Get a 70% bonus on buying Virgin Points – and a Flying Blue exclusive offer too

This article is sponsored by Points

Virgin Atlantic is repeating its biggest ever deal for buying Virgin Points – see here.

You can get up to a 70% bonus when you buy Virgin Points. The offer runs until 6th November.

Flying Blue, the Air France / KLM programme, is also running an exclusive offer which we will touch on later. As Virgin Flying Club points and Flying Blue Miles can access the same SkyTeam reward availability in most cases, you may want to compare the reward pricing and taxes and charges between the two schemes.

Let’s start with Virgin Atlantic.

To put this in perspective, before 2020 Virgin Atlantic had never even run a 50% bonus – 15% to 30% was the best you could expect. A 50% bonus is big but the current 70% bonus is huge.

The bonus depends on how many points you buy:

• 5,000 to 24,000 points to unlock a 20% bonus
• 25,000 to 69,000 points to unlock a 40% bonus
• 70,000 to 99,000 points to unlock a 60% bonus
• 100,000 to 200,000 points to unlock a 70% bonus

The maximum number of points you can buy is 200,000 which is double the normal annual cap.

At the top end, 200,000 Virgin Points, which comes to 340,000 points with the 70% bonus, will cost you £3,000.  This works out at 0.88p each.

0.88p is exceptionally good value for a direct miles purchase. Most Virgin Atlantic commercial partners will be paying the airline more than 0.88p for their miles.

Isn’t Virgin Atlantic changing its reward scheme soon?

Yes it is. From 30th October, Virgin Atlantic will be moving to ‘dynamic pricing’ for reward seats on its own aircraft.

The good news is that every seat on every flight will be available for points.

‘Saver’ seats, priced at or below current reward prices, will also be available. However, Virgin Atlantic will not guarantee how many ‘Saver’ seats will be released, or indeed whether premium cabins will see any ‘Saver’ availability at all. It is unlikely that ‘Saver’ seats will be available on key routes during school holidays or other peak periods.

If you want to use your Virgin Points whilst you can still take advantage of the guaranteed ’12 seats per flight’ minimum availability and fixed reward pricing, you need to book by 30th October.

This new ‘buy points’ offer is a good opportunity to top up your account to the level you need to make the redemption you want before 30th October.

The good news is that there has been no announcement about changes to partner airline pricing.

Virgin Atlantic is part of SkyTeam airline alliance. This opens redemptions across partners such as Aeromexico, SAS, Garuda Indonesia, Korean Air and Vietnam Airlines. This article explains what it costs to redeem Virgin Points on the new SkyTeam partners.

Virgin Atlantic also has redemption partnerships with non-SkyTeam carriers. This article looks at your options, the most attractive of which is Japanese carrier ANA.

The link to buy points is here.

The 70% bonus offer runs to 6th November.

You may want to consider Flying Blue too

Flying Blue, the loyalty programme for Air France and KLM, has also launched a ‘Buy Miles’ offer.

The deal is targeted so I can’t give accurate pricing examples – I can’t even confirm if you will be offered a bonus or a discount!

If you have an existing Flying Blue balance you want to top up, or want to pick up some Miles at a discount, Flying Blue may be worth a look.

You get access to the same SkyTeam partners as Virgin Atlantic, plus additional partnerships with carriers such as Air Mauritius, airBaltic, Aircalin, Bangkok Airways, EL AL, Etihad, GOL, Japan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Oman Air, Qantas, Transavia, TAROM, Westjet and Winair.

You can get especially good value on Air France and KLM flights with Flying Blue Promo Rewards.

Each month, you can get up 50% normal award pricing on selected Air France KLM routes. Whilst you need to book during that particular month, you can usually fly on any date over the following few months.

If you want to fly Virgin Atlantic, it is worth noting that Flying Blue adds fewer surcharges to Virgin Atlantic rewards than Virgin Atlantic itself. This means that the ‘taxes and charges’ element will be far lower than if you had booked with Virgin Atlantic using Virgin Points.

Here is an example from Heathrow to New York using Flying Blue Miles:

The cost is 138,000 miles return in Upper Class plus $818 (£624).

Booking the identical flight using Virgin Points will cost you 95,000 points plus £1,018. If you are points rich and cash poor, it makes more sense to use Flying Blue Miles to book a Virgin Atlantic flight than use Virgin Points.

You can take a look at your personalised Flying Blue ‘Buy Miles’ pricing here.

This exclusive offer runs until 27th October.