[Video Tutorial 🎥] 40% Transfer Bonus to Book Business Class on Virgin Atlantic
A step-by-step video tutorial of exactly how you can take advantage of this deal
This edition covers the new transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic, how you can earn points to take these business-class flights, and a step-by-step video tutorial on exactly how to find and book these deals.
🔄 Why Transfer Bonuses Are Great
There’s nothing I love more than a transfer bonus - It’s my go-to strategy for booking business class on repeat. A transfer bonus is when a flexible bank card (like Chase, Amex, Capital One) partners with an airline or hotel program to give you a bonus when you transfer your points from the bank to the airline/hotel:
Today I’d like to focus on the 40% transfer bonus from Chase to Virgin Atlantic. This means that moving 10,000 Chase points to Virgin would land you with 14,000 Virgin points.
🥂 Why You Should Care About This Transfer Bonus
First, a 40% transfer bonus is quite high. I look at this stuff all the time and transfer bonuses usually clock in around 20-30%.
Second, Virgin Atlantic Upper Class is pretty spectacular.
The A350 plane, for example, includes an onboard “social space” (it used to be a bar, but now it’s an area where you can still have drinks and even “experiences” like wine tastings, just sans bartender):
Third, you can book flights on more than just Virgin Atlantic. While the Virgin experience is certainly spectacular (that feels weird to type 🤔), the sweet spot for Virgin Atlantic is booking flights not on Virgin, but one of their many partner airlines to cities other than London (more on this below).
This is because flights to London come with hefty taxes and fees, to the tune of ~$1k each way.
Now, if you’re itching to fly to London in style, this is still far less than the price of a business-class ticket in cash (usually ~$2.5k), and lots of people in the Inside the Upgrade community have told me they would still book it. No judgement from me, your points are yours to use your way.
Finally, this bonus is great because I’m seeing business-class flights for 48k - 75k points, which you could book for just 35k - 54k Chase points thanks to the transfer bonus. I’ll walk through exactly what these deals are in the video tutorial below.
💰 How to Earn Chase Ultimate Rewards Points to Use For This Bonus
Before I dive into where you can go with this bonus, a moment on how you can earn Chase points to use in the first place. I absolutely love Chase points because they are so flexible - you can transfer them to 14 different airline and hotel partners (like Virgin), often at great transfer rates. I have a completely free guide to the Chase family here.
If you’re in the market for a new card, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is the #1 card I recommend most for beginners because it has:
A low $95 annual fee
A current best offer of a $300 travel credit (so they’re basically paying you to use this card)
And 60k point welcome bonus (which you could easily use to book these flights)
You can check out the offer here.
Not sure what’s right for you? I offer free (actually free) consultations here.
📆 Bonus Timing You Should Keep in Mind
There are two critical timing components to this bonus:
The transfer bonus ends Nov 30th, 2024. You don’t have to travel by then, just transfer your points (but I always recommend having a flight in mind before you transfer points).
Virgin Atlantic is changing their points pricing beginning October 30th to a dynamic model. You honestly don’t really need to know the details, the point is that it’s going to get more expensive. So, if you’ve been dreaming about a luxury trip to Europe, you may want to book before October 30th.
🎥 Video Tutorial: Exactly How You Can Use This Bonus For Discount Business Class
This is where it gets good 😏 In this video, I’ll break down:
Two tools for finding business-class availability 🥂
What cities I would recommend you look for for the best deals right now 🌆
Why you should consider a positioning flight ✈️
Exactly how to transfer your points 💰
Let’s dive in: