Four Amazing Award Redemptions Thanks to 2 Bank Programs Offering Transfer Bonuses at the Same Time

A couple of days ago I wrote about Delta One business class suites to Asia for as little as 47,000 points each way with availability for 4 or more and sometimes even 9 passengers per flight.

This was made possible by,


Credit: Delta

Now two transferable points programs are running transfer bonuses to Virgin at the same time. In addition to a 30% bonus transferring American Express Membership Rewards points to Virgin Atlantic through July 1, points transfers from Citi ThankYou Rewards to Virgin Atlantic receive a 30% bonus through June 22. (HT: @Iadisgr8)

That means you can book awards through Virgin Atlantic using Membership Rewards, ThankYou Rewards, or some combination thereof:

  • 39,000 points for Delta business class to Europe
  • 47,000 points for Delta business class to Asia
  • From 70,000 points roundtrip for ANA business class to/from Tokyo
  • From 86,000 points roundtrip for ANA first class to/from Tokyo

Virgin Atlantic miles aren’t worth as much as other miles. However they do have strategic uses and I believe the single best one is ANA first class roundtrip from the Central U.S. and East Coast for just 120,000 miles per person. (San Francisco and Los Angeles is just 110,000 miles roundtrip, while business class runs 90,000 or 95,000 miles depending on the city.)

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

Worth knowing that Virgin Atlantic awards have a $50 per passenger change fee, and a cancel/redeposit fee of $50 as well. That’s low by US program standards, but there are no changes at all within 24 hours of departure (you can cancel for $50 but you won’t get your miles back, just the taxes paid). You can put an award on hold for 24 hours (by phone).

I believe that the ANA first class awards with Virgin Atlantic miles are too good to last over time, since the best deals — those orders of magnitude better than what most programs deliver — always go away eventually.

There are other award chart sweet spots, like Australia and New Zealand, but availability for those is fairly non-existent.

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. Just got back from Tokyo on ANA 1st.

    Took advantage of this deal last fall Highly recommend doing this deal. Only negative is the boxy Suite only 1 window

    Flew to Tokyo on Jan 14 and flew back May 14 since ANA reqs RT. I flew on to Frankfurt and then home by January 17.

    And just positioning flights to get to Tokyo By May 14. wink wink
    DCA JFK CMN AUD SYD SIN HNDNRT IAD
    New SQ Suite, EY Aprt 4A, 2 DreamLiners 1 n EY 1st, 2 777s n 1st.

    Be creative. YMMV. Safe landings.

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