Some links to products and partners on this website will earn an affiliate commission.
Every three months, I am usually able to write about a regular promotion from Tesco Clubcard and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. By setting your Clubcard account to earn Virgin Atlantic miles automatically, you will be gifted 1,000 miles. The latest version of the promotion can be found by clicking here.
My normal advice is this:
-
Step One, sign up for Auto Convert
-
Step Two, wait for 1,000 miles to post to your Virgin Atlantic Flying Club account
-
Step Three, turn OFF Auto Convert (make sure to do this well ahead of the next statement, which should be mid January 2020)
There are two reasons that I gave this advice:
- You most likely don’t actually want your Clubcard points to automatically convert into Virgin Atlantic miles
- You want to have your account set to vouchers so that you can “opt-in” yet again to earn 1,000 free miles per cycle
Unfortunately it appears that Tesco and Virgin Atlantic have wised up to our little scheme, and I am not aware of anybody receiving their 1,000 free miles last cycle, particularly to those who rushed to change their account settings back to vouchers in late October. My first impression was that the “once per lifetime” proviso was finally being enforced.
Except for one person… my partner… who rarely ever visits the UK and naturally never earns Tesco Clubcard points. Therefore, I couldn’t be bothered to set her Tesco Clubcard account back to vouchers. Recently I was surprised to find an extra 1,000 miles in her Flying Club account.
The Bottom Line
Could it be that Tesco are waiting until you actually auto-convert to miles before crediting your 1,000 free miles? i.e. a couple of weeks after your statement date. It certainly seems that way based on this data point…
Depending on the number of Clubcard points you typically earn – or the number of spare Clubcard accounts you have lying around 😉 – you might want to try being a bit more patient (before returning to vouchers) this Clubcard cycle…
I let my Clubcard points auto convert to Virgin this year. I had signed up for the 1000 auto convert promotion on several previous occasions and I did receive the 1000 bonus points this year. It looks like you’re right and the points have to be converted to Virgin to get the bonus. It’s no big deal for me as I earn so few Clubcard points these days and I do collect the Virgin points.
Brilliant. One data point could be a glitch. A second data point is very helpful. Cheers…
It’s nice to be rewarded for apathy for a change. I simply forgot to turn off the auto convert.
Same here – set it to auto convert. Virgin statement shows my auto conversion points credited 22/10/19, and the Tesco Clubcard auto tip promotional offer (1000) on 07/11/19.
I didn’t get the 1000 miles last quarter so switched it back to vouchers. Switched it to autoconvert last week and got the 1000 miles a few days later. I did have some clubcard points auto-convert to Virgin but that was last year and accidentally
Got them, 70 points then plus 1000 easy win.