The Virgin Money Visa, which is managed by Citibank on behalf of Virgin Money, will undergo some changes to the core benefits of the ‘4 complimentary’ flights in December this year. As a result, if you currently hold this card you should probably consider how this change will impact you and whether you may want to look elsewhere.
The current card benefit is 4 free companion flights every cardholder year, you just pay the surcharges on any companion booking. If used wisely, you could easily generate in excess of $500 of value each year on domestic travel, assuming you’d be booking your flights on Virgin anyway.
The ‘complimentary flights’ benefit is changing in December to a ‘reduced flights offer’ from December 1. All flight bookings made prior to December 1st will be on the old ‘complimentary flights’ terms, while bookings from December 1 on will be on new terms, which in my opinion aren’t as appealing.
All other benefits of both the Virgin Flyer and High Flyer cards will remain the same, with 1 point per $ earn on spend on the Flyer, capped at $1,500 per month and a $129 annual fee, and 1.25 Velocity points per $ on spend on the High Flyer, with an annual fee of $289.
Currently you can book your complimentary flight into Saver Lite, Saver, Flexi and Business Class fare classes. From December 1 it’s Saver and Saver Lite only. The booking period will change from a minimum of 21 days prior to travel to 30 days, the key part, the offer becomes 50% off the base fare component with taxes excluded from the discount, whereas currently taxes are discounted for both guests.
This means you can currently book into Business Class and receive a very healthy discount on the full fare for both passengers. In future, you’ll only be able to book into the cheapest Economy fare classes, and even then you won’t receive a discount on the taxes incurred, only on the base fares.
Looking at a Melbourne to Brisbane flight in a couple of months, you can see that the base fare is $$111.33, and taxes equate to $33.90, so you’ll lose a $33.90 benefit on that booking (2 people at $33.90 discounted at 50%). The ratio’s of base fare to taxes were similar on other routes I checked.
The impact of the loss of Flexi bookings is also a real shame if you used these complimentary flights on heavily booked routes where only Flexi would have been available, and of course if you used it for two Business Class fares effectively at 1/2 price, then you will be more out of pocket (or benefits).
It must be said that Virgin Money have done the right thing by ensuring these changes are made clear 6 months from them being put in place. You have 6 months to make any bookings under the existing terms and conditions – hell, you could apply as a new cardholder now, maximise the benefits before December 1 and then cancel if you so wished.
I don’t know if they have, or how they will communicate the changes to existing cardholders though. I hope this is done effectively.
It’s a hefty downgrade to the Virgin Flyer and Virgin Money card benefits later this year, which is a shame, as if you are a frequent, self-paid, Virgin flyer who regularly flew with someone else, these benefits were substantial. They are far less so now.
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