AMEX 30% Transfer Bonus to Virgin Atlantic, with Caveats

AMEX 30% Transfer Bonus Virgin Atlantic, with Caveats
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There's an AMEX 30% Transfer Bonus to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. This is especially lucrative for travelers looking to reserve award flights on ANA to or from Japan, 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 March 31, 2022.
  • 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. There are Delta One awards available on some flights to South America; expect to pay 80,000 Flying Club miles + $20 each way for ATL-LIM, where Delta would typically charge 105,000 SkyMiles. With the 30% AMEX transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, that's 62,000 AMEX points, but keep in mind this still isn't such a great use of AMEX points since the cash equivalent is ~$1150 (half of a $2300 typical roundtrip on this route in summer months), yielding a valuation of just 1.8 cents per AMEX point. 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 miles (= 35,000 AMEX Membership Rewards points with the 30% transfer bonus) compared to 88,000 United miles. ANA First Class is only 55,000 miles (43,000 AMEX points), vs. 120,000 United miles. Previously, ANA required roundtrip awards to be booked, but now one way awards are permitted. 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.

We have high client interest in Japan, but Japan isn't yet open to foreign leisure travelers, and hasn't set a timeline to reopen to international tourism. As we wrote in When Will Australia, Japan, New Zealand Reopen, we'd be surprised if Japan reopens to international visitors (even fully vaccinated ones) before Fall 2022, without any isolation or quarantine requirement. That's the second caveat.

The third 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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