Nottingham Nick

Thanks for that - it is pretty much what I expected. Any benefit I can get from the companion ticket will be a bonus.
I am purely interested in bumping up my FC points total any way I can, and this card seems the best and most cost effective way of doing it at the moment.

Unless anyone out there knows better......

Nick

Roger

I see there is a bmi MasterCard offering bmi Destinations Points - 1 per £20 (Classic - no fee) or 1 per £15 (Platinum - £60 fee) - doubled for bmi purchases. Details at www.flybmi.com/creditcard .

Without muddying the waters too much, has anybody an idea of whether this is competitive, given that bmi and VS are part-time partners?

Thanks.

GK

I called to find out T&C on the companion ticket offer - after calling MBNA, Virgin Money then finally VS, was told by Gold VFC rep that they have not been finalised yet, but to expect them to mirror the VFC miles companion ticket rules - Y,B,L,W,J only. She also stated that the companion ticket is only available after card holding anniversary has elapsed, not at the point you hit £15,000 on spending.

Anyone else found out anything different ?

Roger

That was certainly the case in December 2002: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum53/HTML/000700.html

Pity they haven't realised yet that the offer is uncompetitive compared with the BA AmEx card.

RichardMannion

Well you may be shocked to know that I don't have MBNA Virgin Credit card.

a) Sure it gives 2 miles per £ spent, compared to the 1.5 miles on my BA AmEx or 1 per my Centurion AmEx. Doesn't really matter for me, I very very rarely use the miles for me. I have given over 350k away to my family/friends for flights. As long as reward flights continue not to earn Tier Points then this will be the case. This may come as a shock, but I'm not really that interested in earning miles, I have tonnes of them sat in my account waiting to be given out as birthday/christmas presents.

b) The £15k companion offer is very poor compared to the BA AmEx where you can even claim a free companion seat on a reward booking. But again this is not really of use to me as I fly Virgin Atlantic only, unless i get close to reaching the number of BA Miles for a flight on Concorde again.

c) Relating to the above, but how many points do you really need? £500 will get you 500 or 1000 FC Miles depending on which version. I suppose it all depends on how much you spend, remember 1 night at a Hilton will net you 1000 points. I know I can hit about 200k FC miles per year on partner activity and spend, but then I don't use them for me. Maybe I should save them up and aim for the Necker award.....

d) Roger, On my Cneturion account I get my MR points as soon as the statement 'cuts', when it is printed I get the points. I don't have to wait until I have paid the bill.

Thanks,
Richard

Roger

Hi, Richard.

Same with the BA AmEx card. But with the Plat card, the points are awarded only when the bill is paid.

When I asked a while ago, they said that credit cards (like the BA AmEx card) were different from charge cards (like the Plat) because they offered extended terms.

Well, you have proved that theory wrong and in any case, with Flexselect, charge cards now offer extended terms, so another AmEx theory bites the dust.

RichardMannion

Centurion cards cannot use FlexSelect due to the nature of the card and the very large credit lines we have.

Thanks,
Richard

Roger

Indeed. I was making the point that Plat cards offer Flexselect, hence extended terms, but still have to wait for their points. (At least, I assume that is the case. I haven't used Flexselect.)