With reasonable redemption rates and a ton of airline partners you can book, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is one of our favorite programs for redeeming points to travel the globe. They were already some of the easiest points to earn – thanks to a handful of bank transfer partners – and now, there’s a new option to pile them up faster … together.
The U.K.-based carrier just became the latest airline to introduce a new, free way to pool points through Household accounts. Effective immediately, you can link up to 10 different Flying Club accounts together (so long as they live at the same address) to pool and redeem points.
They’re not the first to introduce such an option – far from it. Just recently, United introduced a new family pooling feature while British Airways has offered something similar for years. But after slashing award rates as low as 29,000 points for a business class seat to London and rolling out record-setting 40% transfer bonuses from Chase and now Amex, more eyes are on Virgin and its loyalty program than ever.
That said, there are plenty of restrictions that could limit the usefulness of this new household account feature:
- Most importantly, only points earned after a household account is created will be pooled together
- If you have 50,000 Virgin points sitting around and a spouse does, too, you can’t share pool those points for a total of 100,000 by creating a household account
- All Flying Club accounts must have the same address on file
- Household accounts must remain linked for at least 12 months
- When you create a household account, only the leader can spend the points
- You can add up to nine accounts to your pool (10 accounts in total)
- The account leader must be at least 18 years-old
- Points earned through Virgin Red (which is where you actually transfer points from Capital One, for example) won’t automatically be pooled
While this will no doubt be a nice feature for some, that’s a whole lot of “gotchas!” Really, it’s geared toward British families – especially those traveling with young children – who can now easily pool their points together. For the rest of us, the restrictions here probably aren’t worth the headache.
Thankfully, there’s a better way for U.S. travelers who might be transferring credit card points from banks like Chase or Amex to combine points with a fellow flyer: Last year, Virgin drastically reduced the cost of transferring points to another member.
Most airlines charge a ransom to transfer miles to another account. It flew under the radar, but with Virgin, you can now transfer up to 100,000 points a year to another Flying Club (or Virgin Red) account for a flat $15 fee.
While it’s not free, that’s incredibly reasonable. It allows you to share any existing points balances you have – something that’s not possible if you’re just setting up a household account. And most importantly, there’s no requirement that you share an address, opening an avenue to combine points with a travel pal.
If you still think pooling Virgin points with a household account is the right move for your family, you can get started by logging into your Virgin account and then selecting “Create a Household Account” in your Flying Club profile.
You’ll then need to add the Flying Club number of every household member you choose to invite. If the person you’re inviting is 18 or older, they’ll get an email inviting them to join – anyone under 18 that you invite to your household will be linked automatically. Just remember: Only points earned after a household pool is created up will be added. Any existing points will stick with each individual member.
Bottom Line
Virgin Atlantic just introduced a new, free way to pool points called a “household account.” But all the rules, restrictions, and limits around this feature mean it may not be as useful as you think.
Instead, many travelers would be better off going another route: paying a flat $15 fee to transfer points to another flyer when looking to cash in for an award ticket.
