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Bits: BA Holidays sale, get 50% bonus Virgin Atlantic tier points and miles

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News in brief:

British Airways Holidays sale – from £50 deposit

The British Airways ‘Take-Off’ sale, which was due to run until the 22nd, has changed.  BA will now continue discounting until 29th September but only on selected routes.  Prices have returned to normal across the rest of the network.   The current offers can be seen here.

Instead, BA has added a number of offers with British Airways Holidays.  This includes the return of the popular ‘£50 deposit’ promotion until September 22nd.

It can often be cheaper to book a British Airways holiday package than book a stand-alone British Airways flight.  Try pricing up a flight and a very poor hotel (which you don’t bother using) or a flight and a car hire and see what you get.  The ability to pay just £50 down and the remainder at ten weeks prior to departure is an extra benefit!

When I say ‘BA Holidays’ you should NOT necessarily think of a Spanish beach.  You can also get ‘flight and hotel’ short breaks in major cities.

The ‘£50 down’ offer is explained here.  It is valid for ‘flight and hotel’ or ‘flight and car’ booking of up to £999.

Get 50% bonus Virgin Atlantic tier points on non-US routes

Virgin Atlantic has launched a bonus offer on its Delhi, Dubai, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Lagos and Shanghai routes.

You will receive 50% extra bonus miles on every return flight you take until 31st December 2015.  You will also earn extra tier points: two for each Economy return trip, four for Premium Economy and six for Upper Class.  

Given that you only need 15 tier points in a rolling 12 month period for Silver and 40 for Gold, this is attractive.  An Upper Class return will earn 16-18 tier points under this offer which means that just two and a half Virgin Atlantic return trips before the end of the year will get you Gold from a standing start.

Learn more about this offer and register here.  Note that bookings must be made before 31st October.


How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (April 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Virgin Points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

You can choose from two official Virgin Atlantic credit cards (apply here, the Reward+ card has a bonus of 18,000 Virgin Points and the free card has a bonus of 3,000 Virgin Points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

3,000 bonus points, no fee and 1 point for every £1 you spend Read our full review

You can also earn Virgin Points from various American Express cards – and these have sign-up bonuses too.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for a year and comes with 20,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 20,000 Virgin Points.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with 50,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 50,000 Virgin Points.

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Small business owners should consider the two American Express Business cards. Points convert at 1:1 into Virgin Points.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Virgin Points

Comments (14)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Al says:

    Is there any way to add the ‘poor hotel’ to the booking just for a single night, or must the ‘hotel stay’ span over the whole period of your trip?

    • Anthony Dunn says:

      Hi, yes you should have the option of either booking a hotel for the duration of your stay or only a part of it.

  • fiona says:

    You can actually get a beach holiday. I booked a BA holiday to Bangkok with a hotel in Hua Hin. I got a price for the hotel which was far and above the best price I could find. I am pretty certain you can beach options when booking many Spanish destinations as well

    • Danny says:

      I thinking what Rob was trying to say was that some people may think of a ‘holiday’ as a beach one, whereas booking a city break, is also a ‘holiday’.

  • fiona says:

    You are right Danny! Too early in the morning for me 🙂

  • cheekychappie says:

    Just did a couple of checks and indeed, a two day break with hotel included is actually sometimes cheaper than the one way flight out on the same day 1 🙂

    Eg return flight + hotel £147 (11th Oct) vs one way HBO £178, with luggage £193 (our usual European destination).

    Seems to be more likely with near dates, as you’d expect. So not that much use to us, except if there is a sudden need to fly out.

  • Jac says:

    One word of warning: when adding car hire (or hotel) to your flight, BA wont allow you to cancel for free within 24 hours nor can you benefit from their price guarantee (on the flight).
    even though car hire when booked separetely is normally flexible, BA wont allow you to cancel the car hire part either

  • Danksy says:

    Can you book these via OB?

  • cheekychappie says:

    The technology has improved dramatically since Concorde, which was developed irrationally at immense cost to the taxpayer – and probably robbed BA of the investment monies needed to develop more important services & maintain a commanding position in Europe. The airlines nowadays have to give the beancounters & owners more power to say no to poor investments than in nationalised days – which is a very good thing.

    Whilst the technology is much better, it is still far too expensive & would not remotely justify developing supersonic aircraft. Once passengers have to pay the sort of ticket price that would give a reasonable return on the investment, every airline in the world realises the market would be so small as to be irrelevant.

    • Will says:

      BA made money out of Concorde, plus all commercial planes of the era were either directly or indirectly government funded. Look at the A380 – government backed money.

      • Will says:

        BA didn’t pay. The taxpayer did. It’s like attributing the R&D costs which remain yet to recoup for the A380 to Emirates just because they fly it. BA was sold for £900 million when it privatised, including the Concorde fleet. Concorde made BA almost £1billion post privatisation.

  • Danksy says:

    Whilst the speed may not have increased the environmental impact has reduced hugely… This http://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Documents/EnvironmentReport-2010/ICAO_EnvReport10-Ch2_en.pdf is 5 years old now, but with the modern lightweight composite materials being used in aircraft design aircraft are much more fuel efficient than previously. The a350Xwb has a 100% carbon fibre fuselage , and reckons on using 10% less fuel as a result based on comparison to an equivalent modern airfcraft.

    Part of me harps back to the good old days of supersonic flights and generous air miles scheme, however the world has woken up (unfortunately)!

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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