Virgin flying points

agnes · 16 Nov 2016 at 14:12

Sup,

My dad has offered to give me 18,000 virgin flyer points or what ever they call him as I'll need to book multiple flights to the US next year.

How much are they worth? I can't find a calculator anywhere!

agnes · 16 Nov 2016 at 14:22

ots3go said:
http://www.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/flying-club/miles/spend-miles/reward-flights.html

?

My Google Fu is weak.

Seems it's not that many then. 42,000 needed for a single to San Fran. I'll speak to virgin to see if I can use the points and pay the rest.

Thanks

agnes · 16 Nov 2016 at 14:32

[TW]Fox;30218494 said:
The only useful thing to do with that many is to use points plus money to get a small discount or just transfer them to a hotel programme or something.

It will cost your dad to transfer you the points and really isn't worth it.

I think he'll likely just book through his account, he had loads but spent them up as he used to live in Barbados.

If anything, a nice seat upgrade wouldn't go a miss.

agnes · 16 Nov 2016 at 14:38

Housey said:
It cost me 150,000 miles to get 2 x return upper class seats to Boston from Heathrow, plus £880 as an example and this was booked 3 days before I flew and only came open as the aircraft wasn't full. You have to use a lot of miles to get a seat upgrade and really it's the tier points and gold status when you start to get somewhere, before that you are just a line on a spreadsheet.

Thanks chap, if it doesn't cost him much to transfer them, I might do that. Help with stocking up on points. Moving to San Francisco so will be flying back and forth a lot.

agnes · 16 Nov 2016 at 14:53

Housey said:
I do that flight 3 or 4 times a year and it's always one of the hard ones due to time on flight (11 hours) and the change in time zone (8 hours) so I always struggle to acclimatise. Great place to live though. I have the option to live out there should I wish but I guess at 49 I am now of the age where I like the life I have built in England.

Oh really? Awesome! I'm heading out with my partner, her company is sending her to start up a new development team (she's a senior software engineer) in their Alameda office. So that's where we'll be situated. We're both in our 20's (just! haha) so it's perfect timing. I'll be getting a L2 visa off of her L-1B. She's moving over in January, I'll follow suit several months after once I've got rid of the cars and closed off a few loose ends.

We're toying with getting a GC at some point, but we'll see how it goes.

As for the flight, that sounds like hell, we're both over 6' so sruggle with cattle class. So buying business class is going to be essential I think.

agnes · 16 Nov 2016 at 15:15

Good to know, I've got a bunch of points with BA, might stick to BA then.

I flew 1st class with Virgin to Barbados to and from, the beds were JUST big enough for me, 6'2". Had a couple of inches spare, if that. Wasn't incredibly comfortable, but I was able to stretch out which is the important thing. However, it's spoilt me and any flight for more than 5 hours, economy simply isn't going to cut it.

agnes · 16 Nov 2016 at 15:27

Thanks chap, notes taken