VIRGIN ATLANTIC – 65,000 BONUS MILES – STILL ALIVE
Virgin Atlantic has an offer that is still active in which I recently applied. It’s been on my “bucket list” and I just got around to it. This Bank of America American Express card has the potential score of 65,000 bonus Flying Club miles when you meet certain spend requirements. This beats the other current offer which can only net you 40,000-mile bonus miles after meeting the requirements.
- 20,000 bonus miles
- after your first purchase
- 25,000 additional bonus miles after you spend at least $2,500 in qualifying purchases in the first 90 days
- 15,000 Anniversary bonus miles after qualifying purchases–you get 7,500 miles by spending $15,000 within the year, and 7,500 more if you hit a threshold of $25,000 in spend.
- 5,000 bonus miles when adding two additional Cardmembers
- 1.5 miles for every $1 spent on purchases
- 3 miles per $1 spent directly with Virgin Atlantic
- Tier points that help you ascend to or maintain Silver or Gold status (note: you can only earn two Tier points per month)
- $90 annual fee, not waived
- 1% foreign transaction fee
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you need hotel points, these miles is extremely valuable to you because Virgin Atlantic miles transfer to Hilton Honors points at a 1:2 ratio. So 65,000-mile bonus equals to 130,000 Hilton HHonors points. This is a sweet score for only $90 (annual fee). This was my sole purpose in getting this card. I will meet the requirements and then it goes into “the drawer”. Not a wallet card in my opinion but it really all depends upon your travel goals. Check out the Hilton Honors award chart and see what 130,000 Hilton Honors points get you. Free nights start at 7,500 points for Category, 12,500 for Category 2 and so one! You could really stretch these points for a nice long family vacation in some locations especially if you don’t require fancy accommodations. I’m a big point stretcher myself. I save the luxury stay redemptions for my Starwood points.
2nd Point: These is a great regular spend card if you want to earn Hilton Honors points. Your normal charges net you 1.5 miles per dollar. Then you get an additional 1 mile when you transfer them to Hilton.
EXAMPLE:
$100 Dinner out = $100 x 1.5 = 150 Virgina Atlantic miles
Transfer to Hilton 2:1 ration = 150 x 2 = 300 Hilton Honors points
So you’ve basically tripled your earnings. Great way to rack up Hilton Honors points. I don’t know of any other card that can earn you 3x normal purchases for Hilton Honors.
Virgin Atlantic Airline Partners:
Virgin America, Air China, Air New Zealand, ANA, BMI, Gulf Air, Jet Airways, Hawaiian Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, SAS, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, US Airways and V Australia.
Considering the option to transfer these miles to Hilton Honors I think this card is a great deal even with the $90 annual fee. The Chase Ink Bold is also fabulous way to earn 10 points per dollar for your Hilton Honors account. Read more about the Chase Ink Bold trick below. This beats every Hilton Honors card available. No other method can touch this as far as I’m aware. A little more work but the reward is so worth it in my opinion.
UPDATE
I made an error below. I was confusing Ultimate Rewards partners with AMEX Membership Rewards partners. You CAN NOT transfer to Hawaiian Airlines through Ultimate Rewards, so this trick will not work to get Hilton Honors points.
You can however still use this trick to earn 5x and transfer to the following hotel programs:
Hyatt, Marriott, Priority Club, and Ritz Carlton.
CHASE INK BOLD trick:
Buy VISA gift cards at any office store which earns you 5 points per dollar. Then transfer Ultimate Rewards points to Hawaiian Airlines miles. Once miles are in Hawaiian airlines account, transfer then to Hilton Honors at a 2:1 ratio. Both these transfer are FREE! Through this method you can earn 10 Hilton Honors points per dollar . The Chase Ink Bold trick is the absolute highest earning potential I am aware of for Hilton Honors.
EXAMPLE USING CHASE INK BOLD CARD
Buy $100 Visa Gift CardEarnings: $100 x 5 points per dollar = 500 Ultimate Rewards pointsTransfer 500 Ultimate Rewards points to Hawaiian Airlines – 1:1 ratioTransfer 500 Hawaiian Airlines miles to Hilton Honors – 2:1 ratioTotal Earnings:1,000 HILTON HONORS points
Breakdown:$100 VISA gift card purchase (via Chase Ink Bold) = 1,000 Hilton Honors points. This trick is an incredible way to score lots and lots of Hilton Honors points. $1,000 in charges via this method nets you 10,000 Hilton Honors points. Are you seeing the vision now???
The minimum spend on the Chase Ink Bold just went up to $10,000 which is really steep. You do receive 25,000 bonus points after your first purchase which is good though. Their bonus offer used to only have a $5,000 minimum spend which was much more do-able for the average person. My thoughts for you if this min. spend is tough (which it would be for me – I got mine when it was only $5,000) are as follows:
- Check my list here for creative ways to meet this min. spend. Specifically read the “Payment Services” section.
- Call customer service after you’ve applied and tell them that you went to apply and saw the min. spend had increased to $10,000 and you were very disappointed. Ask very nicely if they would consider a lower min. spend for your account. Some have had luck with this method. Never hurts to ask nicely for what you want.
- Ask your family (parents maybe) if you could pay some large bills for them to help you out
- Buy Visa Gift Cards (at an office supply store) to help you. Use those to pay everything! You will earn 5x too!
- Forget about trying to get the 50,000 bonus points and just get the 25,000 bonus points after first purchase
Are you sure you can transfer UR points to Hawaiian? Let me know if they’ve been added recently. Thanks.
Thanks for catching my error! It was late! I was confusing AMEX Membership Reward partners with Ultimate Rewards partners. So sorry! The Chase Ink Bold trick will not work to transfer through Hawaiian Airlines to Hilton. Hmmmm! I’ll have to see if there is another partner to transfer through to get the points to Hilton. I’m going to do some more research tonight and update the post.
Thanks again for catching this and pointing it out to me. I really appreciate it!