When one transfer bonus ends, another one begins: Chase Ultimate Rewards kicked off October with its latest transfer bonus, offering a 30% bonus when transferring Chase points to your Virgin Atlantic account.
This bonus is widely available so long as you've got a card that earns Ultimate Rewards points like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or the Chase Sapphire Reserve®. And it's available all the way through Nov. 12, which means you've got more than a month to come up with a way to use this bonus before it ends.
Read our guide on Chase transfer partners and how they work!
Using transfer partners like Virgin Atlantic is one of the best ways to use Chase Ultimate Rewards points for even more value. And these transfer bonuses make it even better – think of it as a way to get some free airline miles. Even if you don't use Virgin Atlantic or know much about their Flying Club program, you should. Thanks to some excellent partnerships, you can use Virgin Atlantic miles to book an amazing flight to Europe in Delta One business class for as low as 39,000 points or even a lie-flat seat to Japan and back at an enormous discount, among other opportunities.
This bonus just makes things even sweeter.
The Basics on Virgin Atlantic
Virgin Atlantic is a quirky airline with a quirky frequent flyer program. The airline flies from several U.S. gateways to London-Heathrow (LHR), as well as between several international hubs like Dubai (DXB) and Hong Kong (HKG). But you’ll rarely see us recommend using Virgin Atlantic miles to fly Virgin Atlantic flights.
While its award chart offers some pretty decent rates for getting to Europe and back, the fees it charges on award tickets are exorbitant. You can expect to pay $500 or more for just an economy roundtrip ticket flying in and out of London-Heathrow. That’s just not worth it.
Luckily, there are some incredible partnerships where you can save a ton of miles by booking with Virgin Atlantic, with far more reasonable fees. Add in this transfer bonus from Chase, and it’s a no-brainer. You can transfer points to a Virgin Atlantic account from Amex, Chase, Capital One, and Citi as well as Marriott. All of them (with the exception of Marriott which transfers at 3:1), transfer on a 1:1 basis.
However, with this current 30% bonus, Chase is obviously your go-to. If you transfer 50,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points, you’d get 65,000 Virgin Atlantic miles. These transfers generally clear immediately – meaning the points will be available in your Virgin Atlantic account as soon as you make the transfer.
Virgin Atlantic’s website can be a tad difficult to navigate. Getting award flights to show up on a given route can take a few tries. One good trick is to search for airports by country or region and pick them, rather than manually typing in the city name or airport code.
Unfortunately, Virgin Atlantic recently made it even harder by removing a handy award calendar you could use to scroll through a month's worth of flights at a time. Fortunately, there's a workaround you can use to still pull this feature up.
So what can you book?
Major Delta Deals
We don’t need to tell you that trying to understand the value of Delta SkyMiles can be frustrating. There’s no award chart, so the airline’s pricing when booking a flight with miles can be all over the map. Often, a Delta award flight can be obscenely expensive – especially if you want to fly business class.
Enter Virgin Atlantic. You can easily use Virgin Atlantic to book the exact same Delta flight and save a boatload of SkyMiles. The London-based airline offers a far more stable – and frequently cheaper – alternative to book Delta flights than using SkyMiles outright.
Case in point, it’s next to impossible to find decent rates flying Delta One business class using miles. The airline regularly charges 300,000 SkyMiles or more for a business class seat to Europe, including the new Delta One suites.
But with Virgin Atlantic, it's just 50,000 miles to fly Delta One to Europe. Unfortunately, Virgin Atlantic destroyed a similar sweet spot to get to Asia for just 60,000 miles last year.
Still, there's plenty of value here with redemptions to Europe – though you'll have to be flexible, as finding these seats at such cheap rates through Virgin Atlantic has gotten much harder in recent years. But when you can, it's a steal. Here's an example.
Delta is charging close to 400,000 SkyMiles to fly Delta One from Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) to Amsterdam (AMS) later this fall. Ouch.
But you can book the exact same flight – same plane, same seat, same day – through Virgin Atlantic for just 50,000 miles. Factor in this 30% bonus, and you only need to transfer 39,000 Chase points to make it happen.
Booking that for just 39,000 points is one of the best deals you'll find in the world of points and miles. It can require some flexibility to lock in flights at these low rates. It all hinges on finding award availability, and you won't see that every day. But it's gotten a bit easier lately: We've sent Thrifty Traveler Premium members several alerts in just the last few months to book this same deal for a trip later this year or in 2023.
Get alerts for the best ways to use your points and miles with Thrifty Traveler Premium!
Just remember: Never transfer points to Virgin Atlantic (or any airline) until you know the flights you want to book are available. These transfers are a one-way street – you can't get them back to your Chase account.
Read our guide on booking Delta flights with Virgin Atlantic miles, and you'll be ready to start hunting for the deal of a lifetime.
One other great way to save some SkyMiles on Delta flights? Nonstop flights from the mainland U.S. to Hawaii, which cost 30,000 to 45,000 miles round-trip in economy, depending on where you're starting from. There can be huge savings over what Delta typically charges for the same flights.
Flights from West Coast cities like Seattle (SEA) or Los Angeles (LAX) will run you just 30,000 miles roundtrip, while a midwestern city like Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) jumps to 45,000 miles roundtrip. At 45,000 miles through Virgin Atlantic, you could book by transferring just 35,000 Chase points!
Delta is charging almost 80,000 SkyMiles for these exact same flights!
Fly in Style with ANA
Japan is opening soon. You can also use this transfer bonus to score an amazing deal on a trip to Japan on one of the world’s best airlines.
ANA is one of Japan’s flag carriers, and it lives up to its five-star reputation. Its first class cabin is spacious, private, and offers some of the best catering in the aviation world. Its new business class seats rival Qatar Qsuites for #1 in the world, too.
We’ve written before about the incredible value of using ANA to get to Japan for cheap in business class. But Virgin Atlantic also has a sweet spot for booking ANA flights, and this transfer bonus makes it even sweeter.
A round trip first class flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to Tokyo, Japan (HND) or San Francisco (SFO) to Tokyo-Narita (NRT) would require just 85,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points. Or get from Chicago-O'Hare (ORD) or New York City (JFK) to Tokyo for just 93,000 Chase points. That’s just over what United charges for a one-way fare in business class.
Much like booking Delta One via Virgin Atlantic, finding award availability on ANA can be a chore. First Class availability is practically nonexistent these days, so focus on a business class booking. These days, booking within three weeks of departure seems to be your best bet.
You can't book these flights online through Virgin Atlantic, which means it requires a bit of extra legwork. You'll want to search for award availability through a site like United.com and then ring up Virgin Atlantic at 1-800-365-9500 when you're ready to book.
Read our guide to booking ANA flights with Virgin Atlantic miles
Of course, ANA’s business class is nothing to scoff at either – especially if you can snag the brand new business class seats it calls “The Room” which are currently flying from New York City (JFK) and Los Angeles (LAX).
With this transfer bonus, it could be yours by transferring just 70,000 Chase points.
Virgin Atlantic has a reasonable $50 fee to cancel award tickets and get your miles back if plans change.
Bottom Line
This new Chase transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic can unlock some of the best deals in the world of points and miles. Just make sure to use it before it ends on Nov. 12!