65,000 (Really 50,000) Flying Club Virgin Atlantic AMEX

Truth be told, our family has never flown on Virgin Airlines before, but that is simply because we really do not fly that much, nor do we travel internationally yet. However, if we lived closer to a hub, we may consider flying Virgin more often. For those that do live near a convenient hub, there is good reason to consider flying on Virgin Atlantic, or at least signing up for their reward program, the Flying Club.

It should be noted that there are several different Virgin airline programs, and they are all different and are not interlinked together. Virgin Atlantic (Flying Club) is a separate company from Virgin America (Elevate) and Virgin Australia (Velocity). Unfortunately, due to regulations, the programs do not mix and match. Therefore, if you earn miles in one program, they can not be used for the others.

While redeeming Flying Club miles for flights will incur some pretty high taxes and fees, there is one benefit that people really like about the program…being able to transfer Virgin Atlantic miles over to Hilton HHonors points. This is also one of the key benefits of the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club program over the Elevate and Velocity programs, which do not offer transfers to Hilton at the same favorable rate.

Virgin Atlantic miles convert 2 to 1 over to Hilton HHonors. This is a key factor in being able to rapidly build up Hilton HHonors points, and you are going to need a lot of them for stays anywhere even remotely aspirational.

So this is why the best current offer for the Virgin Atlantic credit card is so promising.

Earn 20,000 Flying Club bonus miles after your first use. Earn another 25,000 Flying Club bonus miles after you spend $2,500 within 90 days of your account open date.

Earn up to 15,000 additional bonus miles upon anniversary (7,500 anniversary Flying Club miles will be posted to your Flying Club account when you spend a minimum of $15,000 in net purchases within the anniversary year with your Virgin Atlantic Card. An additional 7,500 anniversary Flying Club miles will be awarded when you spend $25,000 in net purchases within the anniversary year with your Virgin Atlantic Card).

Lastly earn 5,000 Flying Club bonus miles when you add additional authorized users to your Card (You will receive 2,500 Flying Club miles for each of the first two authorized users added to your Card).

The $90 annual fee is not waived for the first year.

If you do manage to spend $25,000 on the card within a year, you will also earn an Economy companion reward ticket for half the standard miles of a reward economy seat, maximum one reward companion ticket per year. However, I think you are better off focusing your spend on other new products with nice sign-up bonuses.

So rehashing, spend $2,500 on the Virgin Atlantic card within 90 days, and after adding a couple authorized users, earn 50,000 Flying Club miles. Then transfer those miles over to Hilton, and you are sitting on 100,000 HHonors points.

Trust me, all those HHonors points sound like a lot, but Hilton just raised their redemption levels and you are going to need as many points as possible if you want to stay anywhere nice.

I always like comparing things to where our family wants to go the most, Hawaii, and is already planning future ventures there. If we were to chose anywhere, we would likely chose the Hilton Waikoloa Village on the Big Island of Hawaii. We visited there last summer, and while I have yet to get together a detailed post on that visit, it was an amazing property and would be well worth the redemption at 50,000 points per night.

Normally anytime I would look to redeem 50,000 of any kind of miles or points, I would try and get at least $0.01 per point in value, or $500 in this case. However, getting those types of returns with Hilton is just not feasible, especially at the nicer properties.

If my wife and I were to each open this Virgin Atlantic card, we could have 4 nights easily covered in Hawaii, which for us would be a substantial family savings at an approximate nightly rate during peak summer season of $200+ per night.

The other great hidden benefit of this card from Bank of America is that it can traditionally be opened again in the future to earn the bonus again. Realistically, you can probably earn the bonus twice per year with this card. However, everyone’s credit situation is different, and there is no guaranteeing a successful churn.

Are you interested in staying the night for free?

We have no affiliation with Bank of America and this Virgin Atlantic card. It is simply a great offer that people should consider taking advantage of before it goes away.

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Source: aarif1 via FT