The Complete Guide to Virgin Atlantic Companion Seats

The Virgin Atlantic Flying Club program is one of the most popular frequent-flyer programs in the United Kingdom, where Virgin Atlantic is headquartered.

However, this program is also largely popular among U.S.-based points-and-miles enthusiasts because it’s a transfer partner of many programs, including American Express Membership Rewards, Bilt Rewards, Capital One Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards and Citi ThankYou Rewards, making it easy to rack up Virgin points if you have a credit card from any of these major issuers.

Virgin Atlantic is also a member of SkyTeam alliance, meaning that Flying Club members have many options for redeeming their points for partner flights, some of which offer outstanding value.

One of the most overlooked ways to get incredible value through the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club program is to use your points to book Companion Seats. This feature allows Virgin Atlantic Flying Club elite status members and Virgin Atlantic co-branded credit card holders who are already booked on a Virgin Atlantic flight to get a ticket on the same flight for a companion for free (taxes and surcharges apply).

You can also use these Companion Seat vouchers to book flight upgrades for a companion. However, you’ll typically get better value by redeeming them for award flights than upgrade awards.

It’s worth noting that, while the “Standard Companion Seats” perk used to be available to all Flying Club members, this option has recently been removed from the Flying Club program. Now, Companion Seat awards are only available to elite status members and those who have a Virgin Atlantic co-branded credit card. However, if you do fit in one of those two categories, you can get amazing value using the Companion Seats perk.

Essentially, these Companion Seat perks allow you to book a second ticket for a flight that you’re already booked on absolutely free. Thus, if you redeem Virgin points for a flight ticket and then use a Companion Seat voucher to get a second seat, you’ll essentially be getting double the value out of your points.

What Is a Virgin Atlantic Companion Seat Voucher?

Broadly, a Virgin Atlantic Companion Seat voucher is a voucher that allows a Virgin Atlantic Flying Club member to bring a companion with them on the same flight. However, there are two different kinds of Companion Seat vouchers that are earned in two different ways:

• Gold Renewal Companion Reward: You earn these vouchers each year that you renew your Gold elite status in the Flying Club program. You don’t have to spend any Virgin points to use these vouchers. Taxes, fees and surcharges apply.
• Credit Card Companion Reward: You earn these vouchers when you spend either 20,000 British pounds sterling (about $25,336) in a cardmember year on the Virgin Atlantic Rewards Credit Card or 10,000 British pounds sterling (about $12,668) in a cardmember year on the Virgin Atlantic Rewards+ Credit Card. You don’t have to spend any Virgin points to use these vouchers. Taxes, fees and surcharges apply.

Once you’ve earned them, both of these Companion Seat vouchers work in similar ways. And, although Gold Renewal Companion Rewards and Credit Card Companion Rewards come as a byproduct of your elite status or credit card spending, we still recommend maximizing their value by redeeming them for the ticket with the highest cash price available.

How to Earn a Gold Renewal Companion Reward

One way to earn a Companion Seat benefit is to renew Gold elite status membership in the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club program. In order to achieve this status, you’ll need to earn 1,000 Tier Points in an Upgrade Cycle (which is calculated from the current day of the month to the first day of the same month in the previous year).

You can earn Tier Points by flying with Virgin Atlantic. The number of Tier Points that you’ll earn depends on the cabin class that you fly in. Economy bookings will earn between 25 and 50 Tier Points, Premium bookings will earn between 50 and 100 Tier Points and Upper Class bookings will earn between 100 and 200 Tier Points, depending on the route that you’re flying.

If you already have Gold status and you earn 1,000 Tier Points in a year, you’ll renew your Gold status and receive a Companion Seat voucher.

How to Earn a Credit Card Companion Reward

As mentioned above, you can also earn Companion Seat Rewards if you’re a Virgin Atlantic credit card member. If you live in the U.K, there are two credit card options with which you can earn a Companion Seat voucher: the Virgin Atlantic Reward Credit Card and the Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Credit Card.

The Virgin Atlantic Reward Credit Card, which doesn’t charge an annual fee, offers a Companion Seat voucher to cardmembers who spend 20,000 British pounds sterling (about $25,336) in a cardmember year.

The Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Credit Card, which charges an annual fee of 160 British pounds sterling (about $208), offers a Companion Seat voucher to cardmembers who spend 10,000 British pounds sterling (about $12,668) in a cardmember year.

The Virgin Atlantic program also offers a credit card to U.S. consumers called the Virgin Red Rewards Mastercard® that charges an annual fee of $99. When you spend $15,000 in a cardmember year on this card, you’ll get the option to choose one Personal Perk, which can be either a Flying Club Companion Seat voucher or cabin upgrade, a Virgin Hotels free night or priority upgrade or a Virgin Voyages $300 bar tab credit or Blue Extras perk package.

If you spend $30,000 in a cardmember year, you can choose a total of two Personal Perks. So, you can potentially earn two Companion Seat vouchers per cardmember year with the Virgin Red Rewards Mastercard®.

How to Book a Virgin Atlantic Companion Seat

To book a Virgin Atlantic Companion Seat, you need to be a Virgin Atlantic Flying Club member and you need to be booked on a Virgin Atlantic-operated flight. To book a Companion Seat award, the primary member can purchase a seat on a Virgin Atlantic-operated flight with cash or points.

Additionally, there must be award availability on the flight that you’ve booked. So, if you plan on booking a Companion Seat, we recommend doing so immediately after you book your own ticket so that award availability doesn’t fill up.

To search for award availability on Virgin Atlantic flights, we recommend using the Virgin Atlantic Reward Checker tool if you plan on flying to or from the United Kingdom. With this tool, you can select a Virgin Airlines route and view the exact amount of award space in each cabin class for each day of the month.

If your origin or destination isn’t in the United Kingdom, then the best way to search for award space is simply to go to the flight search tool on the home page of the Virgin Atlantic website, click the Advanced search drop-down menu and select Show Price In Points.

From there, you can search for Virgin Atlantic flights that have award availability. When you find an award flight that you want to book a Companion Seat on, you’ll need to call the Virgin Atlantic U.S. customer service line at 1-800-862-8621. It’s not possible to book Companion Seat awards online. Be sure to tell the customer service agent that you’re trying to book a Standard Companion Seat, as the different versions of companion fares may cause some confusion if you don’t specify what you’re trying to book.

Once again, to book a Virgin Atlantic Companion Seat successfully, you must already be booked on that flight and there must be award availability on that flight. If your request meets these conditions and you have enough Virgin points in your account to purchase the Companion Seat voucher, the customer service agent will confirm your purchase.

How Much Is a Companion Seat Voucher Worth?

Regardless of whether you earn a Companion Seat voucher by renewing Gold elite status or as a credit card perk, its value will be determined by your status in the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club program.

If you’re a Red member in the Flying Club program, these vouchers can be redeemed for a value of up to 75,000 Virgin points. If you’re a Silver or Gold tier member, your voucher can be redeemed for a value of up to 150,000 Virgin points.

However, if you redeem your voucher for a flight or upgrade with a value greater than those stated above, you can fund the additional value with additional points from your account. For example, if you were a Red member and you wanted to redeem a Companion Seat voucher for a flight that costs 100,000 points, you’d have to fund the additional 25,000 points (beyond the 75,000-point value of your voucher) using points from your account.

How Much Value Can You Get from Companion Seats?

As mentioned above, Companion Seat vouchers are worth up to 75,000 points if you’re a basic Red member and up to 150,000 points if you’re a Flying Club elite status member. So, when redeeming your Companion Seat voucher, you should try to get as close to those maximums as possible so that you can get the maximum possible value of your voucher.

However, as of October 30, 2024, the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club switched over from using fixed award charts to a dynamic pricing model for many of its award seats. This means that the prices of award flights will vary based on demand and will be loosely tied to cash prices, making it much harder to predict what certain award flights will cost.

Whereas Virgin Atlantic used to guarantee that at least 12 Saver award seats would be available on all Virgin Atlantic flights, that is no longer true. Now, there is no guaranteed number of Saver seats on any flight, meaning that there will be many flights on which there won’t be a single seat available at the Saver rate.

However, Virgin Atlantic will continue to offer Saver award seats on many flights, although there is no guarantee of the number of Saver seats available or if any seats at all will be available at Saver levels. These Saver awards are priced according to an award chart that lists the maximum prices of Saver-level awards on Virgin Atlantic flights during peak and standard season:

The rates in this chart apply to round-trip Saver award flights on Virgin Atlantic. Once again, Companion Seat vouchers can only be redeemed for round-trip awards. So, really, if you want to get every bit of value out of a Companion Seat award (and you’re a basic Red member), you should redeem for either a Premium Saver flight award between the U.K. and the U.S. West during Peak season or an Upper Class Saver flight award between the U.K. and India, Dubai or Saudi Arabia in Standard season, both of which should cost 75,000 points.

If you have any elite status, then you should try to redeem your Companion Seat for the highest-priced Saver award that you can find. The only flights this chart that’s beyond your 150,000-point maximum is a round-trip Upper Class Saver award flight between the U.K. and the U.S. West during Peak season. And you could always fund that additional 5,000 points with Virgin points from your account.

Once again, the award chart above applies to Saver seats on Virgin Atlantic flights. However, there’s no minimum for the number of Saver seats on any Virgin Atlantic flight. And we assume that all seats on high-demand flights will be priced dynamically above the Saver levels shown above.

And, although the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club program as a whole has been devalued due to the switch to dynamic pricing, you can still get excellent value out of your Virgin points by using Companion Seat vouchers.

For example, as mentioned above, booking Upper Class flights between the U.K. and India could be a great way to maximize the value of your points and your Companion Seat voucher. We found Upper Class award space on round-trip flights between London (LHR) and Delhi (DEL) for 80,500 points plus about 680 British pounds sterling (about $875) in taxes and fees. Unfortunately, when purchasing a Companion Seat award with Virgin Atlantic, you’ll still have to pay any applicable taxes and fees, which can be very high.

If you were to book this same flight with cash instead of Virgin points, it would cost you about 2,044 British pounds sterling (about $2,632).

Thus, by booking this Upper Class award flight with Virgin points instead of cash, you’d be getting a value of about 2.2 cents per point (($2,632 – $875) / 80,500 Virgin points = 2.2 cents per point), which is pretty good. However, if you were to utilize a Companion Seat voucher on the same flight, then you’d get a value of about 4.1 cents per point (($2,632 x 2) – ($875 x 2) / (80,500 Virgin points + 5,500 Virgin points) = 4.1 cents per point) for the two tickets combined, which is excellent. And, you’ll use your Companion Seat voucher to its fullest extent.

However, if you’re a U.S.-based traveler, then it might not be very practical for you to travel from London to India. So, let’s look at a flight between the U.S. and London. Using the Virgin Atlantic Reward Checker tool, we found availability in Economy class for round-trip flights between London (LHR) and Los Angeles (LAX) in early March 2025 for just 9,000 points each way (for a total of 18,000 points round-trip). In the picture below, all of the flight availabilities with red tags next to them are at the Saver level, meaning that they’re at the cheapest rate available and represent the best opportunity to get high value per point.

If you booked these flights as Companion Seats with Virgin points, it would cost you just 9,000 points round-trip. Once again, though, taxes and fees on these Virgin Atlantic award flight can be quite high.

For instance, on this round-trip itinerary from London to Los Angeles in Economy class, the taxes and fees would be 277 British pounds sterling (about $360).

When we searched for the exact same Economy flights on these same dates between London and Los Angeles, the cash rate was 587 British pounds sterling (about $762).

So, by booking this flight with Virgin points as a regular full-price award, factoring in the taxes and fees that you’d have to pay, you’d get a value of about 2.2 cents per point, which is good for an economy award (($762 – $360) / 18,000 points = 2.2 cents per point). However, if you were to book this flight with points and then use your Companion Sea voucher to book another seat, you’d get a value of about 4.5 cents per point (($762 x2) – ($360 x 2) / 18,000 Virgin points= 4.5 cents per point), which is outstanding.

However, in this case, the vale of the Companion Seat voucher that you used was only 18,000 points whereas in the previous example of the flight from London to Delhi, you would have used the full 75,000-point maximum value of the voucher.

With some searching using the methods that we showed you above, you can find many Companion Seat redemptions that offer just as much (if not more) value than the example above.

Can You Upgrade Companion Seat Tickets?

When you book a Companion Seat, you need to travel on the same flight as your companion. If you, as the primary member, wish to upgrade to the next cabin class, you can do so with either cash or points. However, the companion that you’re traveling with can be upgraded using cash only (and not points) and only if there is an empty seat in that cabin.

If you choose to upgrade your companion with cash, you’ll get a discounted rate. If you choose to upgrade yourself, as the primary member, with points, then your companion will need to stay in the lower cabin.

Companion Seat Terms and Conditions

There are a few other rules and restrictions to be aware of when trying to book a Companion Seat award. We’ve listed these below:

• Flying Club reward vouchers earned on or after October 30, 2024 are valid for 24 months from the date they are awarded. All bookings using a Flying Club reward voucher must be made within 24 months of the voucher being credited to the account, and the outbound flight must be flown before or on the voucher’s expiry date (the return flight can be taken later).
• Economy Light tickets are not eligible for Companion Seat awards.
• Economy Companion Seat awards are available only in Economy Classic. As the paying passenger, you can travel in the same or higher cabin than that of the companion, however your companion can’t be booked into a higher cabin than you.

The Bottom Line

If you’re either a Virgin Atlantic credit card holder or a Gold elite status member, you could be eligible to receive a Companion Seat benefit. With these Companion Seats, you can book a ticket for a friend or family member on the same flight as you for free. To do so, you must already have booked a flight on that flight with either cash or points.

Unfortunately, as part of a series of program devaluations that became effective on October 30, 2024, the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club program got rid of Standard Companion Seats, which used to be available to Flying Club members that weren’t cardholders or elite status members on all cash bookings. This benefit is no longer available, which is a huge loss for this program.

Still, if you have Flying Club Gold elite status or a Virgin Atlantic credit card, you can get access to Companion Seat bookings, which can help you get outstanding value from your Virgin points.