40% Bonus Transferring American Express Points to Virgin America.. And Should You Do It?

by Gary Leff

American Express is offering a 40% bonus on transfers to Virgin America through January 31.

This isn’t unusual, they had a 40% transfer bonus to Virgin America in the latter half of September.

A year ago they even ran a 50% transfer bonus.

Should you transfer?

Normally American Express points transfer 2:1 into Virgin America. A 40% bonus is significant, but it’s important to understand how Virgin America points can be valued.

My rule of thumb is that Virgin America’s points are deflated, that one Virgin America point is worth about 2 points in a European airline frequent flyer program.

Their points are reasonably good, then, for redeeming on partners (with fuel surcharges).

You can use the points for about 2.2 cents apiece towards travel on Virgin America, or for fixed-point redemptions on their partners.

Transferring to Virgin America to redeem on Virgin America doesn’t get great value, you’re only getting a bit over 1.5 cents per point of value out of this offer.

Where this does get a little bit interesting is partner redemptions. They do have partners, none of which offer out of this world value but some of which can be strategically useful, for instance:

  • Emirates. New York – Dubai roundtrip on Emirates is 95,000 points plus ~ $1400 in taxes/fees. New York-Milan roundtrip on Emirates is 59,000 points and ~ $670 in taxes/fees. One-way awards are permitted. Still, Alaska Airlines is generally a better partner for one-way awards and Japan Airlines a better partner for roundtrip.
  • Virgin Atlantic. JFK-London in Virgin Upper Class is 35,000 points roundtrip plus ~ $1000 in taxes/fees.
  • Virgin Australia. Los Angeles – Sydney is 80,000 points roundtrip in business class and over $900 in taxes/fees (compare to 160,000 Delta miles but no fuel surcharges). Short-haul business class within Australia is quite reasonable.
  • Singapore Airlines. Short-haul regional business class on Singapore can be quite attractive, eg. Singapore – Bangkok roundtrip is 13,000 points and ~ $45 in taxes/fees
  • Hawaiian. Hawaiian Airlines West Coast – Hawaii is 20,000 points roundtrip in coach, so the credit card gets you that. First class is 50,000 points. And no fuel surcharges apply.

Whether you should take advantage of this offer hinges on the extent to which these and similar redemptions are appealing and match your plans, in my view.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. A little confused Gary, at the end are you saying you can use 50k Virgin points on Hawaiian first class with no surcharge? That means that for less than 18,000 Amex points you can go RT on Hawaiian first??

  3. Gary–Is it possible to add the year to your post dates? If one stumbles across a post via a google search, it’s hard to tell how old/relevant the information is.

    Thanks.

  4. It is worth mentioning that VX is not in great financial shape. Of course this has been true since 2007, and people have been predicting its demise since then and they have proved all of the naysayers wrong. It’s unclear how long they will continue to be funded (they are a private company).

    I would never dissuade someone from buying a ticket on VX, and they are one of the best premium domestic products out there. But if something goes awry, your credit card company will cover you for the ticket. But if you have any miles banked at VX when things go south, you are S.O.L.

  6. @Gaurav – apologies that currently the only way to see the year is in the post’s URL. I do not actually know how to change it!

  9. I apologize if this shows up twice. I thought I posted it but I don’t see it. Is http://viewfromthewing.com/feed/ still the correct url for your RSS feed? I am trying to add it to Feedly but it can’t seem to locate your feed. Any idea on what to do?

    Thanks.

  11. @Steeler that’s a Virgin Atlantic trick not a Virgin America trick and given the ratios involved it still wouldn’t be

  19. I have a similar question as Howard’s. Will transfering to Krisflyer keep them from expiring.

    My wife has 65k MRs (and I have about 200k). We were hoping to save up for an aspirational award in suites class, but I’m concerned that if I transfer them into Krisflyer, and don’t fly them, they will expire in 36 months. Not sure if I’ll have enough for that trip by then.

    The other choice is BA, where we already have a fair number of miles. Don’t like fuel surcharges, but maybe using them on AA to Hawaii is the way to go.

    What’s your favorite transfer partner?

  23. I checked all the west coast cities in california from the virgin airlines site to hawaii, and they are 26000 points rt. Then I realized 20000 RT is only to Honolulu. So FYI.

    At 26,000 virgin miles, 1 for 2 but 1.4x bonus, that would be 37,000 AmEx points, plus I have to get to the west coast. Doesn’t work for me since I can almost always get United for 40000RT all the way from Reno to Kona. But thanks for the idea!

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