Virgin Atlantic Temporarily Pulled as Amex Membership Rewards Transfer Partner

Nov. 10, 2016

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2 min read

Virgin Atlantic Temporarily Pulled as Amex Membership Rewards Transfer Partner

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Yesterday, we noticed that Virgin Atlantic was pulled from American Express' list of Membership Rewards transfer partners.

The airline has been making some drastic moves recently. Last week, it made major changes to its Flying Club Program and ended its partnership with Virgin America. We figured that this was just one of the unannounced changes to the revised program.

There used to be another line between Virgin America and the hotel partners.

But, we reached out to American Express for confirmation. Good news for those still hoping to use Virgin Atlantic's new award program: Amex confirmed that this is a temporary issue, caused by "maintenance" on Virgin Atlantic's end of the connection. Apparently this same maintenance is preventing Virgin Atlantic reps from booking awards, so Membership Rewards customers aren't missing out during the downtime. Amex believes that transfers to the airline should be back up and running within a day or two, though others have been reporting November 15.

An Amex rep also confirmed that there's no expected change to the transfer ratio between Membership Rewards and Virgin Atlantic's Flying Club Program. And with the new changes to the Flying Club Program, these points might be more valuable than ever for certain off-peak flights.

Are you hoping to transfer MR points to Virgin Atlantic once the connection is reestablished?

[card card-name='The Platinum Card® from American Express' card-id='22504813' type='javascript' bullet-id='1']

Featured image by JT Genter