Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Award Booking Instructions

Flying Club, the frequent flyer program of British airline Virgin Atlantic, has consistently been one of the best programs for booking a wide variety of award flights for years. Virgin Atlantic is a member of SkyTeam Alliance and has several partnerships with airlines outside of this alliance, meaning that you can use Flying Club points to book flights with many different airlines. Plus, all partner award flights available through the Flying Club program are priced according to fixed award charts, meaning that you can often find outsized value for your points.

Another major advantage of the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club program is that it’s a transfer partner of every major credit card rewards program. So, no matter which major U.S. issuer you have a credit card with, you should be able to transfer points to Flying Club at a 1:1 ratio. Thus, you can quickly earn enough Flying Club points to buy an award flight.

However, some may find it difficult to navigate purchasing an award flight through the Flying Club program. So, in this article, we’re going to explain, step-by-step, the process of booking award flights with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points as well as creating a Flying Club account and earning points.

Joining Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

Before you start earning Virgin points and redeeming them for award flights, you have to be a member of the Flying Club program. So, if you don’t already have a Flying Club account, the first thing you need to do is visit the Virgin Atlantic website and click the “Flying Club” button on the top toolbar of the Virgin Atlantic website homepage and click the “Join Flying Club” option from the drop-down menu that appears.

From there, you’ll be redirected to a new page, where you’ll need to enter your email. You’ll then need to enter the verification code that was sent to the email account you entered. Once you successfully verify your email, you’ll need to enter some personal information, including your name, date of birth, gender, home address and phone number.

Finally, you’ll need to create a password that you’ll use to sign in to your Flying Club account in the future and click the red “Create my account” button on the bottom of the page.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll be assigned a unique Flying Club account number which you can use to sign in to your account in the future and to credit flights and other eligible activities to your account. You’ll also be eligible to earn and spend Virgin points.

How To Earn Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Points

Now that you’re familiar with how to create a Virgin Atlantic Flying Club account, let’s discuss how to get enough points in your account to purchase an award flight. There are many ways to earn points through this program. However, in general, the most effective ways to earn points are to transfer points from credit card rewards programs, to sign up for a Virgin Atlantic co-branded credit card and to take paid flights with Virgin Atlantic or one of its airline partners.

In the following sections, we’ll briefly look at these different ways to earn Flying Club points so that you can rapidly earn enough points to book an award flight.

Transfer Credit Card Points

Probably the best way to earn Virgin points is to transfer points from credit card rewards programs to the Flying Club program. Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is a transfer partner of every major credit card rewards program, including American Express Membership Rewards, Bilt Rewards, Capital One Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards and Wells Fargo Rewards. To transfer points from your credit card rewards program, you typically need to sign in to your credit card account, choose the option to transfer your rewards and then select Virgin Atlantic Flying Club as your desired transfer partner.

All of these credit card rewards currencies transfer to the Flying Club program at a 1:1 ratio. So, for example, let’s say that you had 75,000 Citi ThankYou points (which, perhaps, you earned from the welcome bonus from the Citi Strata Premier℠ Card). You could transfer those points to the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club program and receive 75,000 Flying Club points in a matter of seconds, which would be enough for several award flights.

Virgin Atlantic Co-Branded Credit Cards

In addition to transferring credit card points to the Flying Club program, you can earn Flying Club points through credit card spending by signing up for the Virgin Red Rewards Mastercard®, the only Virgin Atlantic co-branded credit card that’s currently available to U.S. consumers.

With this card, you can earn Virgin points directly for every purchase you make. Plus, you can earn tens of thousands of Virgin points from this card’s welcome bonus, which is available to new cardmembers who spend a certain amount on their card in a limited time after account opening. You can view the most updated welcome bonus from the Virgin Red Rewards Mastercard® by visiting the Virgin Red website.

On top of that generous welcome bonus, the Virgin Red Rewards Mastercard® also offers plenty of other spending bonuses and benefits. The table below includes all of the most important information about this card:

As you can see, this card does charge a $99 annual fee. However, the welcome bonus, spending bonuses and other benefits offered by this card can easily offset its annual fee.

If Virgin Atlantic Flying Club isn’t your top frequent flyer program, there are other airline co-branded credit cards out there that are probably better suited to you.

Flying With Virgin Atlantic and Partner Airlines

Another effective way to earn Virgin points is to credit paid flights on Virgin Atlantic and its partner airlines to the Flying Club program. To do so, you’ll need to select Virgin Atlantic Flying Club as your frequent flyer program of choice and enter your membership number either when booking your flight or when checking in.

Your points earnings on Virgin Atlantic depend on your flight distance, your booking class and your status in the Flying Club program. If you want to find out how many Flying Club points you could earn on a specific Virgin Atlantic flight, the best way to do so is to use the earning calculator tool on the Virgin Atlantic website.

With this tool, you can enter your departure and arrival airports, whether you’re traveling round-trip or one-way, your status in the Flying Club program and whether you want the cheapest fare or a flexible ticket. Then, you’ll be able to see the number of Virgin points you’d earn for that flight in each booking class.

You can also earn Virgin points for flights on partner airlines. Since Virgin Atlantic is a member of SkyTeam Alliance, you can earn Virgin points on any SkyTeam Alliance member airline. Here’s the current roster of SkyTeam airlines:

Additionally, Virgin Atlantic has several partnerships with non-SkyTeam airlines that also allow you to earn points for taking paid flights, including the following:

Each of Virgin Atlantic’s partner airlines has its own earnings chart, which you can use to calculate how many Virgin points you could earn on a flight with each partner. To view these charts, you can visit the airline partners page on the Virgin Atlantic website, click on the partner that you want to fly with and select the “Earn Virgin Points” tab. Just as with flying with Virgin Atlantic, you’ll earn points based on the distance of your flight and your booking class.

Other Ways To Earn

In addition to the three earning methods described above, there are many other ways to earn points through the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club program, such as transferring points from hotel loyalty programs, booking paid hotel stays, renting cars, shopping, buying points and more. Unfortunately, none of these are particularly effective ways to earn Virgin points.

However, you can use the earning methods above to earn a few more Virgin points here and there, which can help you get a little bit closer to your next award flight.

How To Book Award Flights Through Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

Now that you’re familiar with how to create an account with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club and how to earn Virgin points, you’re ready to start redeeming points for award flights. The first thing you’ll need to do to purchase an award flight is go to the Virgin Atlantic website and sign in to your Flying Club account by clicking the “Flying Club” icon on the top toolbar of the homepage.

After you’ve signed in, return to the homepage and scroll down to the flight search tool. In this tool box, you’ll need to click the toggle button that says “Search for Reward Flights.” When this option is activated, this toggle button will turn green. From there, you can search for flights as you normally would.

Start by entering your departure and arrival airports, travel dates, journey type (round-trip or one-way) and number of travelers. Then, click the “Search” button to conduct your search.

Next, you’ll be presented with a list of award flights that match your search query, including flights operated by Virgin Atlantic or any of its airline partners. You can filter these results by airline, departure time, number of stops, price and flight duration.

When you find a flight that suits your needs, click on the cabin class you want to book for that flight, at which point a box will appear that states what’s included in that cabin class, such as legroom, baggage allowance, snacks and more. Click the “Select” button beneath that cabin class to add that flight to your itinerary. If you’re traveling round-trip, just repeat this process for your return flight.

Once you’ve selected the flights you want to book, you’ll be redirected to a new page, where you’ll be able to see your itinerary details as well as the price details, including the required miles as well as any applicable taxes and fees. You can add various travel extras on this page for additional charges.

If everything looks good and you’re happy with your itinerary and the price, click the “Continue” button at the bottom of the page. On the next page, you’ll need to enter information about any passengers on your itinerary, including name, date of birth, gender, travel document number (if applicable) and more.

Finally, you’ll need to enter payment details to cover any applicable cash taxes and fees. Once you’ve done that, confirm your flight purchase and you’ll receive a confirmation number, which you’ll need to check in for your flight on the date of your travel. You should receive an email containing your confirmation number as well.

Once you’ve confirmed your flight redemption, the number of miles required for that flight should immediately be deducted from your account balance.

The Bottom Line

The Virgin Atlantic Flying Club program is a very useful frequent flyer program for many U.S.-based travelers, largely because it’s a transfer partner of every major credit card rewards program. So, if you have a rewards credit card from any of the major U.S. issuers, you should be able to transfer your rewards points to the Flying Club program at a 1:1 ratio.

On top of that, the Flying Club uses a series of fixed award charts to price partner award flights, which means that you can often find excellent value for your Flying Club points by redeeming them this way. And, since the process of searching for award flights (both on Virgin Atlantic and partner airlines) is essentially the same as searching for cash flights, you should have no trouble finding a high-value flight redemption.

However, if you need any assistance in booking award flights through the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club program (or earning Virgin points), you can always refer to the step-by-step guide in this article.