Hello all

Hello All,

Just joined and thought I would say hello. I'm currently saving up my flying club miles to use for Upper class flights to New York and returning from Miami for a Trek i am doing next September.

It will be the first time I have travelled such a long way on my own and wanted to make it as comfortable for myself as possible. I currently have a Virgin white credit card which I received both bonus for, I use it for my day to day spends and also food shops and petrol. I'm also a big fan of the Virgin Shops Away portal and I use it on a regular basis managing to accumulate over 17,000 miles. My clubcard points get converted straight to miles and I also complete surveys on E-rewards to gain more miles (it's a long process for a small reward but every little helps!) Today I successfully applied for the Black credit card so I look forward to that arriving and hopefully being able to spend £3,000 in the first 90 days to qualify for the extra bonus. I'm also considering buying wine from Virgin Wine as you get 3,000 miles on your first order. The wine only costs £60 so works out at a pretty good deal.

I just wondered if anyone had any other suggestions on how to gain more miles. my target is 90,000 and if everything goes to plan I should have 77,000 in the next month or two. I would also like to ask how far in advance the rewards flights are released and how best to book them. I realise I will have to be very quick to get the seat I want. Unfortunately I would be travelling to LHR from Aberdeen and since the Little Red service is stopping from September it won't let me search from ABZ - JFK so I will have to find an alternative flight to and from LHR.

I'm hoping I can do it as I really would love to experience U/C on Virgin. I hope this post was appropriate. I would really like to speak with some of you to hear your experiences and I'd be grateful for any tips you could give.

Hello and welcome to v-flyer, and well done on what you've accumulated so far, very impressive.

As for pointers on getting more miles, have you had any VS flights in the least 6 months that you received miles for already? If so, you can boost them by getting the miles doubled for a very reasonable fee. Also, if you have any little trips coming up where you would stay in a hotel, use the shops away portal for Hotels.com or Expedia to get some extra miles. Every little helps.

As for booking, the usual applies, flights are available to book 11 months out (330 days I think), and you need to search for reward availability. Being flexible with dates helps, and since you're planning on NYC you shouldn't have much difficulty as generally there is good availability since there are several flights per day.

Most people on here, me included, consider an economy M fare upgraded to UC the best use of miles, in which case you'd need 40,000 miles plus the cash for a return trip. To give you a ball park figure, since I've recently booked this route for Christmas this year, I paid £1052pp (inc taxes etc) + 40,000 miles.

However, you may value a full mileage redemption better, in which case you'll need more miles (80,000 + £500 - £600 cash). Flexibility is different with each in terms of changes so make sure you read the fare bucket rules in the toolbox here. The M fare upgraded allows you to earn miles on the revenue base fare, and tier points if you want to chase status. A straight miles redemption doesn't. It's about what's important to you. Some people earn and burn, some save and try to make their miles go further.

As for experience of UC, many people will agree with me that once you've turned left, you'll develop a really addictive habit. I've only been flying VS for 3 years and the first time I had booked PE, then paid to upgrade to UC. After that I was hooked and I've been fortunate to travel UC since using a combination of miles upgrades and just recently a cheap ex-DUB trip. Of course, besides the onboard experience, which is comfortable, relaxed, and can be champagne / vodka / cocktail* fuelled (*delete as appropriate) with an on board bar and generally warm sassy CC, a big part of the experience is the LHR Clubhouse.

Think of that as being like an oasis, a bit of a spa where you can get a treatment (not all free) or a haircut, a never ending bar with complimentary drinks constantly available from cheeky staff who will encourage you and a restaurant with complimentary food where you can order pretty much as much as you want - and some people do! I'm sure you're getting the picture...

The accepted norm is to plan arrival to spend at least 3 hours if not 4 in the Clubhouse, but you can stay longer. In October I booked my drive thru check in slot and the agent 'accidentally' booked me in at 11am for a 6pm flight. I was in the Clubhouse by 11:15am...

Finally, there are also very good ex-EU fares, currently ex-DUB is the favourite where you can get excellent prices in UC, £1000 -£1400 for return trips to NYC, SFO, etc which is not much more than an M fare or a discounted PE fare.

Happy hunting.

Virgin ISA gives a nice 5,000 miles booster & you could use it as a spending saving account & start putting money away now 'o)
http://uk.virginmoney.com/virgin/va/


Also keep an eye on headforpoints site for any good deals. Lots of people will buy gift cards & tesco & get bonus clubcard points, they then use these cards at the retailer. So lots of pre-planning needed. You could google manufactured spend for other ideas, however it is a lot more difficult over here than in the US.

Also, the black card has a lower Economy to Premium Economy Reward Voucher for a lower spend than the white.
You could always fly out PE (for the miles of E & Tax of PE) & fly back Upper if you don't get enough miles.

Last bit of advice.. dont forget to Cancel the blackcard once you are done with it (which should be once you got the bonus miles & PE upgrade voucher if you wish).

Hello Gritty12 !

Bretty has passed on really good advice there. Having secured UC for a return trip to Cape Town in January I can say that he is so right about UC being the only way to go. The LHR Clubhouse is the icing on the cake!

We do all the things you are now doing and with the Virgin Black card - as long as absolutely everything you buy goes on it - it is scary how fast the points build up! Also, the AMEX reward vouchers are very useful .

Losing LR has been disappointing for us too as we fly from MAN .

I have secured UC from LHR to MIA next Jan . As soon as the flights were released I was on the phone to FC. I had also just checked the BA flights from MAN to LHR and to be honest they were pretty cheap and for reasons I state below, we only needed them one way. We could have done it from MAN with Delta changing in the USA but preferred going via LHR for the Clubhouse - naturally ! We used miles to upgrade from Economy to UC going out but as we are returning from MCO we can fly home direct to MAN , so to 'save' some of our hard-earned miles we used AMEX reward vouchers to upgrade from Economy to PE on the homeward flight. The flight time is not that long and I would rather keep miles for longer flights or ones which start at LHR (for the clubhouse entry) and having flown PE before I think it is pretty good.

Everyone's needs and aspirations are different and as Bretty says some are increasingly using the Ex EU trick. This Forum is the place to find out what the latest deals are and miles collecting opps and has proved extremely helpful for me so far ...... so welcome ! let us know how you get on.

I think you have most of the miles earning methods covered.
If you drink wine then keep an eye on Tesco for offer codes. I have just purchased a few boxes of Prosecco and got a 1500 clubcard bonus which will automatically be converted to Virgin miles.
Also consider Rocketmiles for hotel bookings. They give a 3000 mile bonus on the first booking.
You only get those miles after your stay.
Shop via the Virgin shopping site. Some stores give up to 6 miles per £.
Always buy fuel at Tesco or Esso to get more clubcard points.
I agree with Bretty, best use of miles is upgrading from Economy to Upper especially if you are not miles rich.
Best of luck with your quest.
Collecting miles can become a bit addictive.
Dick D

Welcome Gritty. Fully agree with all that's been said. We have just booked an Economy with upgrade to G for a trip next April from MAN to ATL. Agent on telephone said there were plenty of G's available so there are two less now.

One query Bretty mentioned being able to buy double points in respect of recent flights and as my wife needs more ready for booking another G in the autumn I would welcome help on the procedure. I have looked on the VS website but cannot find any link.

In the meantime 'Happy Collecting'

David,

Purchasing the extra miles for a flight is called 'Miles Booster'. The process is explained here http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/gb/en/flying-club/miles-booster.html

If you have not yet taken the flight then you can either buy the extra miles online using the 'manage my booking' function or by calling the Flying Club.

If you have already taken the trip then you have 6 months from the date of the first flight on the ticket to do a retrospective purchase but this can only be done by calling the Flying Club.

Thanks Stuart will give that a try

Another option for some quick miles would be to take out one of the real AMEX cards. Currently the Gold gives you 20000 points bonus on a £2000 spend in the first 3 months, and the first years fee of £140 is waived. Or the platinum card has a 30,000 points bonus with a £2000 spend in the first 3 months. The annual fee is £450 and unlike the Gold card isn't waived for the first year.

I got my Gold AMEX, booked a holiday using it (so it was covered by the AMEX travel insurance) transferred the balance to an interest free deal on another card transferred the AMEX points to FC miles (1 for 1) and then cancelled the AMEX card.

There may also be one of the v-flyers who could introduce you to the card and then they would get a small bonus also. (not me unfortunatly as i don't have the card anymore)

While that £450 for the Platinum looks steep, you can cancel it and get a pro-rata refund for the unused bit (calculated per day not per month), In theory you could sign up, spend the £2000 in the first month, trigger the bonus and cancel for a £412.50 refund.

In practice it will ikely take a bit longer than that for most people to generate the £2,000 spend - you have 3 months to do it.

If you have a referral from an existing card holder you get 35,000 points (an extra 5,000 over the normal 30,000 offer). Drop me a PM and I can send one over. Full disclosure: I get some points for referring you too.

Some good advice for the OP. I can also refer for an Amex so you get extra bonus points

Wow thank you all so much for your replies & tips. I'm hoping just to use miles this time as the rest of my trip is pretty expensive. I seen the clubhouse on the Virgin programme the other night. Looks amazing. I can't wait! Could someone tell me what happens after my return flight gets to London. Is there any lounges that I would have access to?

Depending what time your flight lands you will have access to the Virgin Revivals lounge (Open daily from 5:00am to 1:30pm.)
http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/gb/en/th ... ounge.html

If it's an overnight that lands early in the morning it can sometimes be worth skipping the onboard breakfast in favour of longer in bed then going to revivals for a shower and a cooked breakfast that's been prepared without the limits of the onboard galley.

Depending what time your flight lands you will have access to the Virgin Revivals lounge (Open daily from 5:00am to 1:30pm.)
http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/gb/en/th ... ounge.html

If it's an overnight that lands early in the morning it can sometimes be worth skipping the onboard breakfast in favour of longer in bed then going to revivals for a shower and a cooked breakfast that's been prepared without the limits of the onboard galley.

or have 2 breakfasts

Could someone tell me what happens after my return flight gets to London. Is there any lounges that I would have access to?

You might like to read the last few paragraphs of my recent TR for detail on Revivals:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=290339

Just thought I would leave a quick update.

I currently have 66,984 miles in my account but with the amount of miles I will receive with my next credit card statement, an upcoming hotel stay, Clubcard points conversion & pending shops away transactions it should put me just over the 90,000 I need (Fingers crossed the shops away transactions don't take ages to be credited!!)

Next step is the part I'm most apprehensive about. Actually booking the rewards flights. I still have a full month before the dates I am travelling become available for booking and I'm going on most days at the moment & doing dummy runs with the newest dates available.

I wondered would it be best to book the outward journey if the class & flight is available even if flights for the inward journey are not available or should I just hold on and try book both at the same time?

Just thought I would leave a quick update.

I currently have 66,984 miles in my account but with the amount of miles I will receive with my next credit card statement, an upcoming hotel stay, Clubcard points conversion & pending shops away transactions it should put me just over the 90,000 I need (Fingers crossed the shops away transactions don't take ages to be credited!!)

Next step is the part I'm most apprehensive about. Actually booking the rewards flights. I still have a full month before the dates I am travelling become available for booking and I'm going on most days at the moment & doing dummy runs with the newest dates available.

I wondered would it be best to book the outward journey if the class & flight is available even if flights for the inward journey are not available or should I just hold on and try book both at the same time?

Yes you can do that, several people do to ensure they get one leg locked down. Are you planning a straightforward reward redemption or purchase an M fare and upgrade (fewer miles required)?

I'm using all miles. Trip is an expensive one so don't want to spend a heap on flights

So tonight, after reading a lot of threads on this forum I decided to call the flying club.

I've had no issue with being able to choose the outward flight that I wanted from LHR - EWK however the return from MIA - LHR was not showing for the dates I wanted. I had seen somewhere on here that sometimes if you call they have more availability.. well sure enough they did. I had to add an extra day onto my stay in Miami (not complaining, an extra day of relaxing in the sun) but I have successfully booked two rewards flights in U/C!

I just had to come on here and post about it as I am delighted that I've been able to get them booked. It's right what people say, be patient, check everyday and even phone to ask! Thank you all for the help Cant wait till August now!

Now, i'm back to saving my miles so that my mum and stepdad can use miles for their honeymoon!

Not sure if you got an ISA or not, but its up to 6000 miles now.

Well done on getting what you wanted, as you say, another day is no hardship is it!

Plenty of opportunities to collect miles using the credit cards route, shops away, shops away toolbar, tesco club card etc.