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If you have a week free in January or August 2019 and you have 1.2 million Virgin Atlantic miles burning a hole in your pocket, you can once again book an all-inclusive week for two at Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island. The island was unavailable for quite a while after hurricane Irma hit in 2017, but it is once again bookable with miles.
The current rules require that you have Virgin Atlantic Silver or Gold status to book the week (but you may be able to get that easily by status matching from another airline program).
At the moment, only two weeks in 2019 are available to be booked with miles:
- January 6 2019, 7 Nights
- August 24 2019, 7 Nights [UPDATE: SOLD OUT]
Readers may remember that my wife and I used our miles to visit Necker Island in the fall of 2016 and we loved it. Richard Branson actually lives and works on the island so guests are likely to have many opportunities to interact with him. Plus, since most meals are shared with other guests on the island, you’re likely to make new friends from around the world. We’ve kept in contact with quite a few of the other guests from the week we visited.
From the Necker Island website, here’s what’s included when you book with 1.2 million miles for 2 adults:
- Your accommodation
- All meals and drinks (including all alcoholic beverages) – served in a variety of locations
- Return launch transfer from Virgin Gorda or Beef Island airports
- A dedicated team of staff
- Two freshwater infinity pools and a huge hot tub on the beach
- Two floodlit tennis courts
- Water sports equipment so you can go windsurfing, kite-surfing, water-skiing, sailing, snorkeling and even SCUBA diving plus much more
- Disco DJ included on one night
- Wireless internet throughout the island
- 10% BVI accommodation tax
Read about our Necker Island stay here: Is Necker Island really worth 1.2 million miles?
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you doosh, next time don’t brag around the island to other guests how you didn’t sped any money to come here. Richard changed the entire program because of you because you were bragging how you never had to fly virgin. He now requires
status, & limits the amount of point guests to 3 per week. Thanks for blowing it !, this is what he told me last week. Their also changing the mileage required in 2020
If it makes you feel better to blame me, that’s fine. But the fact is that Virgin Atlantic stopped accepting award bookings in order to change the award before I talked with Richard. And both he and the other guests on the island that I spoke with were not just accepting about my using miles, but were enthusiastic about it. He described it as “win win”. We also learned during the stay that points awards were very common and that it was unusual to only have three rooms booked that way, which was the case on the week I stayed.
I wasn’t aware that they started to limit points guests to 3 per week. If I had anything to do with that, it’s probably because publicity from this blog drove demand for points awards and they wanted to preserve some for paying guests. It’s just as likely or perhaps more likely, though, that since they are running on limited room capacity after the hurricane, they wanted to make sure that paying customers had a chance at the limited selection of rooms.
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greg. please no more hitting 50+ VS CC double triple quad flawless victory bonus dip in one day…
Greg, you need to go for Virgin Galactic using points. When they first offered it I think it required 2 million BIS miles then they switched to the miles only getting you an ENTRY for a seat?
Is there a link on the Virgin Atlantic page regarding restoration of the award redemption? I had a booking scheduled for the week after Irma hit, so I’ve been waiting for a chance at a do-over.
Mileage snob!
I already booked the August date and there was only 1 room on points available, so they’re full now. Sorry guys!
P.S. it wasn’t very easy to get that status match. They’ve really tightened up on it.
Yikes! Good to know! Can you tell more about your status match experience?
You can’t just match from United 1K or AA Ex Plat for example, it’s not that easy. Not only do you need the status from another airline, you also need to provide your flight history showing how you got to that status, and it must show routes that match the same routes Virgin Atlantic flies. And not only that…but there has to be enough flights in your history to show that you could maintain/requalify for Virgin Atlantic status, if you were to switch over to VS completely. So if your UA 1K was earned from flights to Asia, you don’t qualify at all!!
Sold out already for points bookings!
Both dates or just August?
I know August is for sure! I heard January is “reserved”, but not paid yet, so small chance it opens up, but unlikely.
On another note:
I went back to Necker 2 weeks ago when it reopened. Island is still recovering – there wasn’t a tree standing after the hurricane.
-Tennis Courts, Water Sports, Crocodile Table area, Docks, Lemurs/Parrots/Turtles, Great House are all rebuilt and look identical to pre-hurricane.
-All three Bali homes are still brick foundations (no roofs), Richards house is under construction still (both houses of his on island actually although one is by the beach that never got finished), Zip Line is not rebuilt, Turtle Beach area is pretty beat up still, and flamingo area and corresponding beach is washed away (although still 100+ flamingos in the pond area.
– Vegetation of trees/shrubs is getting more full, entire island is still barren compared to pre-hurricane, but they have replanted a lot of the trees and put in a lot of new shrubbery.
Thanks for the post-hurricane update!