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News: win flights in Virgin Atlantic’s live aviation quiz, get a £16 Europcar discount

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News in brief:

Virgin Atlantic hosting a lockdown quiz for charity

Virgin Atlantic is holding a lockdown quiz on Thursday 25th March – and you are invited.

A range of prizes are up for grabs, with the overall winner getting two Upper Class return flights to anywhere on the Virgin Atlantic network.

The quiz will take place at 7pm on Thursday 25th March and is set to last for one hour. It will be hosted via Zoom using quiz website Crowdpurr. With most rounds being ‘fastest finger first’, don’t think that you can cheat!

Rounds will cover Virgin Atlantic, its destinations and airline history, with a few random questions thrown in on top. A trial version of this quiz was done at the virtual Virgin Atlantic media Christmas Party last year and it worked well, with the winner that time being a Mr Rhys Jones …..

The evening is being run to raise funds for the Trussell Trust charity. Tickets costs £5 each and are available now at https://virginatlanticquiz.eventbrite.co.uk. I will try to ensure that Rhys is not allowed to enter to give the rest of you a chance …. 

Virgin Atlantic Trussell Trust charity quiz

£16 Europcar discount code launched

Europcar is offering a £16 discount code off a £160+ car rental for bookings made this month.

Your rental can be for any time before the end of June.

Participating countries are the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria and Belgium.

The code you need is EC_MARCH_0321. The Europcar website is here.

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How to get FREE car rental status and other benefits via UK credit cards

How to get FREE car rental status and other benefits via UK credit cards (April 2025)

If you hire a car in the UK, you can get special benefits (discounts, upgrades, free additional drivers etc) if you have elite status with a car rental programme. You can get elite status for free via certain American Express cards.

The Platinum Card and American Express Business Platinum

The Platinum Card from American Express and American Express Business Platinum come with two free car hire status cards. Your supplementary Platinum cardholder can also receive status in their own right.

From Avis, you receive President’s Club status in Avis Preferred. This gets you up to 25% off standard rates, a free additional driver and a guaranteed one class upgrade. For weekend rentals you will receive a two class upgrade, subject to availability.

From Hertz, you receive ‘Five Star’ status in Hertz Gold Plus Rewards. This gets you up to 15% off standard rates, a free additional driver and a one class upgrade, subject to availability.

Hertz also offers Platinum cardholders a 4 hour grace period on rentals. Your final day is treated as 28 hours, so a 1pm pick up with a 5pm return the following day is only charged as one day, not two days. We wrote about the Hertz / Platinum 4 hour grace period here.

The Platinum Card also comes with full car hire insurance with no obligation to pay for the rental via American Express. You can refuse any attempts to sell you additional insurance at pick up. This benefit has substantial value if you rent on a regular basis.

You can find more details on the two Platinum cards, and apply, in our full reviews linked below. You can apply here for the personal card and here for the business card.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

The Platinum Card from American Express

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

American Express Business Platinum

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

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is an excellent card in its own right. You receive 20,000 Membership Rewards points for signing up (convert to 20,000 Avios amongst other things), four airport lounge passes and £120 of Deliveroo credit. Even better, your first year is free.

There are two car rental benefits:

  • you receive Preferred Plus status in Avis Preferred
  • you receive a special package with Hertz – 10% off best available rates at participating locations, a one class upgrade for rentals of 5 days or more, subject to availability, and no additional driver fees

Find out more about the benefits of American Express Preferred Rewards Gold in our review. You can apply here.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

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

Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (34)

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

  • Chas says:
    16 Mar16 March 05:50

    Error: first paragraph says 25 May, whilst the third says 25 March.

    • Wally1976 says:
      16 Mar16 March 07:40

      I read the first paragraph, thought “that’s months away, I’ll have a look nearer the time” and didn’t read any further!

  • Lee says:
    16 Mar16 March 05:55

    The 15,000 points to switch is not on my Virgin Red app.

    • Karl says:
      16 Mar16 March 06:29

      Think this offer finished yesterday.

      • Rob Collins says:
        16 Mar16 March 07:20

        This will be the current account that I’ve still not been able to open despite applying on 16th February. Their customer service is appalling. Yes, the 15,000 offer finished yesterday.

    • Patrick Cold says:
      16 Mar16 March 08:46

      A fortunate escape for you. The whole set up is a shambles.

      • mr_jetlag says:
        16 Mar16 March 19:40

        same here, jokers lost my application, guess I’m sticking to Barclays

    • Sam says:
      16 Mar16 March 10:29

      Worked perfectly here. Points delivered much faster than expected

      • Adam says:
        16 Mar16 March 12:02

        Same here although I opened up before Christmas when they were offering 15 bottles of wine.

  • Alex W says:
    16 Mar16 March 07:22

    15,000 miles (plus £265 fees) still looks poor value when Virgin are advertising cash flights to NYC for £340 return.

    • Andrew says:
      16 Mar16 March 09:41

      Aren’t the £340 fares Economy Light?

      15,000 miles (plus £265) is for Economy Classic (choose seats and get hold luggage).

      £340+90 (usual EC premium over EL)=£430.
      15,000 points = (£430-£265) £165.

      So 1.1p per point. Not a bad redemption.

      • Andrew says:
        16 Mar16 March 09:59

        Not sure how I manage it, but there must something I’m doing that creates a wordpress table inside the comments boxes.

      • JPa says:
        16 Mar16 March 10:14

        The cash flight would also earn 3,457 miles for a discounted fare class in EC, more if it wasn’t but assuming all are discount fare class at the moment.

    • lumma says:
      16 Mar16 March 09:44

      Not too bad if you got the 15,000 miles for free for opening the current account (they pretty much are free in this instance as there’s nothing stopping you opening another account for another sign-up bonus).

      I suppose you could take the wine instead, but I also have doubts over the advertised value of that. Virgin Wines are my least favourite of these online wine cluba

  • Stephen Milward says:
    16 Mar16 March 08:11

    I also couldn’t open a Virgin current account due to ‘an error’ with my personal details.
    Customer Service less than useless and 15000 miles offer did end yesterday.

    • Andrew says:
      16 Mar16 March 09:43

      If Customer Service won’t tell you what the “error” is, just do a subject access request.

      • JPa says:
        16 Mar16 March 10:18

        I got there in the end for mine and my wifes accounts. My one I already had an old YB profile that it didn’t like the number beginning with 44, even though it had just sent me a text message as part of the login process. They changed it on the phone to 0. My wife’s got an unspecified error and worked the second time I started again. My one I probably submitted 6 times before it decided to actually complete the application and open the account! At least you can pull up you pending application and don’t need to start again. Now I am just waiting for them to tell me I can only have the wine and not the points!

        • Sandgrounder says:
          16 Mar16 March 17:03

          I switched on Friday and got the 15k today. The process wasn’t too bad, a technical problem that stopped my application going through online was resolved in one call, although I was given some incorrect advice about needing to call to switch after the opening process was complete and wasted some time doing so. I’ll probably keep it for the 2% on the £1k and see if any regular earning opportunities are introduced.

    • Callum says:
      16 Mar16 March 10:33

      Mine was rejected because of “something on your credit report we can’t discuss” – despite already having 2 Virgin credit cards (which regularly get balance transfer offers).

      • mr_jetlag says:
        16 Mar16 March 19:42

        yes total shambles and not worth any more of my time. I’ll just have to get those 15k miles the roundabout way.

  • IanM says:
    16 Mar16 March 08:24

    There’s only one prize for the quiz? Seems pretty pointless

  • Jonathan says:
    16 Mar16 March 08:27

    Discussed the other day & consensus was don’t touch with a barge pole unless you have an immediate use. Iberia CS are awful to deal with so any flight cancellations/changes would be a real headache.

    • xcalx says:
      16 Mar16 March 08:56

      Not the case for our 6 cancelled flights in the last 12 months. All Avios and cash back within 10 days.

      • Jonathan says:
        16 Mar16 March 11:18

        A straight refund fair enough but if you want a reroute, reschedule etc then good luck. BA aren’t brilliant either but at least it’s relatively easy to MCOL them.

        The gift cards also don’t work with Avios redemptions which is pretty much the only reason to favour IB.

    • Rob says:
      16 Mar16 March 09:01

      Agreed. We’re not covering this.

  • Alex says:
    16 Mar16 March 10:07

    Or you could make Rhys take part(and win) and then do a giveaway or raffle on HFP for £5 so you still earn for charity!😉😂

  • ChrisC says:
    16 Mar16 March 10:26

    I think Rhys should enter and and try and defend his crown.

    Then await the complaints that it’s a fix as writer for a blog that promote Virgin won …

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

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