30% Transfer Bonus from Amex to Virgin Atlantic. Is this a good way to use your valuable Membership Rewards Points?

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Transfer Bonus

American Express has a new 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic. While this deal may not be worthy of a point transfer just to stock up, this may still be a great deal for some. From now until 11/30/2017 you will be able to redeem Membership Rewards Points by transferring them to Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club Miles at a rate of 1:1.3. This represents a 30% bonus on the usual rate.

How to Transfer Membership Rewards to Virgin Atlantic

American Express makes transferring Membership Rewards to their partners easy. To transfer your points, simply login to your Membership Rewards account and click on the transfer option under “travel”. You will see all of the transfer partners listed and the Virgin Atlantic 30% transfer bonus will be automatic. Keep in mind that you will need to link your Virgin account before you can transfer points and the minimum you can transfer is 1,000 points.

Analysis

First thing we need to consider is what the value of Virgin Atlantic miles is compared to Amex Membership Rewards Points. MR points are very valuable because they are flexible and can be redeemed in many ways. I personally value my Amex points right around 3 Cents a piece (based on prior redemptions), but others go lower to about 2 Cents each, which is much more realistic. If I’m being honest, I’m a slight Membership Rewards hoarder, so I can’t give too many data points on redemption options. I don’t believe much in hoarding points, but since these are some of the most flexible, I don’t worry too much about it.

Virgin Atlantic miles are valued around 1.5 cents a piece by others. The Points Guy monthly valuations has them at this value as well. Lets do the math on the transfer and add in the 30% bonus.

1000 MR Points * .02 = $20

v.

1,300 VA Miles * .015 = $19.50

Here, you can see with the transfer bonus, you’re not losing too much value. That’s good news! Based on the math, I wouldn’t want to transfer them without the bonus. The other good news here is that this seems to be a recurring offer, not that they do it all the time, but this was offered in April of this year as well.

Conclusion

This is a great deal for anyone who was planning on using Flying Club miles for a specific redemption or who uses the program regularly and will have a redemption option in the near future. For example, if you’re booking a Delta flight, you can use your Virgin Miles to book on Delta. Mark found a $412 flight from Detroit to Los Angeles on Delta for 25,000 miles through their search engine. Since it would require less than 20,000 MR points that’s a pretty good value. There are also partner awards with ANA in their terrific first class cabin that represent an excellent value.

As I said before, I don’t think I would be transferring these miles just for the heck of it, but I do think this is a great bonus for anyone who already has a use or is interested in one of their partner award sweet spots.

Disclosure: Miles to Memories has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Miles to Memories and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.

---

 Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is the old king of travel rewards cards. Right now bonus_miles_full

Learn more about this card and its features!

---

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.