We may receive a commission when you use our links. Monkey Miles is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com and CardRatings. This relationship may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Monkey Miles is also a Senior Advisor to Bilt Rewards. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
30% transfer bonus Citi Thank You to Virgin Atlantic
Transfer bonuses are the time to pull the trigger. Virgin Atlantic is a program many overlook because of the heavy surcharges, but it’s also one I’ve taken advantage of a lot over the past year. Virgin Atlantic award flights earn you Tier Points and can ultimately qualify you for status if you do it enough ( I’ll earn Virgin Silver, and SkyTeam Elite as a result of my Virgin flights this year ).
ALSO – DO NOT TRANSFER WITHOUT SEEING A FLIGHT YOU WANT TO BOOK. Transfers are one way and irreversible.
30% Transfer bonus runs until 3/16/24
ANA
This is the Virgin Atlantic Award Chart for ANA redemptions.
- Business Class
- Australia / Canada / Western USA:
- 105,000 points round-trip, 52,500 points one-way
- Europe / Central & Eastern USA / Mexico:
- 120,000 points round-trip, 60,000 points one-way
- Australia / Canada / Western USA:
- First Class from US to Japan ranges
- Australia / Canada / Western USA:
- 145,000 points round-trip, 72,500 points one-way
- Europe / Central & Eastern USA / Mexico:
- 170,000 points round-trip, 85,000 points one-way
- Australia / Canada / Western USA:
ANA stunned the world with their new 777-3ooER “The Room” Business Class and you can see why. It’s massive
Not to be outdone…let’s take a gander at “The Suite” – their new First Class offering
Air France/KLM
Yep, you can use Virgin Atlantic miles to fly on Air France. The chart is based on peak/off peak and business class one way from the USA to Europe ranges from 48.500 miles to 97,500 miles. Clearly, you want to find options that are off peak otherwise you could always search on Air France since it’s a transfer partner of Chase as well.
Read our review of Air France business class here
Delta
You can use Virgin Atlantic miles to fly on Delta as well, and in particular, to fly business class between the US and Europe for just 50k miles one way. This is significantly cheaper than Delta would charge using their own points, but this rate only applies to flights that aren’t going in/out of the UK.
This is a great redemption theoretically…in practice, finding the award availability for Delta One from the US to Europe is quite difficult, but still possible.
Note that surcharges are now quite high on Delta flights booked using Virgin Miles
Virgin Atlantic flights
Don’t forget about using Virgin Atlantic miles on Virgin Atlantic itself…there are quite a few great ways to do this; however, be prepared to pay some taxes and fees.
Upgrading a qualifying fare
Virgin Atlantic runs promos all the time, and you’ll often find Economy Classic or Delight pricing at $500 to $600 roundtrip from select US airports to the UK. A great use of Virgin miles is to upgrade those tickets to Premium Economy or Upper Class. That is done so using the following table ( add on a few more miles if its peak season )
You could use 71,200 miles to upgrade your roundtrip from Economy to Upper Class ( you’d still earn miles on the base ticket too ).
Upper Class
Watch out for those taxes and fees…but Virgin Atlantic releases a lot of award space on their own flights. Like..a lot. With rates starting around 47,500 miles for a one way upper class flight, it may be worth paying $600+ in taxes and fees to fly Upper.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
- That’s $750 when you redeem through Chase Travel℠
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2024
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.