Virgin Atlantic 90k Offer Returns
Bank of America’s Virgin Atlantic Card is back with a popular 90,000 mile sign up bonus. This offer has been available in the past. It should be noted that this is not actually a 90,000 mile sign-up bonus, it is really a 70,000 mile sign-up bonus combined with an annual spend bonus and additional miles for adding authorized users. The complete breakdown is listed below. You can find the application here.
The Offer
- 20,000 Flying Club bonus miles after your first retail purchase
- 50,000 additional Flying Club bonus miles after you spend at least $12,000 in purchases within 6 months of your account open date
- Earn up to 15,000 additional bonus miles each anniversary after qualifying purchases
- 7,500 Miles after $15,000 Annual Spend
- 7,500 Miles after $25,000 Annual Spend
- Earn up to 5,000 Flying Club bonus miles when you add additional authorized users to your card
The $90 Annual Fee is not waived the first year.
Note: Bank of America has a 4 personal card limit
Card Benefits
- Earn 3 miles per $1 spent directly on Virgin Atlantic purchases
- Earn 1.5 miles per $1 on all other purchases
- 25 tier points per $2,500 in purchases (max 50 per month) toward Flying Club status
- No foreign transaction fees
Analysis
The minimum spend to get the full 70k is a bit high at $12,000. They give you 6 months to complete the spend, but you still have to look at the opportunity cost of using that spend toward other sign-up bonuses. To earn the last 15k miles, you must make an additional $13,000 in purchases in the first year (Annual Total $25,000). This brings you to 85k and the last 5k comes when you add two authorized users.
If you did the absolute bare minimum on non-virgin purchases, you would receive an additional 37,500 miles. For a grand total of 127,500 Flying Club miles and $15,000 in annual spend.
Best Uses of 127,500 Flying Club Miles
Delta First-Class Round Trip Transcontinental Flights for just 45,000 miles- this is the best value in my opinion, IF you can find availability. This is truly an amazing deal and you would have enough for nearly 3 round trips!
ANA First Class Round Trip Flights from U.S to Japan for only 110,000 miles from the West Coast (or 120,000)- many airlines would probably charge close to double for that. Also, I hear ANA’s premium product is very nice.
Conclusion
This is a good deal with some very valuable uses. I think the return on investment with the minimum spend required could be better, but it’s rare to see offers this high. It’s also worth noting that you could stop at the $15,000 annual spend threshold and end up with over 100,000 miles.
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[…] Virgin Atlantic 90k offer returns. […]
Also, forgot to mention, for people who don’t MS they may be missing out on bonus categories on other cards by trying to meet 25k.
What Mark said. Since the average min spend is 3k, 15k spend is like 5 sign up bonuses for me.
I should note, I’m not big on MS but I do have high spend. So I’ve never been able to run out of points/miles yet. Knock on wood lol!!
“but you still have to look at the opportunity cost of using that spend toward other sign-up bonuses”
So how much is the opportunity cost in your opinion?
Man that is tough to answer. If you can MS fairly easily then I don’t think there is really any opportunity cost lost. Otherwise you have to look at probably missing out on 2-3 extra sign up bonuses.
I got the card a few months ago because I wanted to slow down my apps for a little bit and this card will take more time to hit the min spend which will keep me occupied. I look at that as a positive for my current situation.