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Effective September 24, 2020, Virgin points no longer expire. This is a positive change from the previous policy, under which your points expired after 36 months of no activity on your account.
If the “Virgin points” name does not sound familiar, there's a reason for that. On the same day Virgin announced the new no-expiration policy, it renamed its mileage currency as “Virgin Points” instead of “Flying Club Miles”. The name change is supposed to reflect the many ways that the points can be used now.
Now that Virgin points no longer expire, you have nothing to hold you back from building up a points balance for a great redemption. Virgin Atlantic has a somewhat restricted route map, especially if you're traveling from the U.S. However, Virgin has several tie-ups with international partners. And redemption rates on partners such as Delta are superb.
Earning Virgin Points
Fortunately, if you are into Virgin points, there are plenty of ways to earn them. You can earn Virgin points in any of the following methods:
- Fly with Virgin or with an airline partner and earn points for your flight
- Earn points for spending on Virgin Atlantic® World Elite MasterCard®
- Stay with one of Virgin Atlantic’s hotel partners
- Rent a car with one of Virgin Atlantic’s car rental partners
- Earn points by shopping through the Virgin Atlantic shopping portal
- Purchase Virgin points
- Boost your points when you fly Virgin Atlantic
Virgin Atlantic Transfer Partners
If you are short of a few points for a redemption, you can transfer points from multiple credit card currencies to Virgin points. You can transfer points from the following four currencies to Virgin Points.
Bottom Line
Since the start of the pandemic, we have seen many points and miles programs pause expiration. While that's a temporary help, Virgin Atlantic's elimination of points expiration is clearly a much more flyer-friendly move.
What's your favorite Virgin Atlantic redemption sweet spot?
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Excellent news!!! As a long time virgin Atlantic flying club member, I was afraid of losing my miles, Virgin flights are usually very expensive but I had manage to take advantage of some off season. flights however, I have been unable to travel with them since 2018, other low cost airlines like Norwegian had had cheaper flights options.
This is a great change – I managed to lose thousands of Flying Club Miles when mine expired. They were hard for me to earn in any great number and I didn’t have enough to use for a flight.
Kudos to Virgin Atlantic! I agree this should be the industry standard, and, in fact, it seems we are moving in that direction. Of the major airlines I do business with, only American Airlines still has a points expiration policy in place. In my opinion, that puts American at a competitive disadvantage, especially given that the expiration period is only 18 months. Hopefully all airlines will get on board with Virgin’s move and make it so our miles/points don’t expire.
This should be the standard nowadays. American, IAG and many of the legacy-airlins should follow.
Unfortunately Virgin does price out as segment by segment 🙁 Only direct flights are worthwhile.
This move certainly aligns with the Skymiles program.
It will be wise to focus on this program when the “situation” stabilizes a bit later on.