Get a 40% bonus when converting Amex Membership Rewards to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club (this can be good)

Between today and the end of December, Amex is offering a 40% bonus to anyone who converts at least 1,000 Amex Membership Rewards Points into Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points and unless I’m misremembering, this is the best Virgin Atlantic conversion bonus we’ve seen Amex offer for some time.

But does that make this a good deal?

How & when is this a good deal?

Let’s get two very important things out of the way first:

Firstly, no one should be creating airline miles/points without having a good idea how the plan to use them in the short-term. This is doubly true for Virgin Atlantic which has been known to push through changed to its rewards program with little or no notice at all.

Secondly, keep in mind that Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is now prices flights on Virgin Atlantic dynamically and this means that anyone who hasn’t got quite a bit of flexibility when it comes to the dates they can travel and where they’d like to travel to, is unlikely to find an economical way to use their points on Virgin Atlantic itself.

With those two warnings out of the way, will now point out that despite some of the horrendous pricing we now see for Virgin Atlantic award bookings, Flying Club points can still be useful.

Outside of trying to grab a rogue supercheap Virgin Atlantic Premium Economy award when I spot one (more on that in a moment), there’s really only one way I try to get value out of my Virgin Atlantic points.

My favorite Virgin Atlantic partner

My favorite Virgin Atlantic partner is Japan’s ANA and that’s because you can get some truly outsized value when you use Virgin Flying Club points to book premium cabin ANA awards.

Here’s the Virgin Atlantic award chart for redemption on ANA:

Note: The mileage costs shown in the table above are for round trip travel.

In practical terms this is what the award chart means:

• New York to Tokyo: 95,000 points/170,000 points (Business Class/First Class)
• Los Angeles to Tokyo will cost 90,000 points/145,000 points
• Europe to Tokyo will cost 95,000 points/170,000 points

Those are pretty good deals in their own right, but when you factor in the Amex transfer bonus they start to look even better.

Here’s how many Amex Membership Rewards Points are required for the three trips I just listed above (once you account for the 40% transfer bonus that Amex is currently offering):

• New York to Tokyo: 68,000/122,000 (Business Class/First Class)
• Los Angeles to Tokyo: 65,000/104,000
• Europe to Tokyo: 68,000/122,000

To put things in context, the best non-stop, roundtrip Business Class fares you’ll usually find for travel between New York and Tokyo run between $4,000 and $6,000, while that same trip can be booked for just 68,000 Amex Membership Rewards Points which we value at $1,020 (1.5 cents each).

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that good/great ANA awards have never been more difficult to find (please don’t convert any points before you check that awards are available on dates that work for you) and you’ll have to pay some surcharges too (fortunately, these are nowhere near as bad as the surcharges that Virgin Atlantic often charges on a lot of other awards).

The one Virgin Atlantic redemption that I like

Virgin Atlantic’s Premium Economy cabin is no longer as great as it one was (it was once the best Premium Economy cabin for transatlantic travel), but it’s still ok and it can still offer very good value when booked with points (usually at some of the least busy times of the year).

The surcharges combined with the high departure taxes out of the UK make a roundtrip Premium Economy award unattractive even when the number of points needed is very low …

… but every now and again, you can book a one-way Premium Economy award between Los Angeles and London (for example) for a ridiculously low number of points and with surcharges that don’t make you feel like you’re being taken for a fool.

In the example above, I could book a one-way Premium Economy award between Los Angeles and London for just 16,500 Virgin points + $232 in surcharges and in terms of Amex Membership Rewards Points, that’s 12,000 MR Points + $232 while the 40% conversion bonus is in play.

Given that here at TFM we value Amex Points at 1.5 cents each, that award would effectively cost me just $412. That’s an incredible price for a Premium Economy booking on what is usually a 9.5 to 10-hour flight.

Of course, this kind of deal isn’t available all the time and if you’re planning to fly across to Europe at a time when the weather isn’t too bad, you’re probably not going to find a something as great as this.

Right now, however, there are some very attractive award prices for travel to the UK in January and February, and that’s where a conversion bonus (like the one currently on offer by Amex) can be very useful.

Bottom line

Virgin Atlantic may be pricing its award dynamically right now, but there are still ways in which you can get good value out of Flying Club points if you’re prepared to be a little flexible and travel at times when a lot of other people are choosing to stay home.

Right now, Amex is offering a 40% bonus when you convert Membership Rewards Points to Virgin Flying Club points and if you can stack that deal with a great Virgin award or, better yet, an ANA premium cabin award, there can be great value to be had.