Virgin Atlantic has announced that it’ll be adding a new feature to its Flying Club loyalty program in the new year.
Starting in January 2026, all Flying Club members will be eligible to earn towards High Five. This will reward you for flying with Virgin in five different calendar years. Even better is the fact that award flights will be eligible and qualifying activity will be backdated up to five years.
If you fly with Virgin in five different years – which don’t have to be consecutive – you’ll earn 12,000 bonus points. That’s a great reward considering award flights count and award pricing between the US and UK starts at 6,000 points one way.
After you’ve reached your first High Five, you’ll earn 10% bonus points on paid flights with Virgin thereafter if you have entry-level Red tier status. You’ll then earn a new High Five reward for every five different calendar years that you fly with Virgin Atlantic.
There are a few terms to be aware of. As already mentioned, years are calculated on a calendar year basis, with only one flight a year being counted towards a High Five. The good thing is that Virgin will calculate qualifying activity retroactively, looking back five years from January 2026 (i.e. they’ll consider flights taken from 2021 onwards). If you’ve taken qualifying flights with Virgin Atlantic every year since 2021, that means you’ll immediately be eligible for your first award of 12,000 bonus points.
There are a couple of other important terms. One is that only Virgin Atlantic operated flights count. If you booked a flight with Virgin Atlantic points that was operated by Delta, that won’t count, even though it would’ve been a codeshare.
Virgin Atlantic has also stated that only flights taken as a Flying Club member count towards a High Five. That means that if you flew on Virgin Atlantic metal but the flight was booked with, say, Delta SkyMiles, that won’t be eligible either unless your Virgin Atlantic Flying Club number was attached to your ticket at the time of flying.
Virgin Atlantic will be launching a new app, so in January 2026 you’ll be able to see your High Five status in that.
The announcement from Virgin doesn’t explicitly state that award flights will count. However, Head for Points reported on High Five late last week and confirmed in their post that award flights will indeed count.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
