Virgin recently announced some changes to Flying Club – and for once in the world of loyalty programs, they are actually all positive! Nothing mind-blowing, but all moves in the right direction.

Here is a quick summary of the improvements (full details here):

Status is easier to get

From April next year it will take just 300 Tier Points, instead of 400 to upgrade from Red to Silver status.

Gold status will require 800 points, instead of the usual 1000.

This reduction will remain in place for 12 months from 1st April 2022.

Earn Tier Points when booking Virgin Holidays

Earn 20 Tier Points for every £500 you spend – up to a maximum of 400 Tier Points per booking.

20,000 bonus points for flying Premium/Upper Class

“To celebrate the restart of travel between the UK and US, we’re giving you a bonus of 20,000 Virgin Points when you fly Premium or Upper Class just four times (or two return flights) between 9th November 2021 and 31st March 2022”.

Silver members can pool points with household members + Clubhouse Pass

“Once you’ve collected enough Tier Points to reach Silver status you’ll now be able to pool your Virgin Points with up to nine other members in your household, so you can reach that next reward flight even faster.”

Silver members will also receive a pass for themselves and 1 guest to visit a Virgin’s Clubhouse airport lounge.

Silver/Gold members  “can now gift your Upgrade and Companion vouchers to other members”.

There are no further details listed at the moment, but this is potentially useful – if the process is relatively simple.

Gold members can get 6 months free Founders Card membership

This is quite a nice little perk, that gives members the chance to try out Founders Card and see if they would get value from a paid membership.

Bottom line

Virgin has made some small (but welcome) changes, that will hopefully benefit members. It might not be groundbreaking stuff, but it’s always nice to see an ‘enhancement’ that isn’t actually code for making things worse.