Virgin Atlantic World Elite Mastercard® review

Editor’s note: Some of the offers on this page may be expired. Check out our Best Credit Cards page for the most up-to-date offers for our favorite credit cards.

Virgin Atlantic World Elite Mastercard last updated on 12.18.2019

Virgin Atlantic World Elite Mastercard: Details and benefits

The Virgin Atlantic World Elite Mastercard® helps frequent travelers and loyalists to the Virgin Atlantic airline earn miles on travel and all other purchases.

For a $90 annual fee, you’ll earn 3 miles per dollar on Virgin Atlantic purchases (think: Virgin Atlantic tickets and duty-free items purchased from Virgin Atlantic) and 1.5 miles on all other purchases.

You can also earn a 60,000-mile bonus when you spend $2,000 or more within your first 90 days of account opening. Other bonus mile-earning opportunities include:

• 15,000+ Flying Club bonus miles each anniversary (after qualifying purchases)
• Up to 5,000 Flying Club bonus miles when you add an authorized user to your card

Is the Virgin Atlantic World Elite Mastercard worth it for you?

Built for Virgin Atlantic loyalists who travel with the carrier often, the Virgin Atlantic World Elite Mastercard can help you earn Flying Club miles for a $90 annual fee, along with multiple opportunities to earn bonus miles.

There’s no foreign transaction fee, meaning you won’t be charged additional fees on purchases made abroad, and miles don’t expire as long as your account is active once every three years. Super-spenders can earn either a premium upgrade or same-class companion ticket after spending $25,000 annually.

If you value a solid list of transfer airline partners, the card boasts quite a few, including:

• Delta Air Lines
• Air France
• Air China
• KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
• Hawaiian Airlines
• All Nippon Airways
• South African Airways
• Virgin Australia
• Singapore Airlines
• Scandinavian Airlines
• Air New Zealand

You can also earn and spend miles with Virgin Atlantic’s list of 13 hotel partners.

Get the most value from the Virgin Atlantic World Elite Mastercard

Virgin Atlantic offers three membership tiers (Red, Silver and Gold) through which you can gain benefits like premium check-in, lounge access and rewards flights.

Every $2,500 you spend on net purchases with the Virgin Atlantic World Elite Mastercard, you’ll earn 25 Tier Points (a maximum of 50 Tier Points can be earned each month and 600 Tier Points each year). You can find more information on Virgin Atlantic Tier Points here.

The card offers common travel benefits like emergency roadside assistance, travel assistance, extended warranty and concierge services, as well as a few Bank of America benefits ($0 liability guarantee for fraudulent transactions, FICO® Score for free access and account alert reminders).

You can also expect purchase assurance, meaning stolen or damaged items purchased with the card may be eligible for up to $1,000 in protection within 90 days from the date of purchase, common carrier travel accident insurance and identity theft recovery assistance.

How much are the Virgin Atlantic World Elite Mastercard rewards worth?

Say you spend $1,500 each quarter on Virgin Atlantic purchases and an additional $200 a month on all other purchases. You’ll have earned 21,600 miles by the end of your first year.

Based on your spending, you’ll qualify for the 60,000-mile welcome bonus (achieved after spending $2,000 within your first 90 days of account opening), for a total of 81,600 miles. With these miles you could redeem for a round trip flight in an upper-class seat, during peak season, to Israel from the UK starting at 66,000 miles.

How to redeem rewards

There’s no limit to the number of miles that you can earn, and miles can be redeemed for either Virgin Atlantic flights, partner flights or upgrades. To redeem your miles, visit virginatlantic.com/flyingclub.