Seems a good deal - Black Virgin Amex.

Got a mailshot re Virgin Amex regular card, looked on website and saw the Black card with double the offer. We have a got a £10000 holiday to pay for and I have introduced my mother in law to join who is flying UCS with us (although this is only 6000 intro. points rather than 10000 last year; anti-inflation?!).

So with £10000 x 4miles per £ = 40000 miles, plus 6000 for introducing her plus 6000 bonus for first purchase on card, plus 21000 for the round trip, that equates to 73000 - more than enough for an upgrade from EC to UC - seems a good deal to me, or am I missing something?! (apart from the £110 outlay annual fee).

I hear the companion reward is not that great though as I would have to pay a full J fare to get the freebie, still the rest seems good, although if the J is less than double the Z would it be right that it would still make a good deal when booking another holiday?

Thanks.

[Neil]

If you spend a lot on the card it can be very useful. We have earned loads of miles this by putting everything on the card. Your workings look about right, the £110 annual fee is more than paid for by all the miles you will earn.

I have personally found both the companion and upgrade vouchers useless but the miles alone that helped get our G's for SFO have been most useful.

Can one get any VS miles by using a Centurion ? I have had mine for years but hardly ever use is as a charge card - just the benefits but if I could earn miles ...........

[mitchja]

I thought the annual fee for the VS black Amex was £115, well that's what they charged me last year [:?]

Amex do a 1-to-1 MR to VS miles conversion.

Regards

Thanks Mitchja

You will be able to earn miles through any Amex card, albeit at a lower rate than the VS Amex Black, through the Membership Rewards program. See for example here.

[RichardMannion]

Originally posted by MarkedMan
You will be able to earn miles through any Amex card, albeit at a lower rate than the VS Amex Black, through the Membership Rewards program. See for example here.

Not strictly true - there are a group of people who have UK AmEx cards that earn 2 MR points per £ spent, and 4 points per £ spent with VS. It's a legacy thing from a few years ago when there was a combined offer from Virgin and AmEx UK on the Gold Card.

VS card ante litteram, sounds like - plus with that 15% bump the legacy cards are actually earning better? Stuck with my 1 & 2 cards in the US, though with the current value of the dollar it's likely to not make much of a difference ...

[RichardMannion]

Are you referring tothe 15% bonus that MR transfers to FC are receiving at the moment? That is only until the end of April if I remember.

Yep, end of May I think, only a short term advantage, unfortunately. As an irrational hoarder of MRs, the 15% looks attractive - I've never seen deals like that over here, only deals on double points themselves and the like.