Please could I have some advice on freq flyer miles

Hello
I am looking for a little bit of help. I was thinking of getting a virgin atlantic credit card, but I am not sure if its really worth collecting the miles.

I am a family of 2 adults and 2 kids. I was thinking of using said cc for all purchases and possibly spending some where in the region of about £15k on it.

me and dh have around 20000 miles each. at the end of the day, will I be able to manage cheaper flights or will the miles and money flights not be available in the summer hols, will I be better off just using to upgrade to pe and will i be able to do all of us? (I like to visit the us once a year, so not very freq flyer).

I understand the companion flight is not worth the cost.

or would airmiles suit us better?

I need to get something back for the money i spend, so i thought it might as well be something i like ii)

thanks in advance

Hello and welcome to v-flyer.

There is definitely no harm in collecting miles - at the end of the day there will always be ways to spend the miles.

If you tend to fly only once a year during the school holidays and to popular routes i.e. Orlando, you may find it difficult to find reward flights.

The good thing is there is a lot of sound advice here to help you.

My advice - if you would spend the money anyway, use the credit card and build up your miles - they will always come in handy - whether it's family upgrades, M+M or future full reward fares.

Luke

Hi Stinky Minky & welcome.

Just think your name is fab

If you are thinking of getting a white cc then it costs you zilch & as Luke085 says, there's always flight(s) to consider.

I used to have a black cc but decided that the cost didn't weigh up to the benefits. For a paid cc or charge card there are better deals out there.

Hope you enjoy the site y)

R-P

hello and welcome to v-flyer

I have a VS amex card and like you only fly once a year (twice if i am lucky) on VS, and maybe once or twice on BD.

as Luke and R-P say there is no harm collecting miles. using the card will mean that your miles never expire as you will be earning new miles each month.

you might be able to upgrade all your family if you book early and there is availability or if you get lucky you might get reward flights.

It is also worth considering a flight from LHR in to JFK and then connecting with Jet Blue to MCO if you are traveling to Orlando as there is often more availability of reward seats on the JFK and EWR routes. I know that a lot of V-Flyer's do this.

Hope you enjoy the site

Its best to have a plan for what you want to achieve.. A family with kids traveling in school hols is always going to be a hard slog trying to find reward seats to either purchase or upgrade into, they do exist however trying to find a block of X number in same cabin on same flight, will be even harder. It can be done, we've done SYD for 3 into UC, but get the feeling those days have gone.
There is also some uncertainty of possible changes within the VS flying club - i.e. alliance rumours.

IMHO given your circumstances, yes you need to be rewarded for the spend, why not go for an AMEX with standard AMEX rewards which you could then put towards either flights or hotels etc on an as-needed basis (eg transferring them to VS is nearly real-time). Subject to your circumstances the Plat Card, often mentioned on here is a worthy option, in fact any that provide the AMEX rewards, all down to your circumstances

Least this way your eggs aren't all in one basket.

As you've rightly pointed out the companion fare is near enough a marketing gimmic, and they show no real worth (generally), again the upgrade's to PE aren't just for any purchase, there needs to be availability for reward seats..

NH

I think the Amex Platinum is only really worth it if there is a massive sign up bonus (like the 40K MR points recently) or if you use it a lot. We have given the complimentary HH Gold and PP membership an absolutely hammering this year, as well as making the most of the 40K sign up and the tens of thousands of points I've earned since then.

Going to cancel though and will probably go for the VS black card and try and earn a couple of economy reward to PE upgrades. Used with an economy reward sale fare (e.g. 30K to NYC) makes it a reasonable deal IMO.

If going for an Amex card, the Gold charge card might be better if your spend is general household spending - food, petrol, etc. as it rewards with multiple points per £ depending on the type of spend.

I am sure any of us here will be happy to send you a recommendation link to earn a few points for when you want to apply for your new card.

blimey thank you for all your replies I only slightly more confused than I was yesterday!!

I might look at the LHR JFK option, but its the travel back home that puts me off.

I just think that if I am going to have to buy flights then I might as well get something worth while for the price, although I would rather pay less and travel economy as the kids are only 8 and 5 at the mo and they won't appreciate the extras

Is there an idiots guide to this somewhere? i have searched but just got lost again

[Nottingham Nick]

It is difficult to know where to point you without knowing exactly what it is that is confusing you. ?|

The V-Flyer FAQs have a section on the Flying Club faq A word of warning though - the FAQs are in need of a major update, which is why we don't make them that easy to find. They are still a good guide though.

The Virgin website Flying Club section also breaks down the ways to earn and spend miles. https://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/f ... /index.jsp

If you have specific questions, then there are lots of helpful people here who will know the answers. 8D

Nick

One other way of looking at it would be to see if you think youd get more value out of it than from a 'standard' cashback credit card - of which the Amex platinum (not to be confused with their platinum charge card) tends to be the best.

Based on a 15k annual spend - and of course assuming you pay it off each month(!), you'd get £226.25 cashback from this card including their introductory offer (£151.25 in a normal year).

Personally I always take the cash - more flexible! But then I get a lot of miles from my regular flying anyway so don't feel the need to supplement them further.

RC

I am slowly getting my head round this. It's beacuse I am trying to work out the cheapest way to spend money on flights, if its vs or a different carrier, and then if I can do pe on vs for no extra cost, that would be a bonus.

Two more questions

If i have booked flights with a 3rd party ie vh or a travel agent can you still use miles to upgrade to pe?

If i also spend enough to generate a pe upgrade, is this for 2 people and then can I use miles to upgrade the other 2, or do they have to stay at home with nana (I know that won't really work).

sorry

[Neil]

You can only use miles when booking direct with VS.

When using miles to upgrade from economy to PE, you can't just buy the cheapest ticket and then use miles. First you need to buy an upgradable fare code (Y,B,L) and these are more than the bog standard cheapest economy fare, and then there needs to be miles seats available in PE to upgrade to. Just because there are PE seats available, doesn't mean Virgin will always let you choose miles to upgrade with. Only a certain number are released on each flight.

Neil

There's also more than one way to depelt one of our feline friends.
You can also rack up quite a number of points using click through shopping on the Virgin Atlantic shop, if, like my family, you do a lot of tinterweb shopping. Probably worth another 20000 or so to me per year.
For a fairly infrequent VS flyer like me it's a quick way of achieving a useful balance and ensuring you stay up front.

There's also more than one way to depelt one of our feline friends.
You can also rack up quite a number of points using click through shopping on the Virgin Atlantic shop, if, like my family, you do a lot of tinterweb shopping. Probably worth another 20000 or so to me per year.
For a fairly infrequent VS flyer like me it's a quick way of achieving a useful balance and ensuring you stay up front.

thanks for that just been checing this out

Hi Stinky Minky

You say that the flight back from NY puts you off. Is that beacause of the night flights? There is a flight that leaves at 9am I think.

R-P

[honey lamb]

Hi Stinky Minky

You say that the flight back from NY puts you off. Is that beacause of the night flights? There is a flight that leaves at 9am I think.

R-P

It's 8am from Newark

oo) oo) oo) oo)

R-P