London Bound This Summer And A Savings Of $2,390 Using Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Miles
December, 2012, the last time I was in London
Posted 7/8/2016
Back in 2014, I accumulated almost 100,000 Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Miles because I got a Bank Of America Virgin Atlantic World Elite MasterCard with an offer that yielded about 90,000 miles just from the sign-up bonuses and spending bonuses. You can still get the same offer today for the card, but it is targeted. The fee for the card was $95.
I never had any plans for the miles, but figured I would be able to use them one day. After all, Rob and I have some big birthdays coming up. However, that day has arrived sooner than I originally anticipated…
My friend is spending a lot of her summer in London and has a place for me to crash. Being able to get to London for free on miles, and having a place to stay was too appealing for me to pass up. Also, let’s not forget about Brexit. Everything is much less expensive in London right now! West End theater, here I come..
So I started my reward search on the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club website and ultimately used a total of 35,000 Flying Club miles for my roundtrip flight to London. In addition, I needed to pay $436 in taxes, fees, etc.
Unlike the last time that I flew to London in Business Class, this time, I am in economy class. I am fine with that! It is an impromptu trip to London and I am going solo, I am smiling right now as I type this. 
I did another search, this time using dollars, to see the price of the flights. The price for the flight (inclusive of fees, etc) came in at $2826. I saved $2,390 (2826-436) using a little more than a 1/3 of my Flying Club balance, a balance that I had for merely getting a credit card, meeting the spend minimum, and paying a $95 fee. Not to mention, I still have another 65,000 left to play with!
For all of you out there who need to know if you are getting a good value before you decide to use rewards, (I am not one of you), the most recent valuation of a Virgin Atlantic Flying Club mile was 1.5 cents per mile. Using that figure, I am using miles valued at $525 for a flight that is close to $3,000. I think that it is a pretty good value!
