Update 4/29: Just a reminder that this transfer bonus from Capital One to Virgin Red ends at Midnight on 4/30. Remember that there’s also a concurrent bonus from Amex Membership Rewards to Virgin that doesn’t end until 5/31. That could be a better option for many folks depending on their respective points balances.
Capital One is out with a 30% transfer bonus from Capital One miles to Virgin Red. This can make Virgin Atlantic Flying Club sweet spots an even better deal, so it’s worth keeping an eye on this to see if it works out for your award needs.
The Deal
- Capital One is offering a 30% transfer bonus from Capital One miles to Virgin Points when you transfer between April 1, 2024 and April 30, 2024
Key Terms
- Transfer bonus is to Virgin Red, but you can link your Virgin Red and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club accounts and use the points interchangeably.
Quick Thoughts
Virgin Red is sort of like the parent program of Virgin Atlantic Flying Club — the points can be used with either program so long as you link up your Virgin Atlantic Flying Club and Virgin Red accounts.
This can work out really well if you have a Virgin redemption in mind. For instance, if you are able to find a Delta business class award to Europe that’s available to book via Virgin Atlantic, it’ll cost you just 39K Capital One miles transferred to Virgin Atlantic with this bonus. Delta One can be hard to find, but Air France / KLM partner availability is much better and starts around the same price (plus around $220-$250 in taxes & fees).
I don’t currently see any opportunities to redeem Virgin Red points for Virgin Voyages cruises, but each year we’ve seen some opportunities to redeem either 80,000 or 100,000 Virgin points for Virgin Voyages cruises in the Caribbean and Europe. With a 30% transfer bonus, those redemptions can be a slammin’ deal.
Personally, I’d want to find availability before transferring points rather than making a speculative booking, especially because Virgin Atlantic has several times made major award chart changes with no advanced warning and no official announcement, so you never know when the miles will become worth less.
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Nick, would you speculatively make a 77,000 point transfer which would become 100,000 Virgin Red points in anticipation of a Virgin Voyages deal coming around again this summer?
No, I probably wouldn’t. No idea if that will come to pass or not and I don’t know for sure that I’ll be able to use the Virgin points to high value (I feel like Virgin points are one or two unannounced devaluations away from being almost worthless — they’re still great right now, but would be extremely limited if they lost both Delta 50K to Europe and Air France / KLM around the same price point.
I say “probably wouldn’t” instead of “definitely wouldn’t” because like any gamble, the amount you can afford to lose matters. Like imagine you’re playing Blackjack. Should you double down with an 11 against a 9? I mean, I usually wouldn’t do that, but if I were playing a $5 table I probably would since $5 isn’t a meaningful amount of money to me and I get to cheer when that face card hits and I won’t cry myself to sleep over the $5 lost if I get a deuce on my 11. But if I were playing at a $1,000 table, I wouldn’t remotely consider doubling down and chancing that I get a very low card where I’d have rather hit again because the $1,000 I’m risking is more significant to me.
Same thing here: if you have millions of transferable points, it stands to reason that maybe you’re willing to gamble on being stuck with 100K limited-use points for the chance at a nice little discount on a cruise. Of course, if you have millions of points, you could also probably afford to just pay the 100K if the cruise redemption actually does come around — so it depends on how much joy you get out of winning the double-down.
Thank you Nick. I think my summer plans are getting pretty full, so not sure I would be able to squeeze in a Virgin Voyages cruise. I noticed that they added a new Virgin Voyages sailing from Puerto Rico, so that might be fun to take in the future.