GUIDE: In-Depth Look at the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club – Is it Worth It?

Virgin Atlantic has long been a favourite among Turning Left For Less readers, offering premium service, excellent lounges and a range of UK departure options. Despite last year’s points devaluation, the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club still has some solid earning and redemption options (particularly in the Upper Class).

If you’re considering switching airline loyalty programmes, now is a great time to take a serious look at Virgin Flying Club. With Virgin still offering a status match to 11 airlines, there couldn’t be a better time to look at the Virgin Flying Club in depth. This is a limited-time status match, so if you haven’t already, you should asap.

This article details everything you need to know about the Virgin Flying Club. This is part of our series covering the most popular airline loyalty programmes and alliances. We’ve already published guides on how to earn Virgin Points and How to Spend Virgin Points, so we won’t go into too much detail on these aspects here.

Virgin Atlantic

Since Richard Branson founded Virgin Atlantic in 1984, Virgin has been marketed as a fun and adventurous airline, setting itself apart with its premium service and innovative approach. Today, Virgin flies to 34 destinations, carrying over 5.3 million passengers annually.

One of Virgin Atlantic’s biggest advantages is its UK focus, offering direct long-haul flights without the hassle of connecting through European hubs. The main hub is Heathrow Airport, but there are also direct flights from Manchester and Edinburgh -perfect if you’re based in a nearby area. That’s a big advantage over British Airways, where unless you’re in London, you’ll need to connect via Heathrow or fly with a partner airline. If BA wants to keep its customers across the UK, it could take a lesson or two from Virgin here.

Virgin joined the SkyTeam alliance in 2023, making it the first and only UK-based SkyTeam member airline. The partnership opens up a wide range of additional partner airlines, lounges, and status perks. 

The Virgin Flying Club: Virgin Atlantic’s Loyalty Programme

If there’s one thing I still love about Virgin, it’s that they’ve kept the Flying Club experience simple. Unlike BA’s new system, which has left many of us doing mental gymnastics to figure out our earnings, Virgin’s three-tier structure is refreshingly straightforward. It’s also one of the few programmes where points never expire, which is a huge plus if you’re not a frequent flyer but want to save up for a big redemption. 

The loyalty programme is also a fantastic option for families, as it allows you to pool points in a household account with up to 9 people.

Despite the recent devaluations, some good sweet spots remain for redeeming Virgin Points. Partner airline redemptions, in particular, offer some of the best value. Even with the higher fees on Virgin Atlantic redemptions, the programme remains highly competitive, especially when it comes to Premium and Upper Class travel. The system now runs on a demand-based model, meaning there are no fixed minimum or maximum caps on prices. If you’re flexible, Saver Fares are the way to go to find amazing value.

Virgin Flying Club Vs Virgin Red

If you’re unfamiliar with the Virgin Flying Club, you need to know about Virgin Flying Club vs. Virgin Red. Both programmes allow you to earn Virgin Points but serve different purposes.

The Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is Virgin Atlantic’s frequent flyer programme. Signing up means earning Virgin Points and Tier points when flying with Virgin Atlantic and redeeming for seat upgrades and redemption flights with Virgin and SkyTeam airlines.

Virgin Red is the broader Virgin Group rewards programme, which opens many more ways to earn Virgin Points outside of flying. You can earn points through things like Tesco Clubcard, the Virgin Atlantic Credit Cards, and shopping, then redeem them for non-flight rewards such as Virgin Experience Days, Virgin Wines, Greggs, and even Virgin Voyages cruises. 

The good news is that you can link your accounts together and transfer your points between the programmes based on what you want to redeem your points on. Virgin is one of the best airline loyalty programmes for collecting points outside of flying to spend on redemptions!

How to Link Your Virgin Atlantic Flying Club and Virgin Red Accounts

To link your accounts and pool your points between Virgin Red and the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, go to the Virgin Red app or website > enter your Virgin Atlantic Flying Club number in the personal details section of your Virgin Red account and confirm the link. Once linked, you can see all your Virgin Points in one place and redeem rewards interchangeably between Virgin Red and Flying Club.

Earning Virgin Points

There are thousands of ways to earn Virgin Points. For a deep dive into this, read our guide on how to earn Virgin Points. The main ways are:

• Flying with Virgin Atlantic and Partner Airlines – Earn points on every Virgin Atlantic flight, plus SkyTeam and partner airlines like Delta, Air France, KLM, and ANA.
• Credit Card Rewards – Earn Virgin Points with credit card options like American Express and Virgin.
• Virgin Red – Thousands of ways to earn, from Tesco Clubcard conversions to shopping via the Shops Away portal.
• Spending with Virgin Group Companies – Earn points when booking Virgin Atlantic Holidays, Virgin Hotels, Virgin Experience Days, Virgin Wines and more.
• Partner Hotels – Collect points on stays with major hotel chains like Hilton Honors and IHG One Rewards.
• Car Rentals – Earn points when renting with Avis, Hertz, Sixt, Enterprise, National, and Alamo.
• Buying and Boosting Points: You can purchase Virgin Points outright or boost points earned on flights to double or triple your balance.

Spending Virgin Points

Due to being part of the Virgin Group and having so many partner airlines, there are also a huge number of ways to spend Virgin Points. Read our guide to how to spend Virgin Points for a more detailed overview. The main ways are:

• Flights with Virgin Atlantic – Book reward seats on Virgin Atlantic or use points for part-payment towards flights. Every seat is now available for redemption.
• Flights with Partner Airlines – Redeem points for flights with SkyTeam airlines and other partner carriers.
• Cabin Upgrades – Upgrade from Economy to Premium or Premium to Upper Class.
• Virgin Voyages Cruises – Adults-only luxury cruises, including all meals, soft drinks, Wi-Fi, and gratuities.
• Virgin Atlantic Holidays – Use points to pay for all or part of a Virgin Atlantic Holidays package.
• Virgin Group Companies – Redeem points with Virgin Experience Days, Virgin Wines and more.
• Hotels & Accommodation – Spend points on stays at Virgin Hotels or rooms with hotel partners.
• Train Travel – Use points for discounts on UK rail travel with Virgin Trains or redeem for Eurostar vouchers.
• Shopping & Duty-Free – Spend points on online shopping, duty-free purchases and more via Virgin Red.
• Virgin Experiences & Entertainment – Book activities like balloon flights, wine tastings, and concert tickets with Virgin Red.
• Charity Donations – Convert points into cash donations for charities like The Trussell Trust and the UN Refugee Agency.
• Point Transfers – Share or pool points with another account to reach redemption thresholds.

Earning Status with the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club: The Tier System

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club status is based on Tier Points. The more tier points you earn, the higher your elite status level. When you sign up for the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, you will start on the Red tier. When you fly with Virgin Atlantic or partner airlines (exceptions apply), you will earn Tier points. You just need to remember to add your Virgin Atlantic Flying Club number to your booking with partner airlines. 

Compared to airlines that have recently moved to a spend based tier point system, earning Virgin status is actually pretty achievable. If you fly Upper Class regularly, you can hit Gold with just five return flights. Even in Premium, you’ll get Silver after five return trips.  For anyone who doesn’t want to constantly track spending or calculate distance-based earnings, this is a breath of fresh air.

Here’s a basic overview of the three Virgin tiers and the flights needed for status:

Virgin Flying Club Red

As soon as you sign up, you will have instant benefits when you fly with Virgin:

• Earn Virgin Points and Tier Points on every flight
• Spend Virgin Points on redemptions, including Points plus money.
• Transfer Virgin Red Points to Virgin Points
• Pool your Virgin Points in a Household account (up to 9 people)
• Earn Virgin Points and Tier Points with Virgin Atlantic Holidays
• Board first in Economy
• Dedicated Flying Club phone line
• Discounted No1 lounge access and earn Virgin Points on bookings
• Free Economy seat selection with Virgin Atlantic Holidays 7 days before departure

Virgin Flying Club Silver 

You need to earn 400 Tier Points to move to the Silver Tier. You will then benefit from:

• 30% more Virgin Points on Virgin Atlantic flights
• 1 extra piece of checked baggage at 23kg on Virgin flights
• Premium Check-in flying in any cabin
• Priority Boarding flying in any cabin
• Standard seat assignment for everyone on your booking, seven days prior to departure, in all Economy classes
• Priority baggage whenever you travel
• A complimentary upgrade at Virgin Hotels (subject to availability)
• Gift companion and upgrade vouchers
• Tier renewal bonus of 2,000 Virgin Points
• Status extension for maternity, paternity and adoption
• SkyTeam Elite Status (more details below)

Virgin Flying Club Gold

You need to earn 1,000 Tier Points to earn Virgin Gold status. You will then benefit from:

• 60% more Virgin Points on flights
• Upper Class Check-In, whichever cabin you travel in
• Clubhouse lounge access when travelling with Virgin or Delta for you and one guest 
• Access to Heathrow Revivals Lounge
• 1 extra piece of hand and hold luggage
• Free exit row seats when travelling in Economy Classic
• Anytime seat assignment for you and your companions in any cabin, including Economy Light fares.
• One Flying Club reward voucher when you renew Gold status by earning 1,000 Tier Points in a membership year.
• Two Flying Club reward vouchers when you earn 2,000 Tier Points in a membership year
• Gift Flying Club reward vouchers to family or friends
• Supplementary Silver membership for a friend
• SkyTeam Elite Plus status (more info below)
• 2,000 bonus birthday points
• Gold reward seats (more about this here)
• Guaranteed Economy seat on every flight
• Airline partner support extras
• Complimentary breakfast is subject to availability at Virgin Hotels 

 If you’ve been a Gold member for ten consecutive years and earned 7,500 Tier Points on Virgin Atlantic flights at that time, you’ll be made a Gold member for life. 

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Gold is one of the strongest top-tier statuses among SkyTeam airlines. Along with the SkyTeam Elite Plus benefits, you’ll also have access to Virgin’s Clubhouse lounges, earn Flying Club Reward vouchers, and have the option to gift Silver membership to a friend. Throw in extras like breakfast benefits at Virgin Hotels and birthday bonus points, and the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is a loyalty programme you should seriously consider if you’re looking at SkyTeam. 

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Reward Vouchers

Reward vouchers are given to Gold members for renewing Gold status or earning 2,000 Tier Points in a membership year. You can also gift these to family and friends.

You can also earn reward vouchers via Virgin Atlantic credit cards. When you spend £20,000 per year on the free Virgin Atlantic Reward Credit Card or £10,000 per year on the fee-paying Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Credit Card, you can earn one voucher every membership year. The vouchers are reset on each anniversary of your Virgin Atlantic Credit Card opening.

Virgin’s credit card reward vouchers can be a great perk, but they come with a big catch. They cap the number of points you can use per redemption. That means your companion seat might still cost a hefty number of points, depending on availability. It’s still a useful benefit, but not quite as generous as it sounds at first glance. 

Here are the specifics of using your Reward Voucher since the 2024 changes:

How to Earn Tier Points with Virgin

There are three ways to earn tier points with Virgin. These include:

• Flying with Virgin Atlantic
• Flying with Virgin’s partner airlines
• Going on Virgin Atlantic Holidays

We will go into more detail about each of these below.

Earn Tier Points Flying with Virgin Atlantic

The number of tier points you earn depends on the fare and class chosen. The more Premium your cabin, the more tier points you will earn.

Here’s how many tier points you will earn in each cabin one way:

*Only applicable to full points reward flights and companion bookings. If you upgraded from a revenue fare to a higher cabin with points, your account will be credited with the tier points and Virgin Points based on your original revenue class.

Flying with SkyTeam Airlines

When Virgin Atlantic joined SkyTeam in 2023, the partnership opened up a huge range of extra perks and even more reasons to choose Virgin as your airline loyalty programme. SkyTeam is one of the three major airline alliances, along with Oneworld and Star Alliances. Learn more about airline alliances here.

When flying with these airlines, you can earn Tier points if you add your Virgin Atlantic Flying Club membership to your booking. Each partner has its own tier point earning chart, as some airlines calculate tier points based on class and others on a mixture of class and distance flown. You can view this chart on the airline partners page.

For example, here’s how many tier points you would earn flying with Vietnam Airlines:

Virgin Silver matches to SkyTeam Elite, and Virgin Gold matches to SkyTeam Elite Plus. This means you’ll have the following benefits when flying with an airline in the SkyTeam alliance:

Here are the airlines in the SkyTeam alliance and how the loyalty programme tiers match with SkyTeam and the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club:

Flying with Virgin’s Partner Airlines

You can earn tier points when flying with Virgin’s partner airlines. Each partner has its own tier point earning chart. You can view these by clicking on your chosen airline on this page. It’s worth noting that the benefits for Virgin Flying Club members vary on these airlines.

Partner Airlines include:

• Air New Zealand 
• All Nippon Airways
• El Al
• Hawaiian Airlines
• LATAM Airlines
• South African Airways
• Virgin Australia 
• IndiGo

Booking Flights with SkyTeam Partners and Other Airline Partners

This is where it gets complicated. Some airlines can be booked online, whereas others require you to find the redemption online and phone to book.  You can find out the rules for your chosen airline on this page.

Earning Tier Points with Virgin Atlantic Holidays

You will earn 20 Tier points per £500 spent with Virgin Holidays, up to 400 Tier points per trip. This is in addition to any tier points you earn if you book your holiday on a Virgin Atlantic or partner airline flight.

With one booking and a £10,000 spend, you can go from Red to Silver! As long as the booking is with Virgin Holidays, the holiday can include a flight with another airline. You can also earn tier points on hotel + car hire bookings that don’t include a flight at all.

Tier Points Expiry

Unlike Virgin Points, Tier Points expire after 12 months. You can check your account to find the exact date your tier will expire.

You must earn a set number of Tier Points each year to retain your tier. If you don’t, your balance will reset to 0, and you will move to the tier below.

To understand tier point expiry, you need to know about Upgrade Cycles and Upgraded Fixed Membership Periods. 

• Red Members: Tier Point expiry follows an Upgrade Cycle, calculated from the current date back to the first day of the same month in the previous year.
• Silver and Gold Members: Once you reach Silver, your tier follows an Upgraded Fixed Membership Period, which begins the day after you qualify and lasts for the remainder of that month plus 12 full calendar months.

This means that once you reach Silver, you will have a full 12 months to retain their status before your Tier Points reset.

A Note About Status Matches

Above, we’ve covered how to get Virgin status by earning Tier Points, but Virgin occasionally offer status matches where you can match your status with another airline. 

Although having SkyTeam Elite/Elite Plus status somewhat enhances your benefits when flying with Virgin, you won’t have all the benefits, like access to Virgin Clubhouses.

The Virgin Atlantic status match offer is still open. You can read our full guide to it here. You can get Virgin Silver status from second-tier status with another airline as long as you have a booking with Virgin or a VS codeshare partner. You can match to Gold if you have a premium or Upper Class booking and top-tier status with another airline. The offer is available for status holders of 11 airlines, including British Airways, Qatar Airways and Emirates. Hopefully, there will be more offers like this in the future!

Virgin Atlantic Clubhouses

Virgin has several Clubhouse lounges worldwide, including Heathrow Terminal 3, located in Virgin’s dedicated Upper Class wing. These lounges are regarded as some of the best in the world, featuring à la carte menus, well-stocked bars, comfy seating, and nice work areas.

Other lounge options, especially at Heathrow, seem to get very overcrowded these days, especially during school holidays. Virgin Clubhouses are without the chaotic atmosphere and in a league of their own! Since you can’t access Virgin lounges with SkyTeam elite Plus status alone (more on that below), if lounge access is a priority, this alone makes Virgin Gold worth aiming for! 

There are Clubhouse lounges at:

• New York JFK Terminal 4
• Johannesburg JNB Terminal A
• San Francisco SFO Terminal A
• Washington Dulles IAD Terminal A

The Virgin Clubhouse lounges have a complicated access policy. You do not automatically get access if you are travelling on a SkyTeam airline, even if you have SkyTeam status. The current policy is as follows:

• Virgin Atlantic Upper Class passengers + 1 guest (if they’re on the same international Virgin Atlantic, Delta Air Lines, Air France or KLM flight as you).
• Delta One or Aeromexico Clase Premier passengers (no additional guests)
• Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Gold members + 1 guest (if they’re on the same international Virgin Atlantic, Delta Air Lines, Air France or KLM flight as you).
• Delta SkyMiles Diamond and Platinum Medallion members + 1 guest (travelling in Premium or above on Delta or Virgin)
• Flying Blue Platinum members + 1 guest (travelling in Premium or above on Delta or Virgin)

If your airport doesn’t have a dedicated Virgin lounge, remember you can use one of Virgin’s partner lounges specified here. For example, you can use ‘The Lounge’ at Edinburgh Airport and the 1903 Lounge at Manchester Airport. 

If you don’t have Virgin Gold status and you’re not travelling in Upper Class, you can opt for a Virgin Clubhouse pass if you have a Virgin Atlantic Credit Card and meet the spend target.

The Heathrow Revivals Lounge is open daily from early morning until early afternoon. Access is granted to Virgin Atlantic Upper Class passengers, Delta One passengers, and Flying Club Gold members, regardless of cabin. No guests are permitted.

Final Words

Virgin Atlantic has long been a favourite. With its UK base, great choice of routes, and excellent loyalty programme, it’s easy to see why Virgin’s loyalty programme is a top choice among TLFL readers.

One of the biggest downsides of Virgin is the move to dynamic pricing for redemptions. Previously, award charts provided predictability, but now it can be harder to find good value redemptions. I know many readers are frustrated with the devaluation, especially those with large balances which suddenly held less value overnight. Now, it’s more of a gamble… sometimes you’ll find a deal, but other times, you’ll be staring at an eye-watering points total that makes cash fares look tempting.

That said, Virgin’s partner airline redemptions have remained relatively untouched for now. This means there are still sweet spots to be found. Despite increased surcharges on Virgin-operated flights, there are still fantastic redemption opportunities, especially for Upper Class travel. I’ve personally found some great deals, particularly by searching for Saver Fares.

Virgin’s status match offer also makes it easier to switch from another airline without starting from scratch. If you’re already sitting on top-tier status with another airline, this is a great opportunity to try Virgin. 

Despite the changes, I still think Flying Club is one of the best options for UK-based travellers. There are still bargains to be had, and the frequent flyer programme remains one of the best. Virgin’s service is also second to none. You’ll find plenty of value if you’re flexible and can take advantage of partner redemptions, status perks, and credit card rewards.

Would you consider switching to the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club? Or perhaps you’ve already taken advantage of their status match offer? Maybe you’re already enjoying Silver or Gold status? Let us know in the comments below. We would love to hear your experiences.