Virgin Atlantic elite status after 1 flight now available via FoundersCard

Bethany at Bougie Miles reports on a new benefit of FoundersCard: get Virgin Atlantic Silver status after a single flight on Virgin Atlantic and a fast-track to Virgin Atlantic Gold status (by earning 500 tier credits in 6 months). The difficulty here for most readers will be the requirement to take a flight with Virgin Atlantic, but for those who think they will travel with Virgin Atlantic as travel resumes, it may be worth keeping an eye on this fast track to status.

I’ve never held a FoundersCard membership, but Bethany has written quite a bit about FoundersCard and its benefits. In this case, the fast track to Silver status with a single flight might be particularly attractive to anyone with eyes on a trip to Necker Island since one of the requirements is having Virgin Atlantic Silver status.

Since Virgin Atlantic is extending the re-qualification period for status you earned this year and giving you two years to requalify, taking a single flight through this offer would get you Virgin Atlantic Silver status until 2023 — making this an easy way to position yourself for the status needed for something like Necker Island.

Keep in mind also that Virgin Atlantic is now awarding tier points on award flights, so the single flight required for silver (or subsequent flights to reach Gold status) do not necessarily need to be paid flights (though I believe you’ll need to book those award tickets through Virgin Atlantic in order for them to qualify). Furthermore, you can earn 25 tier points by spending $2,500 on a Virgin Atlantic credit card (up to 50 tier credits per month). That means that in the six months you would have to earn 500 tier credits, I think you might be able to earn 300 via credit card spend (note that I’m not positive that tier credits earned from spend will count toward the challenge). If that is indeed qualifying, you would only need to earn 200 elite credits from flight activity, which could be achieved with a single round trip Upper Class trip (since Upper Class earns 100 tier points each way). Since that could be done via award flights, this could be an interesting status challenge.

All that said, I wouldn’t recommend paying for a Founders Card membership unless/until you have imminent travel on Virgin Atlantic. I wouldn’t want to begin the clock on meeting requirements until I was confident in travel plans.

For more on this opportunity, see the post at Bougie Miles.

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