Extra Miles?

Good afternoon, I wondered if someone might be able to help!

My fiancee and I have booked our honeymoon for next June through Virgin Holidays. At present, we have booked an outbound flight from London to LA in Upper Class through Virgin Atlantic (not to be confused with Virgin Holidays) by redeeming my fiancee's Flying Club miles as rewards (100,000 miles for the two of us).

Keeping up? Good!

Beyond that, we have booked a 3 week holiday in Hawaii, Las Vegas and Mexico through Virgin Holidays which sees us end up in Miami where we intend to fly back to London. I have 60,000 Virgin Flying Club miles and my fiancee (having redeemed the initial chunk on the LA flight) now has just 22,000. This gives us a grand total of 82,000 miles and the return leg from Miami in Upper Class (for 2) requires 100,000. Furthermore, these need to be split 50/50 between the two of us.

Virgin allow you to purchase Flying Club miles but you can only buy 19,000 - which means my fiancee would have 41,000 miles (leaving her 9,000 miles short of the required 50,000).

Does anyone know a way of obtaining 9,000 Virgin Flying Club miles? I have spoken to Virgin and they've pretty much stuck two fingers up at us, despite the honeymoon costing 5,000. I am not allowed to transfer any of my miles to my fiancee, either!

[Neil]

Hi and welcome to the site [y]

You need 9k VS miles?

Get the VS black Amex (£115 fee), 6k miles for first spend, plus 2miles for every £1 spent.

Order some wine from Virgin Wines, 3k 'welcome offer' then 750miles for every other order. You now have 9K miles.

There are lots of ways to earn miles, not any will get the miles into your account really quick, have you look at the VS flying club page which gives you all the partner info and what miles you earn etc.

Neil

Great suggestion about the wine - with xmas coming up that could be a double bonus [}:)]

Not too sure about the black Amex though - I don't think the fiancee will be too chuffed about another credit card!

Any suggestions for that elusive 6,000 miles?

[Neil]

I guess it all depends on how much you want/need the miles. The obvious way is the Black Amex, but if you don't fancy that then you will have to look through all the partners listed on the VS site and see which suits you best. A quick look doesn't show up anything obvious, you will need to do things like hotel stays, car hire etc.

Neil

Can you recommend anyone at Virgin who may be able to have a bit of a heart and help out two honeymooners?

[Neil]

Not likely I'm afraid. Virgin have very kindly just let me go overdrawn by 38 miles but that was by no means easy, so I think you have little chance with 6k. Just get the Black Amex and be done with it.

Neil

[Nottingham Nick]

You can always try and blag a honeymoon upgrade.
But, you won't be the first to try it. [8D][:D][}:)]

As Neil says, there are lots of ways to acquire extra miles, they are listed on the VS website here. The Amex card is the fastest, and easiest IMHO, but if you don't want another card, that one is out.

I wouldn't hold out a lot of hope trying for a good will honeymoon gesture from VS, as I would imagine that the percentage of honeymoon pax, or people celebrating a special occasion, on their leisure flights is quite high.

All the best for the wedding.[y][^]

Nick

Hi,

I had a similar problem once and in the end purchased Starwood points which I then transferred to my Virgin flying club account.

Not sure if this option would be of any help!

Good luck

Regards
Nevil

Buy the maximum miles now and then on the 1st of January buy the remainder you need. From what I understand it is 19k miles in a calender year.

The Amex will take a couple of weeks to process and the miles will be added to your account no earlier than 31st December anyway, but more than likely the 31st January.

Oh the joy of never having enough miles!

ps I know its radical and it will never catch on, but you could FLY somewhere

Originally posted by essexstu
these need to be split 50/50 between the two of us.

Do VS not allow a 75:25 split also? If correct, you could both purchase miles (you 15,000, OH 3,000).

ISTBC...[?]

I thought it was 50/50 but if it's 75/25 then that could work. Can anyone confirm this?

[HighFlyer]

You have to pay for each flight sector in full from one account, so, for x2 LHR-SFO returns, one person can pay for their return flight and the outbound for their partner with the partner paying just for their inbound for example, thus a 25/75 split.

Thanks,
Sarah

How about offering to 'buy' some miles from someone long on miles. They book your flight with miles - you give them dosh.

[Decker]

Tread very carefully on that one - the secondary miles market is in contravention of the T&C and could lead to account closure.

Greetings Stuart! (The person he is marrying is my sister, just to set the scene for everyone else!)

[Decker]

So you'll be gifting him the miles?

Well it's HER that needs the miles of course - anyway, gifting them the miles was naturally my first instinct ([8D]) but a quick check of the VS website reveals the gifting facility is offline.

Anyway, bit early for wedding presents, it's not until June!

Back to the drawing board methinks!