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Bits: get 4500 Avios with Times Literary Supplement, Virgin Trains competition

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News in brief:

Get 4,500 Avios with a Times Literary Supplement subscription

Avios and the Times Literary Supplement have teamed up, offering 4,500 Avios points with a 12 months subscription.

Times Literary Supplement is published on a weekly basis and the annual subscription costs £115 with Direct Debit and £120 with Debit Card or Credit Card. This is 35% less than the newsstand price.

This offer is obviously not as generous as the Sunday Times Travel magazine subscription for £30 with 4,500 Avios points (which we managed to close down early!) but it may make a classy gift for someone.

The website to buy a subscription is here.

You can give either an Avios or BA Executive Club account to receive the 4,500 Avios points.  Select the programme you want to add the points to from the drop down menu and enter your number.

Virgin Trains

Virgin Trains launches a competition

Virgin Trains is running a silly but quick-to-enter competition until tomorrow.

Simply play Sants’s Slot Machine on this page of the Virgin Trains website and win one of three prizes:

A pair of First Class return tickets anywhere on the Virgin Trains West Coast network
£150 voucher for Virgin Experience Days
A year’s worth of wine (worth over £500) from Virgin Wines (four deliveries in total, first one for Christmas)

Select the prize you’d like to win and fill out your details including email address and date of birth.

The winner will be notified by 21st December.


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 (41)

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

  • Pid says:

    Purchased the magazine on 22 Oct after it was reforest reported the offer had end and then restarted. Points posted on 30 Nov without any complaining. Must have been lucky 🙂

    I wonder if they will do a similar competition again …..

  • Andrew A says:

    I purchased the magazine as a gift in October. Still no points posted and after several emails i received this yesterday “We are writing to advise you that we are experiencing some delays in processing the Avios points that were included on our promotional offer.
    We are working hard with our partners and will update you very soon. Please accept our apologies for this delay”
    I am not convinced but will need to wait and see what happens.

  • Boi says:

    OT: Rob where’s the £13000 birthday bash? I was looking forward to reading about it today.

  • Anon says:

    O/T: Where’s Iggy?

    Middle right a bit.

    108500 points
    BOSE 60741 SERIES III SOUND DOCK BLACK
    BS-304

  • RussellH says:

    Re Sunday Times.

    I am still fighting for both my points and my partner’s.

    The initial problem (they said) was that the BAEC numbers and names did not match. I suspect that they tried to match the a/c numbers with the recipients, rather than the purchasers.

    But it cannot be that difficult, can it?

    Because I gave a sub to her sister, while she gave one to me, the two orders have got mixed up with one another. I am getting e-mails about the sub she bought worded as if they are about the one I bought.

    The original acknowledgement e-mails were sent to me, but addressed to her sister, and sent to her, but addressed to me.

    I have made three phone calls, the last one the woman I spoke to promised me a response by this morning, and gave me her direct e-mail.

    Everyone has promised that the Avios will come, but nothing happens.

  • Yasir says:

    I got my Avios points from Sunday Times Travel Magazine offer on 30th Nov. Emailed them twice as they confirmed my name was same for subscription and Avios account.

  • Tg says:

    OT. Wasnt there an offer recently of free 1000 avios if you earnt avios with a new partner? When were these meant to post and who should I chase to get them?

  • Gin and Tonic Please says:

    OT – Just trying to make the most of Shop Small before it finishes tomorrow. Has anyone had any success in spending online and getting the credit? T&Cs say it’s in-store only, but the whole thing is so buggy that I wouldn’t be surprised if online purchases tracked OK…

    • Alan says:

      Yep, I’ve had one credit from a website order and the other from a mail-in payment -neither of which were even from retailers that I thought were part of Shop Small so it was a totally unexpected bonus! 🙂

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

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