Virgin Atlantic Will Award Tier Points On Reward Tickets

Aren't they also extending miles by 6 months for those that are having their miles expire during a certain period, but not having any status?

Finally something competitive against BA for ex-London passengers. Only took them a bankruptcy to get there!

Some interesting changes. A couple of things, one spend on CC earns you tier points as well. I have been Silver for years (not that it has done me any good) but now I could probably earn gold fairly easy with a UC redemption on top of spend. Also I should have several companion vouchers due to spend on VS BoA card but it doesn't look like they are tracked on the VS website. I have reached out to VS via text to see if they can tell me how many I have. They weren't of any interest prior to this.

What's a clubhouse voucher and how or where would anyone earn/get them?

Changes on the companion vouchers is great. Can earn silver status on spend alone, and redeem voucher on upper class, albeit with fees

Hopefully, minority shareholder Delta will match this. Giving MQMs (not MQDs or redeemable miles) for award flights rewards loyalty and incentivizes customers to cash-in miles instead of accumulating them.

If I were Virgin Atlantic, I would close all of the Clubhouses with the exception of LHR, MAN, and JFK. They just seem uncessary for 1 or 2 daily flight. Working with KLM/AF and DL to fulfill their lounge needs would be more cost effective. I love Virgin but it needs to get its costs under control, and if it means cutting more hip things, I’m okay with that. PS theses changes are great!

This is a great development!

I would guess this has nothing to do with loyalty and has everything to do with incentivizing people to use miles to the airline can reduce liabilities.

I hope the award flight status credit idea becomes more widespread. QF offer it but only to members who qualify by having 150K miles in a membership year, of which 130K have to be earnt on the ground, e.g. from credit cards. Miles that you buy count in the 130K so it's not too hard to qualify. I haven't seen how many status credits you earn in each class, but as another poster said, it encourages you to use your miles.

Just FYI .. Are fairly weak*

We are back to the times when customers will be stronger than the airlines so after many years of devaluations and getting perks out we will see a bonanza of offerings to attract customers back. Flyers market!!!

Very interesting changes, worth looking into getting this card. I normally book awards on Virgin Atlantic in upper class. If I can get a 2nd upper class award booking at 50% off, that alone makes the card worth it for me.

Finally. I've always thought it was a bit off that you didn't get status for reward flights - especially with VS and Ba since you're paying quite hefty fees.

I've dropped from BA gold to silver in the past because I've used the miles I accumulated getting there to pay for the flights in subsequent years.

Wonder how long until BA follow suit?

Although it could be an attempt by an almost bankrupt airline to (a) get more customers and, (b) reduce the miles in circulation.

All well and good. I would just appreciate a refund of the $700+ in Heathrow airport fees/taxes on two pay with points flights we cancelled months ago.

I earned a companion voucher after cc spend but VS is not able to find it and BOA says that they sent it to VS. Not sure what to do. Anyone have advice? It's not on the VS website.

Qantas actually started doing this recently - but only for frequent flyers who have earnt 150k points from non-flying activity during their membership year.

@Lucky - read that the following in the announcement actually means you can now use companion vouchers on paid tickets as well. Can you confirm?

"Companion vouchers can now be used in conjunction with any ticket in any booking class"

This is wonderful news. The first airline that introduces this feature to the Pacific Northwest (hint AS please?) will become my most favoured choice going forward.

It has always been a pain when I purchase points for cash from an airline and then use the points exclusively to fly 5 to 10 trips a year in premium class and then only receive basic status with the airline. We have been told that selling points is actually very profitable for the airline, so it's not like the giveaway of points for credit card purchases.

Last year we flew around the world at least twice on points and I still have nothing to show for it. I fly AS to Mexico at least once a year on a paid ticket with companion fare (because the points rewards are unreasonable and the flights are short - only about 7 hours total). The rest of the year is Australia/Asia/South America/Africa/Portugal/Ukraine/Poland (the usual). Hundreds of thousands of points spent (at 2 cents a point is tens of thousands of dollars) are very profitable for the airline. Yet still zero status.

I quite understand that earning points on a reward flight would be double-dipping and even Hilton cancelled that wonderful feature. But we can hope that earning status on purchased points would be a very welcome and reasonable addition to the reward program of any airline. It might even give them increased loyalty and an improved bottom line (they could probably increase the cost of purchased points significantly (but don't tell them)).

Way to go Branson. Good on ya Mate.

The companion voucher earned via the credit card... can it only be used on VS award flights? or can it be used on partner airlines such as DL or KL ?