Virgin Atlantic Flying Club - Virgin Atlantic credit card versus Virgin America?

Hi,
I'm either going to get the Virgin Atlantic Credit Card or the Virgin America credit card. Which should I get?
1. I live in the USA and will be doing most of my flying, shopping and spending in the USA (so flying Virgin America often).

2. I want to redeem my miles on Virgin Atlantic (for overseas trips).

With this information, which card should I get? Anyone an expert on this?

Just in case you don't get a reply from an expert; I can offer my own (inexpert) experience with the Virgin Atlantic American Express Card from Bank of America (possibly the longest name of any credit card). It puts Flying Club Miles into Virgin Atlantic's FF program and it is easy to book rewards on the Virgin Atlantic website. To use Flying Club Miles for Virgin America rewards, you have to call the Virgin Atlantic Customer Helpline. That's a little more convoluted and involves the agent in contacting Virgin America. Then Virgin Atlantic gives you a reference number which seems to be alien to Virgin America. However, it all seems to work out OK (I just booked LAX-SEA successfully and then got Virgin America CS to reserve my seats.)

As you say that you want to make your reward redemptions on VS, I'd go for the VS credit card and Flying Club. I guess that the alternative of VX and Elevate points would mean that booking VS rewards would be a bit involved.

They're both churnable. Virgin Atlantic card has a nice 45K signup bonus. Signup bonus for Virgin America card is a paltry 10K.

If you are going to go down the route of planning for VS redemptions, make sure you familiarise yourself with all of the government imposed taxes / fees and the massive airline imposed fuel surcharges,

Nick

Thanks all. Yes, I redeemed points on Virgin Atlantic earlier this year and was surprised by the high tax I paid. Alas, riding in those Upper Class seats was unlike any other airline I've experienced -amazing!

They're both churnable. Virgin Atlantic card has a nice 45K signup bonus. Signup bonus for Virgin America card is a paltry 10K.

All of the links I've found for the Virgin Atlantic card and the 45k seem to be dead. Seems like the only offer is 20k after first spend, 5k for additional user, and 15k at anniversary (after you pay another annual fee).

Anyone find anything else?

My analysis suggested that on average the earning rates were similar.

Virgin America points are worth about double Virgin Atlantic miles, so take that into consideration. Your 1 pt/$ is actually 2 miles/$, which is very generous. Certainly, the spend bonus for buying Virgin America flights in cash is very lucrative. I would also argue that it is slightly more valuable in being a Visa, and not everywhere accepts Amex.

That being said, the Virgin Atlantic credit card gives a base spend of 1.5 miles/$ but also gives spend bonus which can cause that miles/$ to max out at 2.1 if you hit $25k/yr. The 1% on foreign transaction fees is pretty good, although if you have a 0% card it doesn't quite compare. However, Amex is way less useful abroad. Also, the companion tickets are not really worth a whole lot, as Virgin Atlantic redemptions in economy are really poor value. Finally, the Virgin Atlantic sign up bonus is way more lucrative.

My advice is to check on the actual routes you intend to fly, and compare redemption values directly. For regular spend, rather than churn, it's close enough that the specifics of your spend and main routes probably matter.