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No, Virgin Points do not expire. Virgin Atlantic changed this as part of a program revamp in 2020 when the currency name changed from Flying Club Miles to Virgin points.
The lack of an expiration means you have no deadline and can take your time to plan your travel reward goals. Then, you can accumulate the points you need to meet those goals.
What are Virgin Points?
Virgin points are the combined loyalty currency for the Virgin Group.
They can be earned and redeemed in a wide range of ways, particularly in the U.S. and UK. Being UK-based, it has a more extensive network of partnerships. You can earn points for everything from switching your home energy supplier to catching a show in London's West End.
At the same time, you can also redeem them for a wide range of activities, including redeeming them for flights with Virgin Atlantic.
How to earn Virgin Points
Fortunately, if you are into Virgin points, there are plenty of ways to earn them. You can earn Virgin points through 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
- Earn points for shopping online with US retailers, including Macy's, Walgreens, and Kohl’s.
- Hotel stays booked through booking.com earn Virgin Points in the U.S. & UK.
- Earn Virgin Points when you shop online in the UK with a range of retailers from M&S to Harrods to Wickes and Screwfix.
- Virgin group family: earn points with many Virgin family partners in the UK, including mobile phones, train tickets, and much more.
- U.S. Virgin group family: earn points with many U.S. Virgin family partners, including hotels, Unite, and Voyages.
Virgin Atlantic Transfer Partners
If you need to boost your Virgin Points balance, you can transfer points from multiple credit card currencies to Virgin Points. You can transfer points from the following currencies to Virgin Points.
- American Express Membership Rewards
- Chase Ultimate Rewards
- Citi ThankYou Points
- Marriott Bonvoy (3:1 with a 5,000-mile bonus for every 60,000 points transferred)
- Bilt Rewards
Our Take
It doesn't get better than points that don't expire. This gives you time to plan, strategize, and work out the best way to get the most out of your points and miles. However, one pitfall to avoid is spending ages accumulating points or miles in a program.
Programs regularly devalue their currency, so it is best to “earn and burn” your points and miles relatively quickly!
The Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is worth a look with points that don't expire, excellent redemption sweet spots, and multiple credit card transfer partners. You should definitely check this out if you are a regular Delta or transatlantic traveler.
What's your favorite Virgin Atlantic redemption sweet spot?
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
The Virgin site says this https://www.virginatlantic.com/bb/en/flying-club/news.html
Exciting changes to your miles
As of 24th September 2020, Flying Club miles will never expire. They’ll also have a new name – Virgin Points. This change means that you can build up your Virgin Points balance for as long as you want, and enjoy rewards at your leisure – whenever you’re ready.
Cheers
BW
Hi. I’m sure this is true but just incase can anyone confirm for me that virgin points wil no longer expire after 36month?
I replied above.
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.