Transfer Citi ThankYou Points to Virgin Atlantic With a 25% Bonus
In the return of a promotion that'll pop up from time to time, Citi is offering a 25% bonus for transferring Citi ThankYou points to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles. The promotion runs now through March 2, but if you're looking to redeem Flying Club miles for peak travel times, you'll want to jump on this promo within the next week.
Virgin Atlantic is in the midst of a program devaluation announced last October. As part of the change, you can no longer redeem Virgin Atlantic miles for Virgin America flights, leaving Delta as the only partner available for US domestic flights. This change was the major catalyst that led TPG to reduce our valuation of Flying Club miles from 1.5 cents per mile to 1.3 cents each.
For redeeming miles on Virgin Atlantic's own flights, there's 10 more days until the award chart goes through a mixed bag of changes. With the addition of off-peak awards, Flying Club miles will become more valuable than before for certain redemptions. However, other award prices are generally going up.
If you're looking for a once-in-a-lifetime redemption, one of the absolute best uses of Virgin Atlantic miles is redeeming 1,200,000 miles for a seven night stay on Richard Branson's Necker Island. With this 25% transfer bonus, you'll only need to transfer 960,000 Citi ThankYou points to have enough for this luxurious redemption.
No matter what you plan to do with your Flying Club miles, there's no lack of transfer partners. Virgin Atlantic is a 1:1 partner with all four major transferable currencies: American Express Membership Rewards (value: 1.9 cents), Chase Ultimate Rewards (2.1 cents), Citi ThankYou points (1.6 cents) and Starwood Preferred Guest (2.7 cents). Based on current TPG valuations, you can see that Citi ThankYou points are already the best source. With this transfer bonus, ThankYou points are the clear winner.
That said, if you want to snag some award bookings using the current award chart, you'll want to start transferring Citi ThankYou points soon. Our testing shows that points take about 2 days to transfer to Virgin Atlantic, and the last day to book awards using the current award chart is January 15.
Bottom Line
This transfer bonus isn't a great deal. But if you're looking to top off your Flying Club account for some last-minute redemptions before the award chart changes, this is a great opportunity to do so.
H/T: One Mile At A Time
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