Virgin Atlantic 50,000 mile offer is back!

Thanks to MilesAbound.com, we learn that Bank of America’s 50,000-mile sign-up bonus for the Virgin Atlantic card is back. This is a pretty good deal and may be worth considering for any round of credit card apps you might be planning, depending on what you’re looking for.

First, the key details from the application page:

• 20,000 Flying Club bonus miles after your first retail purchase
• 25,000 additional Flying Club bonus miles after you spend at least $2,500 in qualifying purchases
• Earn up to 5,000 Flying Club bonus miles when you add additional authorized users to your Card

Note that it’s 2,500 miles per authorized user added, and note also that the annual fee is not waived the first year. You can also earn 15,000 miles upon your anniversary.

Now then: what can you use these miles for? Historically these points have been valuable because you can transfer them to the HHonors program at the rate of one mile for two HHonors points, which makes this a 100,000-point sign-up bonus. As you probably already know, the HHonors program has undergone a devaluation, so if you’re tempted by the HHonors points,  figure out the points cost of your desired hotel is first.

If you want to use the miles for actual flying, the awards chart isn’t very good, but MilesAbound gives the following testimonial:

And while I really hate the huge fuel surcharges that Virgin Atlantic apply to redemptions (following right on the heels of British Airways) I actually just used some of my small stash of these points to book a one-way flight from London to Washington DC in their Upper Class product (something they pitch as being between business and first class – it looks like a good business class product). That flight looks like it features their attractive new Upper Class Suite which I am looking forward to trying (and will of course trip report here) and I will also get to check out the London Heathrow Clubhouse which is ranked among the best airline lounges in the world.

Note that you can apparently book the Virgin Atlantic upperdeck product without fuel surcharges by collecting Hawaiian Airlines miles. You can also use the miles to book flights on Virgin America. This post, which is a year old, points out there are no fuel surcharges for doing so–hopefully that’s still true, but we haven’t been able to verify.

And one final note from MilesAbound:

It should also be noted this card is highly churnable. I have had many of them in the past, have two right now, and will likely get more in the future.