Virgin Air Miles

[higgy66]

Could somebody explain how the virgin miles work and where you find the flights on their website.

Since tesco's are changing their reward deals I'm thinking about getting a Virgin miles credit card that pays 1 mile per £ spent. I looked into it when it first came out but there was an annual fee - now they're offering one that's free.

How many miles do you need to book flights? Myself and DH already have 4500 each from a previous holiday and will double this next year as we've booked again with VH. However, using it for all our daily expenses would soon clock up quite a few miles so I just wondered if it would be worth it??

We got an absolute bargain holiday for 2011 but would be looking at DIY for 2012.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

 

[suzycute]

I've just got a (free!) Virgin credit card to do exactly what you want to do too! I think Orlando is 40,000 miles - but I might be corrected on this.

I'm not too sure how book book flights yet as we seem a long way off. So I'll be interested in what others have to say! The card will give you a premium economy upgrade on an economy booking if you spend more than £10,000 in 1 year or a complimentary companion reward flight if you spend £15,000 in 1 year - but I gather there are booking conditions.

What I didn't expect is that some retailers don't take AMEX so I'm not going to build up my miles as quickly as I thought - so I'm not sure, with this in mind, whether it will be worth doing - I'll have a rethink this time next year!

 

[mossyflossy]

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I wouldn't hold your breath for the Virgin miles only flights during anything other than off peak times, and remember you have to still pay taxes on miles only.

TBH you're best off sticking with Tesco and converting to airmiles.co.uk at 50 airmiles per £2.50 voucher where you can get truly free flights (no tax to pay) or miles and money flights (do also get the Lloyds airmiles duo...think it's a free 1500 airmiles for a £10 spend)...as an example for 10000 airmiles with airmiles.co.uk we've just snagged 4 returns with BA from Heathrow to Miami in early August for £1100 for 2 adults and 2 children (would have cost nothing if we had 26000 miles).

Virgin airmiles are good for miles and money fares, but you only need 2000pp for a return econ flight and that only costs about £45 plus admin fee to get...so if they are offers like at present on the Aug Miami route it's worth buying the miles for the £300 saving IYSWIM...BUT normally the M+M fare is only £50-£100 less than the standard fare, so not such a great deal.

 

[mossyflossy]

when you sign in to flying club on the site a tick box comes up for lowest fare, another for miles plus money, and another for spend miles...it's really hard to get the spend miles and m+m fares in peak times and takes lots of attempts usually by manipulating dates...

 

[2Tiggies]

Aside from keeping in mind that Amex is not as widely accepted as Visa and Mastercard, making it a little more challenging to make the minimum spend, I would also suggest that you don't bother with this one unless you are the type to pay your card off in full every month. Have you seen the APR rates on it?

 

[wayneg]

As Ruth says its possibly better sticking with Tesco if you use them, Tesco is too much hassle(only 5 min to ASDA) for us so Virgin is our choice.

For Virgin credit card if you use you a card a lot then its worth getting the one you pay for, £115/year but you earn double miles and extra benefits. http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/creditcard/index.jsp?mc=VAA-WEB-51366-63708

For reward seats it 50,000 miles in economy to Florida, unless they have an offer on, its supposed to be 45,000 to NYC but last week they were only 25,000, you still have to pay taxes & fees which is just over £200 to Florida, not bad if you are getting a seat in peak time(almost impossible) but if full fare is only £400 its not a great saving for 50,000 miles. http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/frequentflyer/spendmiles/spend_miles_table.jsp

Other option is Miles & Money, the one we use most, Ruth has quoted the savings in her post, going back 3 year we often saved £300pp into Orlando but not anymore, next August its £115pp we have saved. http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/frequentflyer/spendmiles/milesplusmoney/index.jsp

Overall we have saved almost £6,000 using Virgin miles but it gets harder and harder to use them.

 

[higgy66]

I quite like the idea of Airmiles - hadn't thought of that.

I currently have £1100 worth of deals to use but after 6 Dec they will only be worth £825 so I'm hoping to book 2 caravan holidays for next year (May & Aug hols) to break the year up before we go to Florida in Oct.
Either that or a diamond ring from Goldsmiths...............


As I'll be back to zero I wanted to consider other options.

 

[mossyflossy]

Tesco is too much hassle(only 5 min to ASDA) for us so Virgin is our choice.

Overall we have saved almost £6,000 using Virgin miles but it gets harder and harder to use them.

just a thought for you, Wayne, but we don't often shop in Tesco, we just use the credit card for absolutley everything (pay off in full each month unless it's a 0% card) and go for as many extra points offers as we can find that we'd buy anyway (eg. 1500points for an Ipod that we're planning to buy anyway)...with airmiles, as well as the credit card i mention above, you can shop with ebay, play etc through their website portal, and any holidays booked through them rack up the airmiles too...

obviously do the sums, and if Virgin is still the better card for you all well and good, but it's a common misconception to think Tesco points is about shopping in Tescos, becuase that's NOT the way to maximise tesco points IYSWIM.

 

[higgy66]

At the end of the day - they don't really amount to much.

We bought a new car in April and when I looked into paying using my tesco credit card I was soooo excited about all those lovely points.

When I rang up to check what it would be worth putting the balance of £20K on the card they told me........£50! Haha wasn't worth the credit card fee!

I'd had visions of 1000's of points converted to VH vouchers and a free Disney holiday! At the time my DH was excited about getting a brand new car and I was excited about the points! Ah well - we still love the car!

 

[2Tiggies]

Higgy, I think balance transfers are often exempt from earning rewards. Could be wrong.