jeffers

Did everyone get the email about miles booster today?

http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/gb/en...s-booster.html

I'm curious exactly how this works...do you just ring them up and pay to double miles from any journey you've done in the last 6 months??

Silver Fox

I read it that way:

"Miles may also be purchased through the Miles Booster Programme up to the date six months following the original date of the first sector of the flight in the itinerary."

Agent73

Looking at the example they provide, you're getting 9k for £150? can't you just buy them anyway at £15/1k + £15 admin - so 9*15 + 15 = £150....?

I suppose it will mean you can over the 30k per annum limit, but still seems expensive?

LondonMiles

It actually says in the T&Cs this is how it is calculated:

"23. Miles Booster Programme purchases can be made in United States Dollars or British Pound Sterling. Miles purchased via the Miles Booster Programme will be priced as follows:
a. British Pound Sterling: £0.015 per mile, plus an additional £15.00 transaction fee per purchase
b. U.S. Dollars: $0.025 per mile, plus an additional $25.00 transaction fee per purchase"

What a poor offer. These miles don't even post until after your first flight either.
Much better just to buy them.

If you have Amex MR, you can get up to 10k at £0.015 per mile and not even pay a £15 transaction fee by buying MR points and converting to Virgin miles.

Plus you can buy SPG points and convert to Virgin miles at a similar rate without a transaction fee (up to 20k per year).

backdoc

I'll ring them up and do it for my trip this Tuesday, I'll report back this afternoon.

Steve

jeffers

Cheers backdoc.

I thought the offer looked good when I first read it, but looking into it it seems pointless really. The other offer for tier points was superb though so can't complain.

backdoc

I'll get 4 more tier points on my next trip.

I'll calculate it out to see if this offer makes sense to me. I have LAX-LHR RT in UC next week and LAX-LHR-JNB RT in UC in Dec and March.

I could get a zillion miles for the South Africa trips....

It doesn't say how much it costs to triple the base miles.

oliuk

I understood it to mean that tripling the miles would cost twice as much although it doesnt actually say that anywhere, in fact its pretty badly worded overall. I look forward to seeing if theres a discount for tripling or not. Also am I correct in assuming that you cant double dip with the current miles/tier points offer?

Seems like a marketing ploy to sell miles at exactly the normal rate to me

monkeymagic

I've done the calculations here at flymeforfree.com

Essentially it's the same as buying the miles via points.com apart from you get a bonus 1,000 miles at present.

Jon

backdoc

Normally, you can only buy miles up to 30,000 miles/year.

With this plan you can buy "unlimited miles" but based on the actual miles you've flown within 6months prior.

So, its a way to buy more miles than 30k if you've flown a lot.

<shrug> If you're not a frequent flier this won't do you any good.

I think if you're getting close to an award it might be good.

Steve

monkeymagic

Virgin have introduced bonuses on the purchase of miles (up to 25%)

This makes it better value for money than the recently introduced Mileage Booster.

Full analysis on my blog www.flymeforfree.com