Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: 3000 Virgin Atlantic miles with half price wine, Virgin FX deal at Moneycorp

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News in brief:

Earn 3,000 Virgin miles with a generous wine offer

If you’ve never ordered from Virgin Wines before, it is running a generous offer which is worth a look.

For £65.88 including delivery, you will receive:

12 bottle of wine (mixed whites, mixed reds or mixed mixed!)

a bottle of prosecco

3,000 Virgin Flying Club miles

You are NOT signing up for any future wine deliveries.  Whilst the landing page discusses Virgin’s WineBank scheme, you do not have to join this.  If you click through the ordering process, you will see that you are not agreeing to anything beyond the initial £65.88 purchase.

Full details are here.

If you’d prefer to earn 1,000 Avios with a case of wine, take a look at this Laithwaites offer instead.  It requires an avios.com account.

Get double Virgin miles buying foreign currency at Moneycorp

Over the weekend I ran this article on how to earn miles when purchasing foreign currency.

As part of that, I mentioned the partnership between Moneycorp and Virgin Flying Club, which is outlined on the Virgin Atlantic site here.  You earn 1 Virgin mile per £1 exchanged.  You can either collect your money from Moneycorp at Gatwick or a regional UK airport (not Heathrow), have it delivered or pick it up at a Moneycorp branch.

Whilst it isn’t mentioned on the Virgin / Moneycorp page, until 31st August you will receive double Virgin miles – 2 per £1 exchanged – when you use Moneycorp.

Do check the FX rate if using your own money as it may be marginally worse when taking miles.


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 (119)

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

  • Neil says:

    Booze cruise to Calais and a nearby Holiday Inn Express, Rob?

  • Boi says:

    Perfect. I am hosting a party Saturday 29th.
    Is this the best wine deal TRH or should I look elsewhere?

    • Alex W says:

      Could do a Pieroth wine tasting at your party…

      • Lloyd says:

        …and the hard sell thereafter IME.

      • Boi says:

        Never heard of it…how does it work? (Pieroth)

        • the real harry1 says:

          it’s just a way to get a cheap wine-tasting in your home – Amex also had a massive discount deal on the card offers, not sure if it is still there

          but as reported, the sale team are rude & pushy when you don’t sign up to anything afterwards

    • Boi says:

      Thanks.
      Will give them a try….maybe I will also buy some Costco wine and do the wine tasting to see who comes out on top!

  • Robert says:

    The Kimpton thing is annoying – I booked this count towards my Stay More Earn More (10,000), it’s one of my “Travel with IHG App” bookings (1,900), it’s my “weekend stay” (4,000) and GlobeTrotter (11,200), all of which I needed for my 6-of-7 achievement (14,000) – that’s over 40,000 points!

    Is there any chance IHG will backt-rack on this? I know it’s in the current T&C but given Accelerate counts on all other IHG properties (it’s just poor forward-planning that Kimpton wasn’t included initially), surely there’s a case to argue?

    • Genghis says:

      Worth a try but rules are the rules. I’ve said before, reading the small print is important in this game.

      • Rob says:

        I am still fighting them on it. It would help if I could get anyone to understand that Amsterdam is not in Kimpton Karma and is in Rewards Club …..

  • JamesB says:

    Makes me think we best churn as much as possible in the next six months. The amex implications are very disappointing, 48h ago the concern was about BA and other cobranded cards while now it is all the cards.

  • ee says:

    Anyone else having problems getting credited in accelerate for app bookings? The booking and stay dates are both in the promotion window but the dashboard has not updated for this task (whereas it has for the other tasks). Anyone seeing similar?

    • Kathy says:

      I had an app stay not register – though one did. I’ve chased for the points.

  • Robbie says:

    Momeycorp- booking through their website without the Virgin link gives 1.28 us dollars. With the Virgin link only 1.236 us dollars. Definitely not worth the Virgin miles at that rate even if you were going to book with moneycorp. My local exchange rate gives 1.295 so works out at 100 points for 6 dollars..

    • Genghis says:

      It’s interesting that despite numerous comments this isn’t being picked up by Rob and mentioned in the articles. He’s normally hot on making sure people don’t overpay for points…

      • Alex W says:

        True but maybe it’s aimed at people who are claiming FX fees from there employer.

        • Rob says:

          Yeah, sorry, I should have put that in but it is a slippery slope if you take that line too far.

          • JamesB says:

            It would never end, articles would be full of ifs and buts. Most HFP readers are too savvy not to cover all the angles anyway, and you can be sure at least one reader will comment on potential pitfalls so all’s well that ends well.

    • RussellH says:

      My Post Office Mastercard gave me £1=$1,305 for a purchase last Sunday night, while my bank’s debit card, which charges no FX fees gave £1=$1,295 for an ATM withdrawal earlier in the same day.

  • Wally1976 says:

    OT – I emailed Marriott about the missing 1000 Avios from several sign-ups under their recent promo and got the following response:

    Thank you for contacting Marriott Rewards.

    Due to circumstances beyond our control, the 2017 Double Miles with 1K Bonus offer promotion has been suspended. If your new account is the only Marriott Rewards account that reflects your airline information, then the initial 1,000 bonus miles will post at the end of the month following the month of enrollment. This means that since your account was enrolled on June 6, 2017, they would post to your airline account by July 31, 2017.

    In addition, the bonus miles earned from qualifying stays would post to your airline account four to six weeks after the stay is completed and has posted to your Marriott Rewards account.

    Please keep in mind the name on the Marriott Rewards account must match the name on the frequent flyer account for the miles to be processed.

    If the miles do not post within the timeframes provided above, please reply to this email confirming your airline account number and your name as it appears on your airline account for further research.

    Thank you for choosing Marriott.

    • Anna says:

      I’ve had an email saying they know nothing about the offer and I need to contact avios! (Though it was BAEC).

    • Sandra says:

      Thank you for that information. I will look out for that towards the end of the month as I also have confirmation and no rewards as yet.

    • Justin says:

      I registered using my M&M account, and got the bonus 1k miles last week.

  • Dominic says:

    OT sorry. Never used the Eurostar before and wondering what people thought of the difference between Standard Premier and Business Premier.

    Main difference I can see is the food and lounge access. I have an amex platinum so will be able to use the lounge anyway. Is there much extra difference to justify paying so much more?

    Thanks

    • Genghis says:

      Standard prem = room temperature food, business prem = hot food. Both amuse bouche size portions. Both get lots of wine if you want it. Seat is the same. Only fast track with business prem (but still useless at Gare Du Nord last Tues after a bomb alert). Where business prem comes into its own is its flexibility when there are delays on certain trains.

      • Rob says:

        FWIW, I always do Standard Premier. I have lounge access via Amex Plat (when I remember it, big mess up last time!) and the seat is the same. Absolutely not worth the extra for Fast Track – not really needed anyway – and the better meal.

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