Matching the 30% bonus started last month for transfers from American Express Membership Rewards points to Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club (until Sept 12th, 2018), Citi’s ThankYou program will do the same until October 13, 2018.
Until Oct 13, 1 ThankYou point = 1.3 Virgin Atlantic FlyingClub miles.
The single best use of Virgin Atlantic miles are a 1st class trip on ANA to Japan. It costs only 110,000 – 120,000 Virgin miles round trip depending on if you depart the east Coast or West Coast of the US, meaning it costs just 85,000 Citi ThankYou points from the West Coast or 93,000 ThankYou points from the East Coast for a First Class roundtrip award to Japan. To book this, find availability using United.com (which will show ANA award seats) and then call Virgin to place the flights on hold while you transfer the points, which can take up to 2 days.
Other great uses include using Virgin Atlantic miles for flights on Delta metal – at a fraction of the price of using Delta miles.
As always, though, I advise to transfer if you have a need and hold off if you don’t. Programs can and do change at anytime and often without notice.
If you don’t currently collect ThankYou points, there’s an elevated signup bonus of 60,000 points on now for the ThankYou Premier card, which gets you about 2/3 of that flight in one shot. (Also see: Signup bonuses for Travel Rewards Credit Cards)
H/T: Doctor Of Credit
Are you taking advantage of this? Let me know here, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group.
New to all of this? My new “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available now.
