combining virgin club mastercards

Myself and mine truly are thinking of combining our cards. We originally took out separate cards to get the initial bonus points and have carried on - but have just realised (and I think this is right, please put me straight if not) that tier points will still be earned and credited to our FC account, regardless of who pays for them. Am sure I saw this was the case in the sticky section.... and we can still use flying points accumulated on one card to pay towards both our flights - is this also right? If this is the case, then there's no real advantage that I can see in us having two accounts (and in the past couple of months, there have been a couple of errors made when paying them off each month) - might just as well have a single account and an additional card holder.

Must go now, the cat wants to do her email....

[Nottingham Nick]

Cat

You are spot on about the tier points. It doesn't matter who pays for the tickets, the person whose name is on the ticket and whose bum is on the seat is the one who gets the TPs.

We only have one Virgin CC account with two cards, and all the miles from both our cards go into my FC account.

I can see an advantage of having seperate accounts though. If one person was only a few thousand points short of a reward, then you could boost their account by concentrating your spending on their card(s)for a few months.

Our full balance is cleared by direct debit every month to avoid any expensive mistakes with interest payments. I have to say that I find them very generous with their grace period. My statement typically arrives on the 23rd and the direct debit is taken around the 18th of the following month. Compare this to Amex, where the direct debit is taken within a day or two of the statement arriving.

Hope this helps.

Nick

[HighFlyer]

Just to add .. we are talking Flying Club Miles and not Tier Points being earned with the FC CC

The only real advantage of you both having your own cards is if you are both going to spend over the £15k threshold as you can grab two companion tickets (if they are or any value) and also simply to have your own set of miles.

Otherwise, it may be more beneficial for you to pool all FC Miles into one account where they will build into rewards quicker.

Thanks,
Sarah

Thanks Nick - that confirms my thoughts and feelings. I have seriously thought about clearing the debt each month by DD, and I guess my main reason for not doing so is I am reluctant to hand the whole business over to someone else. Call me a control freak, and I'd have to hold up both hands to that!) But then again, doing it 'manually' has brought its own issues (far too long and boring to go into here, even for me).

Additionally, we don't spend 15K each a year on the cards and only 2 of us fly, the the companion flight possibility thing isn't an issue either - but thanks for the pointer there Sarah.

The only downside I can see is a situation where, if we do over over to one account, that account is hit by fraud in some way. It did happen a little over a year ago - and although there was no problem with sorting it, it did mean that Rob was without a card for about week. Having said that, we do have a back-up.... lol. Control freak, who said that???

What would happen with the points on the second card though - can they be transferred over, or should I just hang on to the unused account, not spend on it, but use the points and then cancel the card?

[Nottingham Nick]

Claire,

I will also confess to liking to be in control, but I have never had a problem with the direct debit system. If it were to go wrong, through circumstances beyond my control i.e. the bank or MBNA mucked it up, then I would expect them to sort it out.

The same to a great extent goes for any fraud on the account, that is not due to my negligence, I expect them to sort it out. We have a 'back up card' but the bulk of our spending is on the Virgin card.

As far as the points situation is concerned, I don't know how your cards are set up, but we receive a single statement for both cards and the FC points are automatically added to my FC account within a couple of days. It isn't an exact science, any purchases that are in the last day or two of the billing cycle often have their points creditted the following month, and there is always the 'rounding down' to account for - points are only awarded on the whole pounds of each purchase, so an item for £9.99 would 'only' net 18 FC points AFAIK.

Hope this helps

Nick