Citi Thank You rewards is offering a 30% bonus when you transfer points to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club or Virgin Red between October 20 and November 16, 2024. That could certainly be useful, but beware that dynamic pricing is coming.
The Deal
- Citi ThankYou Rewards is offering a 30% transfer bonus when you transfer points to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club between October 20 and November 16, 2024.
- With this bonus:
- 1,000 Citi Thank You points = 1,300 Virgin points
Key Terms
- Cardholders of participating Citi cards can transfer ThankYou Points to Virgin Flying Club or Virgin Red and receive a 30% Bonus in Virgin Points.
- Offer is valid for Point Transfers to Virgin Points completed by 11:59 PM ET November 16, 2024.
Quick Thoughts
This can be a great deal if you have a valuable redemption in mind. I was excited a few months ago when I found 8 seats in business class on Air France from the US to Europe for 48,500 Virgin points per passenger (plus a little over $200 in taxes & fees). With this transfer bonus, that off-peak business class award could be booked with just 38,000 Citi points transferred to Virgin.
Virgin Red is also currently offering Virgin Voyages cruises from 140,000 points for two passengers. That would require just 108K Citi Thank You points, which could be a fantastic deal for a balcony cabin.
All that said, note that Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is due to institute dynamic pricing for award tickets on their own metal starting just 10 days from now. We expect this to mean that many awards for travel on Virgin Atlantic will increase in price. While Virgin says that some awards will be available at new “lowest ever” saver levels, we expect those will mostly be available for off-peak travel (if at all). I’ve said that there’s a chance that we’ll see a bunch of saver availability at the beginning of dynamic pricing, which might create a good opportunity with this transfer bonus. That said, I’d be nervous about getting stuck with Virgin points long-term. Even if I had an immediate use in mind, I’d have to think twice about the prospect of being stuck with Virgin points if I cancelled that trip given the reduced usefulness of Virgin points. On the other hand, dynamic pricing is only expected to launch for awards on Virgin metal, so partner sweet spots will hopefully remain into the future.
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My primary use for VS miles is on other SkyTeam partners, so I still do transfers to VS on a recurring basis as I get about 2.5cents of value from each redeemed VS point even in economy class. But that is a peculiarity of my own travel circumstances and not something that would work for most others.