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Hi All,
We are looking at getting a Virgin + card to earn virgin points and to increase our flight flexibility as we are currently tied to BA for reward flights.
Do you all get value out of this card, given the £160 annual fee?
From my understanding I can use the voucher to purchase a second ticket (same flight and cabin fora companion) if I have purchased a ticket (cash or virgin points). Is this similar to BA’S 2-4-1 proposition? It sounds fairly similar with slight differences.
If I have a solo flight I can use the voucher to upgrade a cash or reward ticket by one flight class.
I’m a Flying Red member, so will currently only be able to redeem the ticket up to 75K points.
I’d ideally use the voucher for a companion ticket. Am I correct by thinking it works by passenger 1 (me) paying for a full cash/points ticket and the companion (OH) will have a reduced ticket price (ticket price minus 75K points).
Does the voucher work only for a one way journey or also for return journeys?
On top of earning virgin points on everyday spend, this will be handy for collecting points where Amex is not accepted. Plus can be redeemed at other loyalty programs such as Hilton and Marriott if needed.
Any suggestions and feedback would be appreciated!
Have you read Rob’s articles on the Virgin credit card and voucher, and the recent switch to dynamic pricing? All this information plus more can be found there.
As to whether it’s a good product for you, it really depends on whether you’ll have the flexibility to book lower-priced redemption seats as 75k points don’t go very far under the new system.
Also consider how many points you would expect to earn via spend on the card.
One thing that does seem to have slipped under the radar is that you’re not now limited to upgrading by one cabin on an award booking – I recently upgraded 2 of us one-way from economy to UC with the voucher because the total points required for that was fewer than 75k.
For Year 1, get the Plus card to bank the bonus. Feel free to trade down after a year.
Remember that the voucher is the same across both cards (lasts 2 years, 75k value) so if you can easily spend £20k then you may prefer to do that instead of paying £160 and just spending £10k – although of course you earn twice as many points on the paid card.
Remember the real value here is also no FX fees in the Eurozone, whilst also earning points back.
“I recently upgraded 2 of us one-way from economy to UC with the voucher because the total points required for that was fewer than 75k.”
@NL I find this fascinating. The changes have generally been dreadful but as someone who can travel whenever I like I am going to look out for this. Did the agent you had on the phone appear to realise the double cabin upgrade was happening?
@Harry, I think the maths on justifying the Virgin card has now become very complicated. I know for sure I could not have used the 2 vouchers I had in 2024 without needing the Silver/Gold boost to 150K value. I only redeem as an upgrade, not a companion.Also mindful of you saying collecting Virgin miles is useful for hotel transfers. Be careful that the exchange rate could change on a whim, or a hotel partner could disappear. My view would be if you can’t find a use for Virgin miles themselves, it’s probably not a card worth having.
@BWS, it was all a bit odd until I worked out what must have happened. Long story short, I booked 2 x PE (at 10,500 points each), then called to upgrade to UC (29k points each) with the voucher and pay the extra fees, which was all done as expected. Then about 4 weeks later the tickets were issued and I found an unexpected chunk of points had been added to my account at the same time. When I went through the transactions, it worked out that the Virgin agent must have realised that 75k points would cover the upgrade from economy and refunded the extra paid for PE.
So it may be that this is agent-dependent, but clearly this is how some of them are interpreting the new rules for the cc voucher.
So I ultimately paid 15k points plus £864 for 2 x UC, MAN-MCO which obviously I’m delighted about!
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