American Express Membership Rewards is running a 35% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic through November 30.

They ran a 30% bonus back in May, and a 30% bonus exactly a year ago. They’ve done 35% before as well.

One of the popular uses for Virgin miles in the past was converting to Hilton at one-to-two, 50,000 Virgin miles would yield 100,000 Hilton points. But the ratio has been devalued to 1-to-1.5. And Hilton devalued.

Still, Virgin miles are fairly easy to acquire. Points transfer also transfer from Chase Ultimate Rewards.

I’m not a fan of Virgin Atlantic miles, although I have a ton. I’ve never redeeemed the points. I wanted to on their partners Singapore Airlines and on Virgin America, but both times I wanted one-way awards and Virgin Atlantic only offers roundtrips with both.

I put together a list of the great ways to redeem Virgin Atlantic’s miles.

Of course where paid travel would entail a fuel surcharge, Virgin adds that to the cost of an award ticket.

They’ve reduced fuel surcharges on economy awards but those aren’t the awards I’m looking for. (Better off in most cases using Delta miles for the same awards.)

What’s more, departures in a premium cabin originating in the U.K. entail a substantial tax — on top of the surcharges. So Virgin award tickets often aren’t cheap.

Personally I’d skip transferring Amex points to Virgin, and pick up a huge Virgin Atlantic signup bonus from Bank of America.

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