Virgin America Credit Card Review

Don’t you hate being bombarded with repetitious TV commercials for various airline credit cards? Yes, I’m sick of them too. That’s one refreshing thing about the Virgin America Visa card… you rarely see it advertised (probably because it serves more of a niche market). So what’s the deal with this card, anyway? Well hopefully my in-depth review will help you decide whether it’s right for you. The Virgin America credit card rewards program will definitely require some explaining, so before we get into that let’s first go over the basics…
Card Type: Visa Signature or Platinum, depending on your credit. Although some benefits differ between the two, the rewards program is the same for both.
Issuer: Barclays
Annual Fee: none
Interest Rate: Either 15.99% or 24.99%, based on your credit. That first tier is above average and the latter tier is quite high.

Understanding the rewards

For the most part, the
only thing Virgin America and Virgin Atlantic have in common is that Richard Branson is the guy behind them. Aside from that they operate completely apart from one another, including different frequent flyer programs. So make sure you don’t confuse the two. For Virgin America it’s the “Elevate” program and with their credit card you will get the following:

• 1 Elevate point per dollar on regular spending
• 3 Elevate points per dollar on purchases from Virgin America
• Bonus Points: For each $5,000 in net annual purchases, a 300 points bonus is credited to the account. A max of 1,200 bonus points per year can be earned this way (so up to $20,000 in annual spending).

But how much are Virgin America Elevate points worth? That’s the real question that matters and unfortunately, the credit card application fails to address it.
I’ve read elsewhere what the value is but instead of basing this review off second-hand knowledge, I decided to price out flights myself. Here’s one…

Roundtrip flight from LA to Chicago
3 months out = $0.0227 per point (pictured right)
1 month out = $0.0223 per point ($446.40 or 20,000 points)
2 days out = $0.0219 per point ($839.40 or 38,279 points)
As you see in all of the above flights, the point value equals out to be just a tad over 2 cents each. This actually echos what I’ve read elsewhere, but hey, I had to confirm it myself!
The credit card peddles “no blackout dates” but as demonstrated above, you can clearly see it’s hard to call that a perk when the number of required points is directly correlated to the cash price of the ticket.
Can you earn Virgin Elevate points on Virgin Atlantic flights? Through your Virgin America credit card purchases the answer is “no.” As far as earning frequent flyer points through your Elevate account, believe it or not up until 2010 you couldn’t! They finally created a system that allowed you to but unfortunately, it’s pretty lousy…

 As you see, if you flew New York to London using the lowest tier, you would only earn points equaling 10% of the distance, which is 6,916 miles. Those 692 points would only be worth $15 (assuming a 2.2 cent point value). Just how much does this suck? Well in order to book a $350 flight using Elevate points, you would need to have about 23 roundtrip flights from New York to London.

Partners and perks?

Unfortunately this is something that’s really lacking with the Virgin America Visa. Simply put, the perks fall short. Real short.
There is NO free first bag benefit that you see on a lot of other airline credit cards. As far as earning points through partner hotels and car rental companies, there are a few such as Hilton, Wynn Las Vegas, and Avis, but remember you don’t need the credit card to take advantage of those… just a good ol’ Elevate rewards account will accomplish the same. In fact, it will also earn you 5 points per dollar on flights, the credit card just gives an additional 3.

Verdict?

Let’s do a quick re-cap of the pros and cons that come with this card.

Pros

• When points are spent on Virgin America flights, the value is good
• There’s no fee to get the card

Cons

• You do not get your first bag free, nor any other noteworthy perks when flying
• There are not many opportunities to earn points with partners
• Using/earning Virgin America points for Virgin Atlantic flights and vice-versa is a horrendous conversion
• The interest rate is high
• The signup offer is pitiful. You get 2,500 points which are only worth about $55 total.

For some frequent flyers, the Virgin America credit card will make sense. Others may be better off just enrolling in the Elevate program without the credit card, because you will still be earning 5 points per dollar spent on flights.
Not floating your boat? Right now there are some insanely generous signup offers available you definitely will want to see on our top 10 travel credit cards comparison page.

Link

Posted in: Credit Card,online banking