You can now easily earn loads of Flying Club Miles via Virgin Atlantic's credit cards. But time is running out to take advantage
Time is running out to take advantage of the bumper introductory bonuses on Virgin Atlantic's two credit cards.
Virgin has more than trebled the introductory bonuses on its White and Black credit cards, but you need to apply by 31st March and spend a fairly hefty amount within the first 90 days you hold the cards to get the whole bonus on offer.
The White is a fee-free card, while the Black charges an annual fee of £140, so is only really suitable if you’re a heavy spender, for example using it for your business expenses.
With either option, you will get two cards to use: an American Express and a Visa.
Compare airline and air miles credit cards
Earning miles
With the White card, you earn one Flying Club Mile for every £1 you spend on the American Express, and one mile for every £2 you spend on the Visa.
Spend on the Black American Express and you’ll earn two miles for every £1 you spend, while the Black Visa will earn you one mile for every £1 spent.
How the bigger bonuses work
The White card will give you 3,000 Flying Club Miles when you spend anything on the card. Spend £1,000 within the first 90 days of having the card and you’ll also receive 7,000 bonus miles.
Those 10,000 miles will earn you a ‘free’ return flight within the UK (they cost 7,500 miles), to/from London Heathrow, Manchester, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. You will have to pay a charge of £34 per return flight though, or £17 one-way.
[SPOTLIGHT]Alternatively, you’re just under a third away from a ‘free’ flight to New York, Boston, Chicago or Washington. Again, you’ll have to pay taxes and charges.
Or you could use the miles to upgrade from Economy to Premium Economy one way on a transatlantic flight.
With the Black card, you’ll earn 18,500 miles the first time you make a purchase. Spend £2,000 within the first 90 days and you’ll get an additional bonus of 6,500 miles.
Those 25,000 miles would get you most of the way to a ‘free’ flight to New York, Boston, Chicago or Washington. Or it would pay for an upgrade from Economy to Premium Economy on both legs of a transatlantic flight, or a one-way upgrade from Economy to Upper Class. The latter could be useful if you’re heading to the west coast of America or the Caribbean.
How the Virgin cards compare
Looking at other popular airline reward schemes, you need to collect more Avios to get the cheapest ‘free’ flight to both the UK and the US (9,000/40,000 versus 7,500/35,000). The fees/charges for both schemes are broadly similar.
However, if you’re a regular Tesco shopper you can earn 813 Flying Club Miles for every £2.50 of Clubcard vouchers. So you would need to spend around £10,760 to earn a flight to the east coast of the US solely via Tesco, compared to £25,000 using the White Amex card.
And by using your Clubcard and a Clubcard credit card together, you’ll get to your points goal far quicker.
The American Express Preferred Rewards charge card also offers a decent introductory bonus that can be used for flights. Spend £2,000 within the next three months and you’ll earn 20,000 points, enough for two return flights to over 30 European destinations (adding on the fees and charges again). Note that this is a charge card, not a credit card, so you HAVE to pay your balance off in full each month, although not doing that with any of these cards is a big mistake as interest charges will eat into your rewards. And while it's fee free for the first year, it costs £125 a year after that.
Or you may prefer a cashback credit card, so you can shop around for the cheapest flight yourself. Read The best cashback credit cards for our lowdown on the top cards out there.