In late 2021, Virgin Atlantic announced a mini-overhaul of Flying Club. Easily missed as it was during the pandemic, it introduced features such as Household Accounts and the ability to earn tier points from Virgin Atlantic Holidays. There was another change which Virgin Atlantic slipped out via its website: Silver and Gold members of Virgin Flying Club can gift their annual vouchers from the Virgin Atlantic credit cards. You can still do this, and it opens up some interesting options. As you can see on the Virgin Atlantic website here (scroll down to the tier comparison table, click on the ‘Reward Vouchers’ tab), Silver and Gold members have as a benefit: “Gift your reward vouchers to other Flying Club members” How does it work? You can initiate a transfer via telephone or by completing the online form here. If you have multiple vouchers in your account, the one closest to expiry will be gifted unless you state otherwise. Transfers can take up to 10 days to complete. Note that the expiry date of the voucher does not change. How do Virgin Atlantic credit card vouchers work? You receive a voucher: when you spend £20,000 per year on the free Virgin Atlantic Reward credit card, or when you spend £10,000 per year on the fee-paying Virgin Atlantic Reward+ credit card The Virgin Money app has a tracker so that you can see how close you are to triggering your next voucher. Your annual voucher is triggered immediately (the rules say 30 days, but it’s faster) upon hitting the spending target. You can see details of your unused credit card vouchers on the Virgin Atlantic website – look in the ‘Vouchers’ section of the Virgin Atlantic website under ‘My Account’. Unlike British Airways American Express Companion Vouchers, there is no difference between the voucher you receive for spending £20,000 on the free Virgin Atlantic Reward credit card and the voucher you receive for spending £10,000 on the £160 Virgin Atlantic Reward+ credit card. Both vouchers are valid for two years and both vouchers have the same value. The voucher can only be redeemed by calling Virgin Atlantic. How can you use your Virgin Atlantic credit card voucher? There are two ways of using your voucher: if you bought a ticket, for either cash or Virgin Points, you can use your voucher to pay for a 2nd ticket (same flight, same cabin) for a companion if you are travelling alone, you can use your voucher to upgrade a cash or reward ticket by one or two classes Your voucher has a fixed value: Flying Club Red members can redeem their voucher up to a maximum of 75,000 Virgin Points Flying Club Silver and Gold members can redeem their voucher up to a maximum of 150,000 Virgin Points The value of your voucher will be calculated by your status at the time of booking, not when you fly or when you receive the voucher. No ‘change’ is given if you use your voucher for less than its maximum value. Let’s talk about ‘dynamic pricing’ In October 2024, Virgin Atlantic opened up ALL seats for points redemption. However, most are priced at stupid levels, eg 700,000 Virgin Points plus £1,000 of taxes and charges for an Upper Class return flight. The only good value flights are ‘Saver’ flights. These are priced at substantially lower levels and are no more expensive than reward seats were under the old structure. Virgin Atlantic does NOT guarantee to release ‘Saver’ seats on all flights, however, and many leisure routes have virtually no Upper Class availability. You can top up your voucher You can use your voucher even if it doesn’t cover the full amount of the companion ticket or upgrade, as Virgin Atlantic will let you top it up. For example, if you book an Upper Class reward ticket to New York for 170,000 Virgin Points for yourself, you could book a second ticket for (170,000 – 75,000) 95,000 Virgin Points if you have no elite status, or (170,000 – 150,000) 20,000 Virgin Points if have have Silver or Gold status. For a companion ticket, full taxes and charges are payable. For an upgraded ticket, additional taxes and charges may be payable if there is a difference between the cabin you booked and the cabin you are now flying in. You can’t use your voucher for a totally free ticket for yourself You cannot use a credit card voucher for a straight 75,000 or 150,000 points discount on a ticket for yourself. If you are travelling alone and only using points, you need to pay the points cost of a cheaper cabin and then use your voucher to cover the difference between the cabins. For example, let’s assume an Upper Class ticket is 130,000 points and an Economy ticket is 20,000 points. You CANNOT use a 150,000 points voucher to cover the full cost of the Upper Class ticket. You need to spend 20,000 points booking the Economy ticket and then use the voucher to cover the upgrade. Is transferring vouchers useful? There is, of course, a slight spanner in the works when it comes to transferring vouchers. Only a Silver or Gold member of Flying Club can transfer their voucher. As we showed above, the voucher is worth 150,000 Virgin Points to such a person. However, if you transfer your voucher to a Red member of Flying Club, it is only worth 75,000 Virgin Points. Half of the value is lost. On the other hand, if you are running out of options to use your voucher for yourself, it still allows someone to realise value from it. HfP readers have managed to get the call centre to use their voucher to book a ticket for someone else, so you may not need to transfer your vouchers if your aim is to let a family member fly. Conclusion The ability to transfer your credit card voucher to anyone if you have Virgin Flying Club Silver or Gold status is an interesting perk. The snag, of course, is that unless you transfer to a fellow Silver or Gold member, it will lose half of its value. You need to think very carefully about whether transferring it is the right thing to do. Our full review of the free Virgin Atlantic credit card is here (3,000 Virgin Points sign-up bonus). Our review of the paid-for Virgin Atlantic credit card with 18,000 Virgin Points bonus is here. You can apply for both cards here.
