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American Express Membership Rewards is offering a 30% transfer bonus when transferring points to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club through 7/1/19.
The Deal
- Get a 30% transfer bonus when transferring Amex Membership Rewards to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club by 7/1/19
- With this bonus, 1,000 Membership Rewards = 1,300 Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles
Key Details
- Valid from 12:00 a.m. MT on May 1, 2019 to 11:59 p.m. MT on July 1, 2019
Quick Thoughts
This is a great deal if you have a use for Virgin Atlantic miles, and Virgin does have several fantastic uses. For example, I recently flew Delta One suites from Tokyo to Minneapolis for just 60K Virgin Atlantic miles (you’d only need to transfer 47K miles with the bonus).
That worked out well for me as we were also booking a lap infant, which only cost 5K miles one-way (versus many other programs which charge 10% of the adult fare).
One of the most popular Virgin Atlantic sweet spots is ANA first class, which costs just 120K Virgin Atlantic miles round trip from the east coast of the US to Tokyo (or just 110K RT from the west coast). With the transfer bonus, that’s the equivalent of 93K Membership Rewards points round trip in first class from the east coast or 85K round trip from the west coast. I recently flew ANA’s business class from New York to Tokyo and I would gladly sample first class at these rates.
We also frequently see good availability to Europe in business class on Delta for just 50K Virgin Atlantic miles each way, which works out to 39K Membership Rewards points with the bonus.
Of course, Virgin Atlantic miles are also useful for domestic Delta flights. Just this week, I redeemed 12,500 Virgin Atlantic miles for a Delta award ticket for which Delta wanted 18,500 miles.
Overall, this transfer bonus is a great deal if you can take advantage of Virgin Atlantic’s strengths. Also keep in mind that Virgin Atlantic is a Chase transfer partner and Citi transfer partner as well, so it is easy to top off your account if you’re a little short (though you will not enjoy a current transfer bonus from those currencies).
As always, we have added this to our list of current point transfer bonuses. We last saw this transfer bonus from 8/1/18-9/12/18.
H/T: Running with Miles
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Eyeing an ANA RT F redemption from USA to Tokyo with this bonus. My wife and I would like to bring our lap child. Is it really 10% of the adult cash fee when using Virgin Atlantic miles on ANA? In my case the cash adult RT price is $25K
No, its 14k points in F for the lap child plus taxes and fees. Its a great deal, you should jump on it.
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Darn, I transferred over 200k points less than a month ago!
Tell me about it. I’ve transfered more than that in the last couple of months.
Has Amex ever retroactively applied a bonus or anything like that?
No, not gonna happen.
My wife and I flew ANA first class last year from Chicago. It certainly wasn’t bad, but was a lot less impressive than we’d expected. The seat was nice but lacked storage space. The food was solid. Service was pleasant but English was not well understood. The cabin was kept very warm and there were no air nozzles. The lounge in Tokyo was likewise ok but rather uninspired. Overall, we decided that we’d vastly prefer EVA business or Cathay business or first class.
Interesting to hear! I haven’t actually flown ANA first class. I’ve flown in biz between the US and Japan (and between Shanghai and Tokyo) and haven’t found English to be an issue with anyone on the plane on my flights.. Very surprised to hear that in first class. I have heard that the cabin can be too warm. I’ve heard the same complaint about business class, though haven’t noticed it myself (though overall I’ve had a number of flights with different carriers where the temp hasn’t been quite as I’d like it). Agreed that the lounge in Tokyo is OK — in my opinion, nothing about ANA is flashy, I just find service and food to generally be much better than most airlines (though not as good as Singapore).
Interesting that you’d take Cathay business over ANA. I’ve given CX business a try several times and despite the stories of great service, I’ve found my flights to be mediocre and with some of the language barrier you note on ANA. Just goes to show that a crew and personal taste can make or break a flight. Fun that we get to have discussions about stuff like this though as all of the above are leaps and bounds beyond flying economy.
Does transferring extend the expiration date of your miles?
Yes, I have transferred points to VA twice (once from MR, once from TY) just for that reason.