Right now, we are in the midst of Covid-19. I have read the “rumors” about the possibility of Virgin Atlantic shutting down. Although, the news was later disputed, I do not wish to take any chances with my balance of Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles, so I started the process of converting them to Hilton Honors points.
My balance of Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles was decent. Back in 2014, I got the BOA Virgin Atlantic card and took advantage of a lucrative bonus offer and additional spending incentives. And even though I ended up using about 1/3 of the balance on a trip to London in 2016, I still found myself with a current balance 0f 94,000 Flying Club miles.
The other day, I read one of the many daily emails I receive from all of the points and miles bloggers that I follow. One suggested that we transfer our Flying Club Miles to Hilton Honors points. I jumped at this for the following reasons….
- What if the rumors are true?
- I do not forsee myself being able to use this balance of Flying Club Miles in the near future as I have been to London a bunch of times and don’t see myself returning anytime soon.
- I have tried using the points in the past for partner flights but that has never really worked out, nor do I have a big enough balance to make a dent in a trip for more than just myself.
- I do plan to use Hilton Honors points in the near future.
So I pursued the transfer…..which started out not so easy, but worked out nicely in the end.
You see, you cannot do a transfer online. Transferring your Flying Club Miles to Hilton Honors requires a phone call to Virgin Flying Club at 800 365 9500 OR A TEXT! to 97634.
I chose the text option and after filling in some required info like my name, Flying Club number, etc. I was told that someone would be with me shortly. 24 hours later, no-one was “with me”. I then sent another text in the same chat about stating “this obviously doesn’t work so well”. Another 24 hours later, I finally received a text back apologizing and offering to help me with my transfer. I followed all of “Beth’s” instructions and implemented a transfer of 90,000 Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles to 135,000 Hilton Honors points. Note, the transfers can only happen in increments of 10,000 Miles so that is where the 90,000 mile number comes from. I am now sitting with a balance of about 4,000 Flying Club Miles.
Beth then made me aware that it could take up to 30 days for the Miles to be accepted by Hilton. I will update this post as to the outcome.
If you decide to pursue this plan, know that your name on your Flying Club membership account must match exactly with the name on your Hilton Honors account for a successful transfer.
Also know that you can convert your Miles to IHG Rewards points as well at a rate of 1:1. I realized this after I initiated my transfer and may have opted for this route.
You can access the page of the site to transfer your miles to Hilton or IHG here.