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There's an AMEX 30% Transfer Bonus to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club until 5/31/24. This is especially lucrative for travelers looking to reserve award flights on ANA to or from Japan, and may also be useful for travelers flying Air France Business Class or KLM Business Class to Europe, although there are caveats.
Here are the details:
- Log into your AMEX Membership Rewards account and navigate to the Transfer Points area to view the 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
- Transfer points with the 30% bonus until 11:59pm MT on May 31, 2024.
- Minimum transfer is 1000 Membership Rewards points
- Bonus Flying Club miles are awarded at the time of the transfer
- Transfers of AMEX Membership Rewards points that result in more than 999,999 Flying Club miles will not be accepted
- Transfers are irreversible: AMEX Membership Rewards points transferred to Flying Club cannot be transferred back to Membership Rewards points
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Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Awards on Delta: Mostly Unavailable or Not a Good Deal
Previously, Delta One awards were a great use of Flying Club miles. Unfortunately, for the most part, Delta is no longer releasing these awards to partners, so it's unlikely that you'll be able to enjoy 50K Flying Club awards in Delta One to or from Europe. That said, on a quick search we were able to find this New York JFK to Paris CDG Air France Business Class award, as well as a New York JFK to Amsterdam KLM Business Class award, both at 48,500 points + taxes each way, which equates to 38,000 AMEX Membership Rewards points when taking advantage of the 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. For the KLM Business Class award, that works out to a redemption value of 4.2 cents per AMEX point, while for the Air France flight it's about 3 cents per AMEX point, using half of the current round trip pricing and taking award booking taxes into account. That's better than other non-airline transfer partner uses of AMEX points, if you can be flexible, since of course many dates don't have award availability.
Generally we recommend redeeming points for awards when you're getting at least 2 cents per points, and preferably much more.
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Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Awards on ANA
One of our two favorite ways to fly to Japan is in ANA First Class (the other is JAL First Class). And while first class award availability is limited, especially in the new ANA “The Suite” First Class on the 777-300ER, it's worth planning ahead to try to secure. Even if you don't manage to secure first class, the new ANA “The Room” Business Class also looks very comfortable.
And with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, ANA Business Class from SFO or LAX to Japan is just 45,000 Flying Club points (= 35,000 AMEX Membership Rewards points with the 30% transfer bonus). ANA First Class has increased to 72,500 Flying Club points each way (previously it was a bargain 55,000 miles), but with the 30% transfer bonus that equates to 56,000 Membership Rewards points. ANA Business Class and First Class one way awards from the East Coast of the U.S. are 47,500 Flying Club points (37K Membership Rewards points, with the transfer bonus) and 85,000 Flying Club points (66K Membership Rewards points, with the transfer bonus), respectively. Note you must call Virgin Atlantic at 800-365-9500 to book ANA awards.
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The Caveats
As noted above, Flying Club is much less valuable for reserving Delta One awards than it used to be.
The other caveat is that we've noticed much less ANA First Class and Business Class award space released to partners, so you'll need to have very flexible dates and aim to reserve soon after Flying Club opens its award calendar, 331 days in advance.
For the above reasons, the AMEX 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is likely to be less attractive to most than it used to be, but still something that could be helpful to some.
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