amex credit card free upgrade vouchers

has anyone recieved the free upgrade vouchers for spending 5k on your
virgin amex card

I was wondering the same thing earlier today.... I haven't received anything!

G.

The way I read it is that you will have to wait until your cards anniversary and the upgrade voucher will be posted within 30 days.

This is the relevant passage

**Premium Economy reward upgrade
Spend £5,000 on card purchases by the end of any year and you will receive a Premium Economy reward upgrade the next time you redeem your Flying Club miles for a qualifying Economy redemption flight with Virgin Atlantic. Plus, spend another £5,000 in that year and earn another Premium Economy reward upgrade. The main cardmember only can earn a maximum of two Premium Economy reward upgrades per card account in any one year. Card purchases exclude cash transactions, payments by credit card cheques and balance transfers. A year is defined by the 12 month period starting from the date you opened your Virgin Atlantic Credit Card account. MBNA will notify Virgin Atlantic of your eligibility within 30 days of the end of the year if you are eligible.

Reward flights in PE are to become as rare as the proverbial 'rocking horse droppings' when everyones upgrade vouchers kick in. Revenue management are going to have to be a bit more generous than of late!

Mark.

[Decker]

Originally posted by marko
[ Revenue management are going to have to be a bit more generous than of late!

Mark.

Ermm no - it doesn't guarantee that you can use them... [}:)]

Originally posted by marko
The way I read it is that you will have to wait until your cards anniversary and the upgrade voucher will be posted within 30 days.

Seems odd that they (not sure if I mean MBNA or FC!) seem to be applying different rules in respect of the two types of reward on offer - ie. the Premium Economy reward upgrade and the Complimentary companion reward flight.

Checking the T's & C's on va.com they apply identical conditions to both types of Reward: "A year is defined by the 12 month period starting from the date you opened your Virgin Atlantic Credit Card account. MBNA will notify Virgin Atlantic of your eligibility within 30 days of you becoming eligible"

However - myself and many of us have already been credited with the voucher for the Complimentary companion reward flight on our FC statements, for example my VAA Credit Card Companion Flight Qualification was applied to my FC account on 23 Aug. Clearly though none of us have had our MBNA AMEX cards for anything like a year BUT evidently MBNA have notified Virgin Atlantic of my eligibility within 30 days of me becoming eligible - otherwise why would FC have offered up the voucher? I'm assuming they don't credit us with the vouchers only to disallow use of them [:?]

[HighFlyer]

According to MBNA, you wont get the T->U upgrade vouchers until the end of your VS AmEx anniversary - so a year after you have had the card. The companion voucher earning has been changed so that as soon as you have hit the £7500/£15000 spend, your account will flag up and you will be notified within 30 days of reaching that spend level. Your companion voucher will then be issued, you will not have to wait until the end of the year as previously with the Mastercard. This is (allegedly) why the majority of ex-MC customers already have their Companion vouchers, as they applied the new rules to existing spend and issued companion vouchers to anyone who had qualified.

This is what i have been told by MBNA and the Members Shop. Obviously i'll take what MBNA say with a pinch of salt, but the Members Shop also attest to this, saying that the change is marked down in the limited T&C's they have for the new card. Apparently some Members Shop guys are a bit peeved that they are locked out of the AmEx accounts as they are still inundated with queries from old customers and they cant help at all - despite knowing a lot more about the way FC works.

Thanks,
Sarah

Thanks Sarah - that's really helpful [y] I was confused as the T's & C's on va.com haven't been updated - they still stipulate the one year anniversary as a condition for both the PE Upgrade reward and the Companion reward!

I have received one upgrade voucher but according to my calculations I have spent over £10,000 on the new Amex card so think I should receive two - is this correct, should I call them?

Originally posted by PS100
I have received one upgrade voucher but according to my calculations I have spent over £10,000 on the new Amex card so think I should receive two - is this correct, should I call them?

Interesting that you've already received your first one [:?]

As per Highflyer's post the current understanding is that FC is only issuing Companion reward vouchers "up front", ie. before the first year's anniversary and we will have to wait for the PE Upgrade vouchers, as per the terms & conditions >>

Spend £10,000 on card purchases (or £5,000 if you have a fee card) by the end of any year and you will receive a Premium Economy reward upgrade the next time you redeem your Flying Club miles for a qualifying Economy redemption flight with Virgin Atlantic. Plus, spend another £10,000 (or £5,000 if you have a fee card) in that year and earn another Premium Economy reward upgrade.

...where a year is the 12 month period starting from the date you opened your Virgin Atlantic Credit Card account

If you've received your first PE Upgrade voucher already then you're lucky! Are you sure it's not the Companion voucher that you, along with the rest of us with qualifying spend, have been credited with?

No, definitely an upgrade vouhcer. I received my companion voucher back in August and on 6th October my statement is showing an upgrade voucher. I have called them to query why I have not received 2 vouchers and after being passed between MBNA and the Members shop, someone has said they are looking into it but it will take 5 working days!!!

Originally posted by PS100
No, definitely an upgrade vouhcer. I received my companion voucher back in August and on 6th October my statement is showing an upgrade voucher. I have called them to query why I have not received 2 vouchers and after being passed between MBNA and the Members shop, someone has said they are looking into it but it will take 5 working days!!!

Even more interesting....keep us informed on developments. As you'll have gathered from the many threads in this forum, the whole MBNA AMEX implementation has been a fiasco from the outset. As far as these rewards go, we've all got our Companion vouchers - great - but according to current T's and C's on Virgin's website we shouldn't have!

As far as the PE Upgrade rewards go, as Highflyer mentioned yesterday, we're supposed to await our 1st year anniversary for these - as per the T's & C's - but lo & behold you've got the first of two, & the rest of us haven't got anything [:w]

Well it looks as if someone from MBNA or FC must have read this thread - just logged in to my FC account & there it is - one x VAA Credit Card Econ>Premium Reward Upgrade credited to my account on 8th Nov Clearly they're ignoring the published terms & conditions and not making us all wait until the card's first year's anniversary [y] T'other half has checked his and he also has the same.

Nothing there for me yet, despite reaching 2 x required spend for 2, never mind 1.

Regards

Pat

Nothing for me either - and there should be! Maybe I have to wait until year end.

G.

Originally posted by GrahamN
Nothing for me either - and there should be! Maybe I have to wait until year end.

All this simply adds fuel to "MBNA are hopeless" debate & further reinforces the total inconsistency in everything they do [n] Odd really but I think we're all so immune to their hopelessness that we no longer bat an eyelid! Oh well, some of us have got these rewards, others haven't - who knows what will happen next[:?]

I'm not immune! Still haven't received a reply to the letter I sent to their CEO enclosing my card because his company was about as much use as a chocolate gun (or even BAA Security)

[HighFlyer]

Nothing in my FC Account either [:(]

It would be nice to get the benefits of this card as and when they are due as opposed to waiting until the renewal year (especially for those of us who are going to cancel it in July ) so i hope the information i got from MBNA was wrong and that i'll get my two T->U vouchers soon. Knowing MBNA ... i wont hold my breath.

Good stuff for those of you who got them, do report back and let us know how successful you were in utilising them.

Thanks,
Sarah

Sarah, you'll laugh at this....just been on the phone to FC to redeem our T - U vouchers. I had been under the impression that the voucher entitled me to a PE upgrade when I paid for a qualifying EC fare, however silly old me has just realised that you don't even pay for the EC fare in the first place - you redeem miles. If I'd bothered to read VA's Terms & Conditions thoroughly (or indeed checked the fare codes page here on VFlyer) I'd have known that "you will receive a Premium Economy reward upgrade the next time you redeem your Flying Club miles for a qualifying Economy redemption flight with Virgin Atlantic". So we get to fly PE for free (bar taxes of course):)

Just working on dates now for an east coast trip next year, not easy when we need two T's and two U's to be available on outbound & return flights!

[HighFlyer]

Yup, T is the fare class code for an Economy reward, hence T->U

And yes, once more people start getting their vouchers, i imagine finding those T's and U's will be nigh on impossible. What with the current difficulty in getting a Z for a day ending in Y ...

Thanks,
Sarah

...tell you one thing, goodness knows what we'll do after next July, what with the AMEX mileage earning ability being chopped in half! It's been great having miles coming out of our ears, if only the 4 miles/£ could carry on

[HighFlyer]

Originally posted by Vegascrazy
...tell you one thing, goodness knows what we'll do after next July, what with the AMEX mileage earning ability being chopped in half! It's been great having miles coming out of our ears, if only the 4 miles/£ could carry on

Get a proper CC?

Seriously, im not sure what i'll do, but i wont stay with the AmEx, not for that fee anyway. Im happy to pay it for the accelerated earning and take with a pinch of salt all the retailers that refuse it, but im not staying with them after July.

Though, as i am sure a lot of others will be cancelling their cards, there might be a few loyalty offers kicking around as there were with the Gold AmEx last year.

Thanks,
Sarah

I'm with you there Sarah. Do you know if any research been done on what alternative cards are best VS miles earners? I know there have been threads on BMI and BAA Worldcard (I have the latter as backup) but just wondered if anyone has worked out which alternative card is "officially" the best?

[HighFlyer]

I have the BMI card and i'll stick with that as i have the no fee one. Not looked at the BAA card, which i probably should as i have a Worldpoints account with points sat in it.

You can shift BAA points straight into the VS program, you cant (i dont think) do this with BMI, but their program is quite good, and also opens up options to *A carriers.

I think, if i dont get some sort of accelerated earning after July, i'll shift my expenditure over to the BMI or BA programs. I get enough miles from flying for the odd upgrade or reward each year. Will certainly be interesting to see what everybody does.

Thanks,
Sarah

Thanks Sarah, yes it'll be really interesting to see what we all end up doing post July '07. The AMEX bonanza has been great, and we mustn't forget it's around for another 8 months [y] There's no way without the accelerated earning we'd have flown UC this year, nor got CDC transfers, not forgetting UC to DXB in a few months and CDC's on that trip as well...oh and plus two freebie PE flights each. Yes, we're pi**ed off with MBNA's administration but, in my view, it really has been one of the best offers I've participated in. Friends can't believe it when we say we just stick everything we buy on a credit card & that's what pay's for our upgrades