Virgin America Visa Card from Barclays Bank
Virgin America represents the long anticipated arrival in the United States of Richard Branson’s signature airline franchise. So far, they have focused on providing transcontinental flights with their unique style and service. Virgin America offers a Visa airline credit card from Barclays Bank that allows card members to earn points towards free flights in their frequent flier program called Elevate.
Rewards: For each dollar spent with this card, customers will earn a single point in the Elevate program. Triple points are earned for purchases from Virgin America. In addition, cardmembers can earn another 300 points for every $5,000 in purchases, with a limit of 1,200 bonus points each year. Cardmembers will also receive a 0% introductory financing period on balance transfers for the first six months of their account, although there is 4% balance transfer fee. After that, card holders will incur interest at the standard rate which is equal to the Prime Rate plus either 12.74% or 21.74%, depending on the applicant’s credit history. Surprisingly this is a no annual fee credit card, but there is a foreign transaction fee of 3% on all charges processed outside of the United States.
When it comes to using credit card rewards, there are no blackout dates or capacity controls. Like the programs of competing discount carriers Southwest and JetBlue , travelers essentially purchase tickets with points at fares equal to their current cash price with points returning a fixed value. In this case, Virgin America offers between 2 cents and 2.5 cents in value per point for most award reservations.
Pluses and Minuses: While fixed value point systems do not offer the opportunity to save larger amounts of money by booking higher priced, last minute award flights, 2-2.5 cents in value per dollar spent is still a very good return rate for a rewards credit card. Furthermore, the introductory financing offer and the lack of an annual fee are both uncommon features in a rewards credit card. Finally, the bonus miles offer allows customers to receive a little more value from this product as they reach spending thresholds.
This card offers none of the perks that have become standard on the card offered by the larger, legacy carriers such as bag fee waivers or priority boarding. There is a 3% foreign transaction fee which is poorly suited to a card marketed towards travelers. In addition, their current offer of 2,500 points as a sign up bonus is worth little more than $50 which is not competitive with other airline’s offers.
This card returns a reasonably strong value for credit card spending, and an exceptional number of points when used for purchases of Virgin flights. Travelers who anticipate using their credit card rewards for Virgin reservations will receive more value from this card than they will from most other cash back rewards cards. The Virgin brand is all about making a splash with their unique style, but their credit card simply does a workman like job of providing competitive rewards in exchange for their customer’s loyalty.
For additional information, see the Virgin America online application.
