Virgin Miles Transfer fees, Do they seem Fair or Not?

Doing my research lately and looking at the cost of transferring over miles from other family members, I do feel that the cost of transfers from one person to another does seem to be quite high, Especially since these miles have already been paid for, or earned by the recipient through his or hers spending or flying with Virgin.
I know there has to be a transaction fee, but in some cases where their are promotions running It is cheaper to buy miles than it is to transfer them.
I would just like to get some feedback on this.
Let me know what you think, especially you guys and gals at Virgin.

They're extortionate. But I suspect they're meant to be, to put people off doing exactly what you're trying to do. VS want to give away reward seats to people who've earned or bought miles themselves, not used someone else's. They'd far rather those miles expire (as, no doubt, many millions do each year) or, if they are transferred, they'll make sure they make a big fat profit out of them.

I find this one of the most frustrating things about Virgin flying club, I really wish they would introduce family accounts like BA.

There is no reason why you should need to transfer miles. If you give authorisation anyone can use you miles as long as there are enough for at least sector in the account.

[Nottingham Nick]

Welcome to V-Flyer Peter.

Fees are not reasonable - never have been, never will be - mainly for the reasons gumshoe has stated. Transfers and purchases are handled by a separate company.

No one from Virgin will comment on something like this, or pretty much any subject. V-Flyer is an independent site run for and by customers. There is no offical Virgin direct input into the discussions at all.


Nick

yea the fees are high.
I wish they done a one time only transfer from your partners/close family members.

We collect airmiles, but as the credit card is in my name & linked to my account, my partner does not get any points. I dont think it unreasonable for them to transfer her miles to my account - or my miles to boost her's to afford at least a single leg.

I am not loyal to any brand & I will fly by whoever comes back the cheapest. If I don't have enough miles, then it means I just collect for another year.

[Neil]

There is no reason why you should need to transfer miles. If you give authorisation anyone can use you miles as long as there are enough for at least sector in the account.

That isn't always the case.
I had a situation a few weeks ago where I wanted to put my PE AmEx vouchers, as the CC is in my name, the vouchers are on my FC account. You can only use the vouchers on tickets bought with miles from the account where they are. So I had to transfer some miles from the other half's account to allow me to use them.

Yes it was frustrating to have to pay the fees, but it still was the cheapest option. Had the transfer miles option not been introduced or available, then I would have lost out, so it's nice to have the option available to me.

I do still think the fees are too high.

I'd just buy the miles rather than transfer them, if I needed to do that...

[Neil]

I'd just buy the miles rather than transfer them, if I needed to do that...

The cost to buy is fairly significantly higher than the cost to transfer.
As I said, I like having the option which allows me to decide what is best for me, rather than only the option to buy or no option at all.

When I looked it wasn't that much less than buying them. So buying them I'd still have the ones in the other account for future use in an upgrade...

But virgin has managed to lock me out of my account at the moment, so I can't see the price for it.

It's a bit like that boost your miles. Basically that is another mechanism for basically buying miles...

Ah yes, the website is being strange...

Hmmmn, 90 quid per 10,000 vs 150 quid to buy. I see. I suppose on a 25-30% bonus, they might come close. I'd never pay 90 quid to transfer them, but then again after my last PE experience, I'll not be flying PE again...

Thanks for all the replies, just glad to see I am not in the minority.
I understand all business need to make a profit, but I do think they are pushing it a bit with the transfer fees.
Surely it would be better to get something back for transferring those miles in unused family accounts, than see them time lapse out, it would help build a much stronger Brand / loyalty tie, and when all said and done it is usually the main card holder who books the flights so he or she would be booking for the family anyway.

It doesn't seem fair they allocate points when in the majority of cases they will never be used, what's the point in that.

I note the comment Virgin never get involved , well maybe they should, Good PR is something money just cannot buy.

VS wants / needs miles to expire so they reduce the liabilities on the balance sheet.

Having 36 months of inactivity before miles expire is actually quite generous when compared to some of the US programmes - my UA account has recently been zeroed out after 18 months of inactivity !

VS even offer a way out of the transfer fee issue in some instances (see my earlier post) so it's not always necessary to actually pay a transfer fee.

VS have chosen not to have a Household account like BA where miles can be pooled. But e.g. VS does allow miles to be used to book a car if you are on a G UC reward - BA does not offer that.

VS have also chosen not to be active participants on here. Nor do the post on flyer talk (or many other possible sites) though they do have an active Facebook page and Twitter accounts. BA does have an official presence on flyer talk (as do some other airlines) but they make it clear that they are not the first line of customer support but should only be contacted after customer services have failed to resolve an issue. They are more for making announcements e.g. the recent changes to BAEC was done by the 'lurker'

I'm not sure if BA does that, but VS will allow chunks of other peoples fares to be used for things like upgrades, so as long as the other half has chunks off 12.5K miles, they'll be used for upgrades...

As for timing out miles, there are ways to rest the timer. Book your next hotel via shopsaway and hotel.com. Gives you another few years...