to 100,000 Virgin points per calendar year at a rate of 2.5 cents in intervals of 1,000 points each, plus a transaction fee of $22, regardless of the number of points purchased.

TPG values Virgin points at 1.4 cents per point, per our November 2024 valuations; therefore, since the cost of purchasing points is much higher, it's not a good deal to purchase points at full price. However, Virgin sometimes runs bonus promotions when purchasing points. For example, in March, the carrier offered up to 70% bonus points, plus increased caps on annual purchase limits. This can bring the price down to a more reasonable cost and may be worth it to top off your account or to book an award flight.

Virgin Atlantic Points Booster

If you've flown a Virgin Atlantic-operated flight — whether you paid cash or points for it — you can use Flying Club's Points Booster to score extra points for cheap. You can usually pay 0.01 British pounds (or $0.013) per point for the bonus points.

You can even use the Points Booster for flights you have already taken up to six months back.

Other Virgin Atlantic earning partners

There are several partners through which you can earn Virgin points by shopping or traveling:

Hotels: You can earn Virgin points booking stays with Virgin Hotels, Marriott Bonvoy, Best Western, Hilton Honors, IHG One Rewards and World of Hyatt
Car rental partners: Virgin Atlantic partners with Avis, Alamo, Enterprise, National and Sixt
Virgin Trains Ticketing: Earn points for train trips across Great Britain
Heathrow Rewards: You can earn points for shopping or parking at London's Heathrow Airport and transfer them to Flying Club
Rocketmiles and Kaligo: You can earn between 500 and 10,000 Virgin points per night for booking hotels through the accommodation platforms Rocketmiles and Kaligo
Shops Away: Earn Virgin points when you choose to shop at over 1,000 retailers through Virgin Atlantic's shopping portal

There are also ways to earn Virgin points through airport lounge purchases, completing online surveys and airport parking.

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club elite status

Virgin Flying Club offers three elite status tiers: Red, Silver and Gold. When you fly with Virgin or its partners, you earn Tier Points, and the higher the status you have with the airline, the more perks you'll receive.

You'll receive the following benefits at each elite status tier:

Red (new member)

Board first in economy
Free standard seat selection in Economy Light and Classic (7 days before departure with Virgin Atlantic Holidays)
Free seat selection in Economy Delight (7 days before departure with Virgin Atlantic Holidays)
Dedicated Flying Club phone line
Discounted access and earn points at No1 Lounges

Silver (400 Tier Points required)

You'll receive the same benefits as Red tier members, as well as the following benefits:

Premium check-in
Priority boarding
30% more bonus points on flights
One additional checked bag
Tier renewal bonus
Gift companion and upgrade vouchers to friends and family
Member benefits with Virgin Hotels
Household account for up to nine people
Status extension for maternity, paternity and/or adoption

Gold (1,000 Tier Points required)

You'll receive the same benefits as Silver tier members, as well as the following:

60% more Virgin points on flights
Guaranteed Upper Class seat
Free standard seat selection in Economy Light and Classic (anytime for you and your party)
Free seat selection in Economy Delight (anytime for you and your party)
Preferred seat selection before your flight in Premium (member only)
Upper Class check-in (no matter what cabin you fly in)
Lounge access for you plus one guest (when flying in any cabin class)
Access to London Heathrow Revivals Lounge
2,000 bonus points on your birthday
Earn a Flying Club reward voucher when you renew your Gold status
Gift Flying Club reward vouchers to family and friends
Gift Silver status to a friend
Guaranteed economy seat on any flight
Receive two reward vouchers when you reach 2,000 Tier Points in your membership year

How to redeem Virgin Flying Club points

In October, Flying Club drastically changed its loyalty program and moved to dynamic pricing. Now, every seat on a Virgin Atlantic-operated flight is available to book with Virgin points. Like with cash fares, seats booked with Virgin points are priced according to demand. However, the number of Virgin points required to book an award seat is not linked to the cash prices, which has resulted in some excellent and some awful redemption rates.

When searching for award redemptions, look for Saver seats marked with a red tag. These award seats are now the cheapest options, though they will not be offered on every flight.

You can use Virgin's handy Reward Seat Checker to find the lowest-priced seats.

If you're lucky enough to snag this redemption, you'll be booking the lowest award rate for business-class flights to Europe compared to other major airline loyalty programs.

Unfortunately, the downside of dynamic pricing is that the points required can be astronomical if you want to travel on peak dates like school holidays and during the summer months, with some routes requiring 150,000 points for a single flight in economy or 350,000 points in business class.

At these rates, check the price of cash fares, as you may find a better deal than redeeming your Virgin or credit card reward points.

A major downside when booking with Virgin is the carrier-imposed surcharges that will be tacked on to your ticket. However, during the loyalty program's overhaul, these fees were significantly reduced, so now they are more reasonable. Additionally, when departing the United Kingdom, the U.K. APD Tax must also be paid, which can add hundreds of dollars to your redemption in premium classes.

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club airline partners

Aside from Saver fares, which are strictly limited in capacity and may not be available on peak travel dates, the real magic of using Virgin points lies in partner award redemptions. Since the carrier joined the SkyTeam alliance, you can redeem Virgin points on all SkyTeam airlines.

Redemptions on SkyTeam airlines are distance-based — excluding flights operated by Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines— and you will need the following Virgin points each way per person (note that some airlines do not offer premium economy):

Flight distance (miles)EconomyPremium economyBusiness

0-500	5,500	9,000	14,500
501-1,000	7,000	12,500	15,500
1,001-1,500	10,000	16,000	21,500
1,501-2,250	11,500	22,000	35,000
2,251-3,000	15,500	26,500	40,000
3,001-4,000	20,500	37,500	60,000
4,001-5,000	25,500	47,500	75,000
5,001-6,000	31,000	57,500	85,000
6,001-7,000	37,000	70,000	100,000
7,001-12,000	50,000	95,000	140,000

As for Air France-KLM and Delta-operated flights, be sure to check out Virgin's website to view the award charts for these carriers.

You'll notice that partner redemption charts do not include first-class fares. This means you can't redeem your Virgin points for SkyTeam airlines that offer first class, including Garuda Indonesia, Korean Air, Saudia Airlines and Xiamen Airlines.

Air France also offers first class but restricts redemptions to elite members of its own Flying Blue program.

In addition to the 16 SkyTeam airlines you can redeem your Virgin points with, you can also book award flights with the following airlines using Virgin points:

You can also earn Virgin points — but not redeem them — with partner IndiGo.

Each non-SkyTeam partner has a different award chart. Some are distance-based and others are zone-based, so each airline can have different terms and conditions.

The following partners can be booked on the Virgin website:

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

You must call Virgin Atlantic at 800-365-9500 to book award tickets for carriers that do not appear online.

However, you can still search for availability on other websites. For example, the United Airlines website is excellent for finding available seats on Star Alliance carriers. Once you find what you want, note the travel dates and flight numbers. Then, call Virgin Atlantic and feed that information to the customer service representative.

Best ways to redeem Virgin points for maximum value

With so many different airline partners, here are some of our favorite ways to redeem your Virgin points.

Saver fares on Virgin Atlantic

On dates with low demand, such as transatlantic flights on certain days over the northern winter period, the new Saver fare flights will now start from as low as 6,000 Virgin points in economy from JFK to Heathrow, 10,500 Virgin points in premium economy and just 29,000 Virgin points in business class.

Carrier-imposed surcharges for Saver fares have also been reduced, starting from just $45 in economy, $78 in Premium and $227 in Upper Class on a flight from New York to London. Minor additional government taxes and airport fees are also payable, which differ from route to route. Remember that the taxes for flights departing London will be more expensive than those to London because of the U.K. APD Tax.

These are the lowest redemption rates to fly to London compared to any major airline loyalty program.

All Nippon Airways

Virgin Atlantic's incredible redemption rates for ANA-operated flights should always be considered if you want to get between the U.S. and Japan. This route is one of the best award travel sweet spots, though availability can be tough to find.

Take a look at Virgin Atlantic's award chart for ANA flights. These prices are for one-way travel, so you must double the price for a round-trip redemption.

If you were to book a round-trip, first-class seat to Japan from the West Coast in one of ANA's fancy suite seats, you'd spend just 145,000 points for a seat costing $20,000 or more. Business class is also an excellent deal at just 105,000 points.

It's also worth noting that round-trip award flights are incredibly cheap for infants under 2 years old who don't need a seat of their own:

Economy seats cost 2,000 points
Business-class seats cost 10,000 points
First-class seats cost 14,000 points

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 price based on your origin and destination zones. Here are some notable price highlights from the U.S. on off-peak dates:

One-way economy flight to Europe from the West Coast for 15,000 points
One-way economy flight to the Middle East from the East Coast for 25,000 points
One-way business-class flight to Europe from the East Coast for 48,500 points
One-way business-class flight from the East Coast to North Africa for 66,500 points

You'll often incur fuel surcharges for your flights, but they're often not as high as for Virgin Atlantic awards. In our experience, surcharges are under $300 for a one-way business-class ticket from the U.S. to Europe, making Air France-KLM a cheaper option for business-class European redemptions.

Bottom line

Virgin Atlantic is intricate — some of its luster has disappeared after devaluations and diminishing availability from its partners. While the new dynamic pricing model favors those who are flexible and can travel during off-peak periods, those wanting to travel over major holidays and peak summer months may likely now need to look to other programs for decent award redemptions.

However, the program is still highly valuable for international travel, particularly for flying ANA, Air France or KLM in premium cabins when availability allows. Additionally, because the program has so many transfer partners, its points are easy to earn. Therefore, this loyalty program should not be overlooked.

Editorial disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

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