Virgin Transfer Bonus – Get A 30% Bonus When Transferring Membership Reward Points

American Express/Virgin has just launched a 30% bonus on moving your Membership Reward points to Virgin Red/Atlantic. If you have you have the Platinum, Gold or American Express Rewards card you will be able to take advantage of the latest Amex to Virgin transfer bonus… but is it worth it? Read on to find out!

What is the transfer rate with the Virgin Transfer Bonus?

The standard Virgin transfer rate is 1 Membership reward point for 1 Virgin point. With this offer, it’s boosted to 1 Membership reward point for 1.3 Virgin points until the 21st November 2024. The offer isn’t currently showing on the membership reward transfer page but it shows in the Virgin Red app if you scroll across their ‘featured’ offers at the top or here – https://www.virgin.com/virgin-red/american-express

The instructions detail making a transfer as normal from your Amex account to your Virgin Atlantic account, you should see the bonus post the same time the points do. The Virgin transfer page is here – https://www.americanexpress.com/en-gb/rewards/membership-rewards/partner/Virgin-Atlantic/Virgin-Atlantic-Flying-Club/VS-RT

Is it worth transferring into Virgin points to take advantage of the Virgin Transfer Bonus?

With the promotion, if you take the standard valuation of 1p you are getting 1.3p of value per membership reward point. If you secure 1p per point you would be getting 1.3p value per membership reward point. To put that into context most people value a membership reward point at 1p due to the 1:1 transfer rate into Avios.

Work out the maths on where and when you want to fly (or cruise!). Divide the cash rate (minus any ‘taxes & fees’) by the number of points your booking would cost. Use this figure to decide if transferring your points to Virgin is a good idea with this bonus. It may well be if cash rates are particularly high.

Though don’t forget on the 30th of October Virgin are making the switch to ‘dynamic’ pricing. How ‘bad’ this affects things, or if it opens up any opportunities remains to be seen. But unless you have an immediate redemption in mind you may as well wait and find out as the offer runs to the 21st of November.

To see where you could go for the points you are thinking of transferring check out Virgin’s Reward Flight Finder, don’t forget to compare to the cash rate! Or check the Virgin Red app/website for other offers (including cruises) – https://www.virgin.com/virgin-red/spend-virgin-points

Conclusion

Generally, I try to keep my points as Membership Reward points until I have a usage in mind. This is to protect against any potential devaluation of the schemes you can transfer into. With Virgin’s upcoming switch to ‘dynamic’ pricing (though we are yet to see how bad it is) I’m staying clear of this latest offer. However if you have a redemption in mind and this will top you up to the required points go for it! Has the Virgin transfer bonus encouraged you to transfer any points to Virgin?