virgin reward voucher is burning a whole in my pocket lol

[gemma-lou]

hi guys,
so we havent done this before but we have a reward voucher which we want to use for february next year. we will be traveling either on the Saturday or sunday, but it seems to be cheaper on sunday than the saturday if you was to book it as a package holiday so in my mindset it would be cheaper lesser points too (or dsoent it matter with a reward voucher?)

i also have 99,000 points i could use towards the return leg. but dont want to use them all if i can help it as we are returning december 2026

so

voucher for 2 single journey tickets in economy (or could we use it for premium or use points to upgrade to premium?) and then points for return leg home.

are taxes and fees likely to go down or a set price no matter what the cost of points is used

book tomorrow when seats are released for sunday 14th or wait until return journey is also released and book as 1 return flight with voucher and use points for other person.

we will also have a voucher in august this year that we will be using for December 2026 holiday, we will be flying out on the 22nd and using that voucher and also points remaining plus built up until booking for the return leg.

if you have a better idea let me know, i want to get maximum benefit from points and voucher for our money
thank you

[YorkshireT]

We are red so the voucher is worth 75k points max.
Return back from Orlando, Tampa or Miami is a no go for us in First- simply too many points now and savers seem to have been taken away on the return for all Florida routes now going forward. They had some when it launched but you see none now, try checking Jan, Feb to see what I mean.
Decent first points out to Tampa, so we may do that but it gets in late.
It’s going to be premium economy back from Tampa or Miami, preferably the latter because the Tampa flight doesn’t land back in Heathrow until midday- not the best.
We intend travelling out end of Feb 26, so waiting. Not sure if I see a good first to Tampa to just book it then, writing off the balance of the voucher and book the return separately, or just wait.
The voucher isn’t that good being limited to a measly 75,000 points, then again I don’t have the points to even book any single return from the USA back to the UK. They clearly don’t want anyone using vouchers and points on any return first from Florida to UK.
I wonder if they have better first points amounts if you are in the USA booking to come here?
Rubbish really. They should have saved firsts coming back from Florida. Good points (aside from Orlando) if you want economy, many for 7500, which then means the voucher has no real value.
They’ve thought it through very well, to ‘look good’ on paper, but you are cut off actually getting a good result out of it no matter which way you try.
Even premium back from Tampa and Miami must now be really limited as those seats now go very quickly. Of course Orlando is a waste of time, but it’s sad to see even upper class out to Miami has also stopped being offered.

[Softy]

Book as a return as they’d reprice the outbound when you go to add the inbound if you do them seperate. It’ll give you the flexibility on dates/airports to find the cheapest price.
There’s no rhyme or reason as to when the cheapest time to book will be. You just have to check as often as you can. The cheapest is 7.5k each way for economy, 13.5k for premium.
You can use the voucher as a bogof in any class, so just book straight into premium if it works for your dates. You can do mixed classes and airports.
They can release cheaper taxes/fees for premium (around £450-550) but haven’t seen a difference for economy. Don’t wait around for it though if a low mileage flight comes up that works for you.
Look at Tampa, as that’s the one that tends to have lots of cheap availability. I’m currently on a trip that flew into Tampa premium and back from mco premium.

[gemma-lou]

thanks for your comments, we flew into tampa in february just gone and flew out ont eh 1450 flight and back at 22.40 and prefered it, we live in the southwest so we have a bit of a drive down after the flight and managed to sleep on the way home leg which was great. we didnt mind the journey to orlando from tampa the drive was lovely in fact no traffic. this time around we will have a day at busch gardens so will work better for us to fly in and out of tampa plus they ahev a lovely mall right beside the airport!

[Gibbobobo]

Just to clear some things up, the voucher can be used one of two ways. You can use it as a companion reward or as an upgrade.

The companion one tends to be the best value, you pay the points for one person and get the second person for 0 points, both passengers still have to pay the taxes and fees. If you want to use the companion voucher, you'll need to wait till your return dates are available to book as they can't split vouchers anymore.

The upgrade version allows you to upgrade two people on one leg of the journey, so you could upgrade from economy to premium on the return trip for example, you don't pay any more points for this but you do have the pay the extra taxes and fees.

Either way the voucher has a capped value of points which is 75k if your flying club red members or 150k if you happen to be silver or gold members.

If you're looking at economy flights from LHR to TPA then there looks to be lots of saver seats at 7500 points each way. This means you can use the voucher for a companion reward, you'd pay 15000 points in total plus the taxes and fees for bother passengers (£274 each). This means the voucher was worth 15000 points.

If you wanted to get maximum value of the voucher you could look at booking premium, outbound there looks to be lots for 13500 points, coming back it's bit more all over the place with prices from 18500 up to 59000 (bases on what is available so far in February next year.

As an example, Premium both way for 50500 points plus £514 taxes each, you'd pay that points once plus the voucher, the taxes for both people, so while it's costing more points and money you've getting more value out of the vouchers. It's down to you to decide if you happy to spend those extra points and money to travel in premium.

Alternatively you can use it as an upgrade, you'd book the economy reward seats for 15,000 points each and then use the voucher to upgrade one way to premium for both passengers, providing the difference between economy and premium for both people doesn't come to more than 75000 points you won't need any extra points and just pay the extra taxes.

If you haven't already start checking the reward seat availability site each day to get an idea of points cost for each class over the times you want to fly. The prices do go up and down a little, plus the newest day often appears at some silly prices and then the next day goes down to more reasonable prices.

https://www.virginatlantic.com/reward-flight-finder

[cornishfrogboy]

This all seems so Machiavellian and extraordinarily complex, when compared with BA Avios.

It costs this many Avios and it is either available or it is not.. and with set numbers in each class available on each flight.

Besides anything else, BA fly to practically everywhere in the World.. and Virgin do not.

[YorkshireT]

Originally Posted by cornishfrogboy

This all seems so Machiavellian and extraordinarily complex, when compared with BA Avios.

It costs this many Avios and it is either available or it is not.. and with set numbers in each class available on each flight.

See more...

Totally agree, and they just allow you to put cash to it if you don’t have enough Avios, and also the credit card voucher is 2 for 1 none of these rubbish catches.

I think I’ll cancel the Virgin credit card.

[annachief]

Originally Posted by cornishfrogboy

This all seems so Machiavellian and extraordinarily complex, when compared with BA Avios.

It costs this many Avios and it is either available or it is not.. and with set numbers in each class available on each flight.

Besides anything else, BA fly to practically everywhere in the World.. and Virgin do not.

See more...

Plus avios can be used on more: Iberia, Finnair which opens up many more possibilities like South America via Madrid is exceptionally good value 51,000 points plus £96, such a bargain compared to virgin.

[wildphantom]

Just to confirm then…

If I have a voucher and am red class I can buy one premium return and get the other seat free with the voucher. Both ways. Then we both pay the taxes.

Is that right? The 75k limit doesn’t even come into it unless it’s an upgrade?

[Belle99]

Originally Posted by wildphantom

Just to confirm then…

If I have a voucher and am red class I can buy one premium return and get the other seat free with the voucher. Both ways. Then we both pay the taxes.

Is that right? The 75k limit doesn’t even come into it unless it’s an upgrade?

See more...

The 75k limit applies to both upgrade and companion seats. So if your premium seats cost more than 75k you’ll have to top up the difference in points.