I was chatting a few days ago with someone about Virgin Atlantic, and mentioned the Virgin Red loyalty app. To my surprise, they looked at me like I was from another planet... (I say to my surprise, as it has got me a few thousand free Virgin Atlantic miles in the last year, plus wine, plus a few other bits!) Before I go to the trouble of writing a proper post for InsideFlyer on Virgin Red, I wanted to check - does everyone else know about it, and how to take advantage of it? Or is it still new? (Note - this is Virgin Red = http://www.virginred.com/ , not to be confused with the sadly missed Virgin Atlantic Little Red domestic flights...)
I actually deleted the app from my phone - I just didn't get it. I didn't really warm to the idea of earning seemingly "pointless points", and I found the offers to generally be unappealing - 30% off a balloon ride, case of wine etc. It also kept push-messaging me with its dubious offerings. So with that slight whinge over, if you disagree and can sell it to me, I'd be very happy to reconsider...
I quite liked it actually, but deleted for some reason (sketchy update maybe?) and haven't downloaded it again since, more due to inertia than because I don't rate it. There were some excellent rail discounts. Go for it!
Feedback here seems to mirror that from talking to friends/family! Though my Dad did change from "I don't get the point" to "I still don't get it but I'll keep going" when he won his second bottle of free sparkling wine I'll try to write something in the next week or so. But first, a days in Tallin...
I use it occasionally - I actually made it into "Vault 2017" but didn't win the big prize. Instead they sent me a free pen, phone power pack and a "gold" coin with Richard Branson's face on it.... I have found some good offers in terms of free 5k Flying Club miles for new sign ups which I posted about a few months ago, although it was initially untargeted, then by the time my article posted it had moved to you had to be "Virgin Media Verified" and then it became untargeted again! Can be a bit annoying when they faff about with the offers. It also seems to have a more or less permanent offer for free wifi on Virgin Trains which is useful, and also regularly has nice discounted Virgin Wines offers even for existing customers, and you still get the 750miles/order
Wow, that took longer than planned.... Posts finally written and published! https://insideflyer.co.uk/2017/07/virgin-red-points-travellers-know-loyalty-app/ https://insideflyer.co.uk/2017/07/virgin-red-keys-kasbah-competition-points-savvy-travellers/
I've been a Virgin Red user for the past 6 months or so. There's no miles earned for using the app but there's a frequent (almost monthly) prize draw to win 40,000 Flying Club miles in one of the Vaults - it's usually the top prize. As Gagravarr explained in his blog post, you need to log on frequently and complete tasks to earn enough points to unlock the vault and enter the prize draw. It only takes me a minute or two each day and have so far won 2 bottles of fizz, some free ice cream and a couple of Odeon tickets. Not a fantastic return after 6 months but one of these days I'm going to win a holiday!!
I've been a user of this app for months and still haven't won anything yet. The Keys to the Kasbah competition last month was pretty fun. I guess it's a case of YMMV.
Yeah, it was a lot easier to win prizes 6 months ago when there were a lot less players. The Kasbah competition in particular seemed to bring in loads of new users.
For anyone not following Virgin Red closely on twitter... As announced at https://support.virginred.com/hc/en-gb/community/posts/115003123069-Welcome-to-our-new-support-site- you can use the code SPPRT in the app until the end of the month for 100 free points. That should hopefully get you closer to the 40k Virgin Atlantic miles competition
