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NEW: Get 50% off USA redemptions in a new Virgin Atlantic reward seat sale

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Virgin Flying Club has launched a new sale on flight redemptions – and it’s a big one.

Redemption flights to the United States are reduced by a whopping 50% for the next week.

You have until 20th March to book.

You can check availability and taxes on the Virgin Atlantic website here. If the reduced pricing doesn’t show, check back later in the morning.

Discounts apply to the Economy, Premium and Upper Class cabins.

The discount applies to full redemptions and to flight upgrades.

You must travel by 30th June 2024. If you only fly out before that date, only the outbound portion will be discounted.

You must book on a Virgin Atlantic aircraft. Redemptions on partner Delta Air Lines are not included.

Here are the participating routes. Full taxes and charges are payable on top – no reductions here! – which will be around £1,000 return in Upper Class, £500 in Premium and £300 in Economy.

From London Heathrow:

  • Atlanta
  • Boston
  • Las Vegas
  • Los Angeles
  • Miami
  • New York JFK
  • San Francisco
  • Seattle
  • Tampa
  • Orlando
  • Washington

From Manchester:

  • Atlanta
  • New York JFK
  • Las Vegas

From Edinburgh:

  • Orlando

You can see the Virgin Atlantic reward charts, showing the points needed before the discounts above, on this page of its website. The same page has the peak and off-peak pricing dates.

You can combine these discounts with a Virgin Atlantic credit card 2-4-1 voucher.

You CANNOT combine them with a Gold reward (opens up any seat for double points if you are Gold) or ‘Points Plus Money’.

You CANNOT change the date of your booking after 20th March without the booking repricing at the standard rate.

Reward tickets will earn Virgin Flying Club tier points at the usual rates.

If you want to earn more Virgin Points, our review of the Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard credit card is here (15,000 bonus points) and our review of the free Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard credit card is here.

You can find out more on the Virgin Atlantic website here. If the sale is not live when you read this, give it a couple of hours and check back.

PS. If you are short of points, there is a 70% bonus when you buy Virgin Points at present. See here.


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 (116)

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

  • r* says:

    Does anyone know a contact email for Virgin? They have taken twice as many points as a booking shouldve been and I’d rather raise it via email than on a phone call where the agent probably wont understand half of whats being said.

    • Jack says:

      The Virgin agents on the phone are brilliant to be fair

      • r* says:

        Given that you cant use vouchers or partner bookings on the website, you have to call them and so far theyve made mistakes on 50% of the bookings Ive made, including charging twice, spelling names wrong, not sending confirmation emails etc.

        Having to book by phone puts me off now, I just expect them to make mistakes.

        • Jack says:

          Okay, seems insanely unlucky. Genuinely get high praise compared to BA agents, and in my experience, deservedly so.

          But even in general, you are just adding to wait times going via email. It’d even be faster via DM on twitter… just create a new dummy account for it if needed. Email is the lowest point of priority for anyone
          now.

          • MCO says:

            I second that. Virgin staff are amongst the best in the Industry. Always had fantastic service.

        • Danny says:

          You can make partner bookings by online chat. They call you, or send a secure payment link, to pay the fees/charges.

  • MattB says:

    Anyone tried cancelling an existing booking over the period and rebooking at the discounted rate? 😀

    • Rob says:

      Obviously not a problem IF replacement seats are showing. It’s a risk if you’re hoping the seats you’ve got instantly go back into the pot.

      • MattB says:

        True, I don’t think my wife will be too happy if I mess up our flights over Easter!

    • VickyTM says:

      I just upgraded one leg of a return redemption and it repriced the whole trip if that helps you.

    • Tracy says:

      Just done it over the phone. They took so long cancelling existing booking ( systems playing up) but the points were refunded immediately so I rebooked online while still on hold! I had to change flight back time but New York Upper so lots of options still. 115k points saved 👍🏻 warning though, she said estimated 20 working days for refund.

      • Littlefish says:

        Refunds are a major issue currently on Virgin. In practical terms they take so long I no longer treat VFC rewards as flexible. I currently have 3 separate refunds after cancellation now over 2 months waiting.
        This issue is devaluing the whole VFC scheme compared to BA and avios

      • Nige says:

        I had to wait 58 days recently for a refund on 2 x upper rewards LHR-JFK

        • Ryan says:

          Same, I waited around 2 months here for one. A token heather of 5,000 points helped a little

      • Travel Strong says:

        It’s a scandalous amount of time to keep your money, and only started in the covid-era of holding on to cash to sure up balance sheets.

        It’s high time Virgin are called out on this – simply bad behavior and it hardly gets mentioned.

        • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

          After a couple of weeks and a couple of chases I’d be contacting my credit card asking for their assistance on progressing the refund.

        • Travel Strong says:

          Virgin Money were supremely unhelpful (with getting the money back from Virgin Atlantic) and warned me off – explaining just how long their own process would take once they sent me the *paper* forms etc etc. I agree that a modern bank may offer a better solution though!

  • ChasP says:

    why all the negative comments?
    These points sales seem to be regular I think we’ve had 3 post COVID
    Yes £1k charges is a lot but Virgin charge less points than BA and compared to £3k cash its a great deal
    Comparing to a Paris Dublin NY fare is apples to potatoes
    The older UC seats were hailed at the time as being so much better than BA (pre club Suite)- no climbing over other passengers or handing food over you. And you still face a lottery on BA for a modern seat

    • Qrfan says:

      “yes £1k changes is a lot”. You answered your own question. Most people will never be happy with a redemption sale that costs them £1k per person in hard cash. They’ll be reluctant customers at best. Whether that’s rational or not is debatable, but I’m pretty sure it’s true regardless.

    • Chris W says:

      You don’t face a lottery on BA for Club Suite to NYC. It’s a 100% Club Suite route.

      • Rob says:

        It is SCHEDULED to be 100% Club Suite. Not always the case due to maintenance issues.

        • Mark says:

          I’ve seen several instances where it has been switched. Unfortunately BA seems to be stuck on the last 6 Heathrow 777s without Club Suite despite numerous passed targets for have them all refitted so it will remain a risk for the foreseeable future.

      • Alastair says:

        Nope, as a friend found out to his cost the other day.

  • Tracy says:

    Would maybe have considered Orlando from Edinburgh but zero availability for an upper class return before end of June 2024 lol

  • Rob says:

    The correct comparison is surely what premium you would be willing to pay at time of booking for full flexibility?

    You’re telling us that you will pay £1,000 for no flexibility and you are unwilling to pay £3,000 for full flexibility.

    This isn’t an answer.

    Would you pay (instead of £1,000 for no flexibility) £1200 for fully flex? £1500? £2000? This is your value comparator. Clearly you WOULD pay more than £1,000 for fully flexible – if the option was £1,000 no refunds / £1,020 fully flexible then you’d take the latter because you’re not stupid. But how high would you go?

    • Qrfan says:

      Surely for a lot of these routes, the availability is too limited to call this “fully flex”. Free cancellation, sure, but for those of us actually used to “fully flex” tickets at work, these are not the same. I don’t know how much value I really get out of free cancellation; outside of COVID I can’t think of when I’ve ever actually cancelled a flight. I probably wouldn’t pay £200 premium per passenger for a flight in the next 3 months. Maybe 11 months out, but probably not.

      • Mr. AC says:

        I’ve cancelled 10+ flights this year… Perhaps 40% of everything I book ends up cancelled. So it really depends on your circumstances, I hugely value flexibility so end up relying on award travel a lot (including the Gold double Avios which doesn’t even have the 35 cancellation fee).

  • Mark R says:

    Can you book for during the sale period and then change for after the sale period, without paying the extra points?

  • Steven S Pilkington says:

    I was just about a EDI-MCO for three, priced at around £1600 for economy classic.

    Buying some points + the taxes meant that this was brought down to £1065. A nice result!

  • zapato1060 says:

    I was lead to believe the SUBs had never been higher and cannot see them decreasing as time moves on with no pro rata? The tesco gravy train left a century ago. I used to stay in Miami/Florida Airbnbs with a pool for £30 a night a decade ago. Doesnt mean I wont return now that itll be 4-7x that.

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

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