I’ve just received word that American Express Membership Rewards will be offering a 35% bonus on transfers to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club starting tomorrow through December 29, 2012.
Let’s be clear about one thing — the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club program isn’t good for airline redemptions due to the massive fuel surcharges. That being said, it’s an amazing way to rack up Hilton points, since Flying Club miles can be converted into Hilton HHonors points at a 1:2 ratio, as outlined here.
With the bonus tomorrow, this will be an opportunity to convert Membership Rewards points into Hilton HHonors points at a 1:2.7 ratio, which is great, in my opinion.
A Hilton AXON award costs 145,000 Hilton HHonors points if you have one of their co-branded American Express cards, and that’s enough for four nights at most of their top hotels. Transferring 55,000 Membership Rewards points would net you enough Hilton points for four nights. So that means you’re basically paying ~14,000 Membership Rewards points per night at one of the Conrad properties in the Maldives, Tokyo, Koh Samui, etc.
While some value Hilton points lower than I do (I value them at 0.8 cents each), I think this is a great deal, and I’ll be taking advantage of it.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Virgin Atlantic eventually change their rules when it comes to Hilton HHonors transfers, so I’d hop on this sooner rather than later if you’re interested.
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November 26th, 2012 at 3:39 pm
Jimmy said,
Don’t get Gary all wound up again.
November 26th, 2012 at 5:10 pm
RomsdeAls said,
I think it should be 13,750 MR per night. Pretty good deal still.
November 26th, 2012 at 5:13 pm
Preacher said,
Are there surcharges charged for the transfer, like there are for US-based airlines? And can I transfer my points to my son’s VATL account?
November 26th, 2012 at 6:01 pm
lucky said,
@ Preacher — No fees and yes you can transfer to someone else’s account.
November 26th, 2012 at 6:02 pm
lucky said,
@ Romsdeals — Thanks for the correction. I’m having a rough math day. :p
November 26th, 2012 at 6:58 pm
AJK said,
A friend tried converting some MR to VS to HH and he was told that he’d “be able to xfer his VS miles (from the cc) but cannot xfer those miles that came from MR.”
May have just been a bad rep, but consider yourself warned.
November 26th, 2012 at 7:12 pm
lucky said,
@ AJK — I know Hawaiian doesn’t allow points to be transferred from Membership Rewards and then to Hilton, but that’s the first I’ve heard of that from Virgin. I’ll keep looking around for reports.
November 26th, 2012 at 9:47 pm
Andy said,
@Lucky,
Before I transfer wyndham reward points into United mileage, I found United said, the mileage transfered from hotel points CAN NOT be transferred again into any other program. My question is whether Virgin Atlantic has such rule to prevent you from further transferring mileage into hilton points?
November 26th, 2012 at 10:34 pm
Elaine said,
I do not expect to fly Virgin Atlantic but I am thinking of enrolling in the Flying Club specifically to be able to transfer point from Amex > VA > Hilton HHonors. Do people do this or will it not work? Anything special I should know? Thanks.
November 27th, 2012 at 7:44 am
SW2 said,
Planning on some Hilton Stays coming up so need to pad the account some more. I just transferred some AMEX (Which honestly I wasn’t doing much with) into VA. Should I wait a few days before calling to attempt to move the VA to Hilton?
November 27th, 2012 at 8:37 am
lucky said,
@ Andy — Have never heard that with United, though frankly not sure why you’d want to convert United miles into any other currency, given how valuable they are. But to the best of my knowledge Virgin Atlantic has no such restriction.
@ Elaine — It should work.
@ SW2 — I don’t think there’s any need to wait, it shouldn’t make a difference.
November 27th, 2012 at 9:33 am
SW2 said,
@ Lucky – Thanks, just called VA, initiated transfer with no issues, questions or concerns. Said it could take up to 30 days to show up in HH. Signed up for VA account yesterday, transferred AMEX Points about 2 hours ago to VA, and already on the way to HH! Thanks!
November 27th, 2012 at 9:52 am
lucky said,
@ SW2 — Congrats, happy it worked!
November 27th, 2012 at 4:59 pm
AJK said,
“Transferring 55,000 Membership Rewards points would net you enough Hilton points for four nights.”
Actually, VS requires xfers in 10k blocks, so in order to get 145K HH, you’d need to xfer 60,000 MR (which would net 81K VS, which would net 162K HH).
November 27th, 2012 at 5:45 pm
AJK said,
Actually, the above should read “Actually, VS requires xfers in 10k blocks, so in order to get 145K HH, you’d need to xfer 60,000 MR (which would net 81K VS, which would net 160K HH, as you can’t transfer the last 1K of VS.)”
November 27th, 2012 at 6:47 pm
AJK said,
And now for the third edit:
It’s actually a MINIMUM of 10K, but then in 5K blocks, so you’d need 56K MR–>75.6 VS–>150K HH.
Third time’s a charm, eh?
November 28th, 2012 at 6:31 am
Vijay said,
Lucky/All – Is this just a US thing ? I logged onto my Amex account and cant see anywhere that says we get anything more than the 1-1 transfer
November 28th, 2012 at 10:23 am
lucky said,
@ Vijay — Sorry, I should have clarified, this is a US Membership Rewards promotion.
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