How do I buy miles before I fly?

Whats the easiest way to get 4k miles? I just joined flying club (i.e. 0 miles), and they have some seats with miles+money for significantly cheaper than regular fare. apparently you can't buy miles until you have some miles in there. suggestions? I know they frown on buying/selling miles, so I was looking for other ways possibly (and that won't take long to get deposited into my account)





Edit to thread title by mod for clarity....Nick

Hi Gatormaz

Miles are miles - wherever you get them from

Virgin offer to sell them to you - or otherwise - dependent on your lifestyle - you can pick them up from (surprise!) flying with Virgin, or a myriad of other ways - such as the Virgin Amex Black card - where I pick up most of my miles - although everyone has a different way...

You could buy wine from Virgin wines or purchase something online via the virgin 'shop' web page on the VA site in Flying Club>Flying Club partners>Shopping

That's correct, you can't buy miles from VS until you have some already in your account (but not counting any miles gifted to you) - I suppose its to stop people trying to do what you are ! FC is about generating long term loyalty to VS.

You are also not allowed to use any miles that could be gifted to you as you also need to have previous earning activity on your account.

The quickest way might be to join virgin wine and buy a case where you will get 3000 miles (which gets you some activity plus a nice case of wine) THEN buying the 1k miles. BUT that might turn out to be more expensive than the cheapest normal fare.

Check out any of the VS miles partners and the miles they offer and decide whats best for you.

http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/fr ... /index.jsp

You wont earn any miles or tier points from a miles plus monney fare either.

I agree with Tonty that Virgin Wines is an excellent way of earning miles. My partner Steve recently needed some miles rapidly so, even though 'we' already use Virgin Wines in my name he enrolled himself and bought a case. Straight away his Flying Club account was credited with 3,000 'first purchase' miles. The brilliant thing is that each time you make a subsequent order you get 750 miles - so if you need a couple of cases just make sure you order them on separate days so as to generate multiple orders.

Also, as Slipperman says, the 'Shopping' click through from the VS site is really quite amazing! There are loads of popular retailers there and it really is a case of being able to earn shed loads of miles just by using the click through instead of going straight to that retailer's site. I was gob smacked that buying from John Lewis offers 4 miles/1. Next Directory is 2 miles/1...the list is endless! And the beauty is that the miles get credited so quickly!

Cheers
James

EDIT: ...and of course you still get your double miles just by paying on Amex Black [y]

You can also sign up for the VA Amex White card, with no annual fee, use it for one small purchase you'd be spending anyway, and then not use it again. That would net you 3000 miles, although it'd be 4-6 weeks to get the card and see the points get posted.