Jess
Virgin Red is Virgin’s group-wide rewards club while Flying Club is Virgin Atlantic’s frequent flyer club. While they’re technically two separate programs, you can link your accounts and share points between both.
American Express, Chase, and Citi all transfer to Virgin Atlantic. Capital One transfers to Virgin Red, but by linking your accounts, you can still redeem Capital One miles on Virgin Atlantic’s website. Here’s how…
First, you’ll want to create an account with both Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Red. This is free to do on each of their websites.
I created my Virgin Atlantic account first, then when I entered the same email address to create my Virgin Red account, it automatically linked the two. If this doesn’t happen for you, simply navigate to the “Account” section of your Virgin Red account and select “Link Account.”
While three of the four major banks transfer 1:1 to Virgin Atlantic, there is currently a 30% transfer bonus when transferring miles from Capital One to Virgin Red. I needed 16,000 Virgin Atlantic miles for a flight from Prague to Chicago, but by transferring from Capital One with the transfer bonus, I only needed to transfer 12,400 miles.
The transfer to Virgin Red was instant, and the points also showed up in my Virgin Atlantic account immediately thanks to the accounts being linked.
I was then able to easily book my flight from Prague to Chicago. While the flight I booked is actually on KLM, I was able to take advantage of airline alliances to get the flight for less miles than KLM was charging.
The cash price for the flight was $779.80. If you deduct the amount I paid in taxes and fees on the award flight via Virgin Atlantic ($196.90), that leaves $582.90.
Then divide $582.90 by the amount of miles I transferred from Capital One (12,400) to calculate the cents per mile value. For this redemption, my Capital One miles had a whopping 4.7 cents per mile value! Pretty incredible.
Linking your Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Red accounts is quick and easy. It also allows you to redeem Capital One miles for Virgin Atlantic flights. We love taking advantage of transfer bonuses and airline alliances to really take our points and miles to the next level!
Affiliate Disclosure: Travel Mom Squad uses affiliate links. We may receive compensation if you use our links when applying for a credit card at no extra cost to you. This compensation does not impact how or where products appear on this site. We have not reviewed all available credit card offers on this site. Thank you so much if you use our links!
Editorial Note: The editorial content on this site is not provided by credit card issuer. All opinions, reviews, and recommendations are expressed by the author, not the credit card issuer.
Love it! I am so bummed cause I booked what thought was a similar redemption to LHR during thanksgiving break a couple of weeks ago and now I know I could have gotten an even better deal if I’d waited until this transfer bonus was announced :0( cancellation/change charges are like $50 a ticket.
I’d look for availability and the cost of the ticket with the transfer bonus and figure if it would be worth paying the cancellation charge. Just make sure there is plenty of availability before you do it. And that is just me – maybe it isn’t worth the hassle for you.