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In an email to its members, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club announced that it is slashing the fees for transferring points between members. Effective immediately, you will pay a flat fee of $15 per transfer. That's much better than previous pricing, where you paid a flat fee plus a per-1,000-point fee.
The Chief Loyalty Officer and Managing Director for Virgin Red, Andrea Burchett, stated in the email to members:
“We’re always looking at how we can help our members unlock their dream rewards, so we're delighted that members can buy, gift and transfer Virgin Points, with transferring points now cheaper than ever. No one should miss out on extraordinary experiences and now there’s no reason to. You can instantly top up your points balance, club together with a friend or share the love with someone that deserves it.”
Previous Point Transfer Fee Pricing
Up to now, transferring points between friends and family members was expensive. You had to pay the following fees:
- A flat fee of $22 per transaction.
- A fee of $13.50 per 1,000 Virgin points transferred.
The cost could add up quickly if you were looking to transfer a large balance. For instance, transferring 10,000 points would have set you back a total of $157, which is a little excessive.
New Points Transfer Fee Pricing
Effective immediately, the above system has been scrapped. Going forward, transferring points to family or friends involves a flat fee of $15 per transaction. This is regardless of the number of points you transfer.
If you were transferring the 10,000 points from our example above, you would only pay $15 this time — a savings of $142 or 90%.
No Change To Gifting & Purchasing
While it is great to see the cost of transferring points slashed, little has changed regarding gifting and purchasing points.
Purchasing or Gifting Virgin Points
When you buy Virgin points, you will still pay the following fees:
- $25 per 1,000 Virgin points purchased.
- $22 transaction fee.
However, there are occasional deals to buy Virgin Atlantic points with a discount or bonus.
Boosting Your Virgin Atlantic Points Balance
Although transferring, purchasing, and gifting are great ways to boost your points balance. You have other great options to top up your Virgin Atlantic account. Virgin Atlantic is a transfer partner with six major flexible points currencies.
Not only does this give you many options to boost your balance. But it also makes the program the ideal destination to consolidate various small balances for an award. This can be excellent if you can leverage your points for one of Virgin Atlantic’s outstanding award sweet spots.
You can transfer all the following points to Virgin Atlantic.
Remember that Capital One is not a direct partner with Virgin Atlantic, so you will need to use a workaround and transfer your points to Virgin Red first, then onwards to Virgin Atlantic for no additional cost.
Remember, while most transfers are immediate, it pays to double-check the transfer times — especially if you are looking to book an award immediately and have little flexibility.
Our Take
There is nothing bad about this news about Virgin Atlantic's transfer fees. Any change that reduces costs — thereby giving you cheaper, better options — is a welcome announcement. The icing on the cake would be to see Virgin drop its pricing for buying and gifting points, although that is probably a step too far.
Will you be looking to transfer points between friends and family at the new lower cost? Let us know in the comments below.
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Any idea if Virgin is going to offer the Virgin Cruises with points again like they had this summer? I missed the June-Aug offer but was hoping they’d offer it again, even if for more points. Apparently it is not a regular offering for some reason, not sure why.
Hi Penny, I wish I knew when this would roll around again. It is quite irregular, as you pointed out.