Virgin Atlantic Announces US Credit Card with Stellar Reward

June 12, 2008 at 8:48 AM | by egw | Comments (6)

Well, all our speculation came to naught: Don't look for massage chairs or hotel tie-ins on a Virgin Atlantic flight any time soon. But buying expensive hotel rooms and massages is one way to rack up miles on the new Virgin Atlantic AmEx, which also offers a 10 percent discount on Premium Economy fares through the rest of the year.

Senior VP Chris Rossi, who spoke along with CEO Steve Ridgway (above), told us last night at the card's gala launch that he envisions the Virgin Atlantic card as not replacing a frequent flyer's primary card, but supplementing it. But as with any other card, the more you use the Bank of America-branded plastic, the closer you can get to its ultimate perk.

We have to hand it to Virgin, no other frequent flyer card we know of allows you to--in theory, at least--cash in your miles for space travel. One cardholder in the UK (where a Virgin branded card has been available for a few years) has already swapped his miles for a Virgin Galactic seat, Rossi said, although from what we can tell he couldn't get a ticket until 2009. (Blackout dates?)

At the launch (held at the Frank Gehry-designed IAC building in New York) we saw several people hunched over applications even as Brazilian samba dancers flounced through the lobby and masseuses from Cowshed, Virgin's spa partner at Heathrow, rubbed down tired necks and hands. Hey, if you're going to rack up 2 million miles and get to space, you'll have to be limber.

Related Stories
· Vigin Atlantic AmEx [Official Site]
· Virgin Atlantic coverage [Jaunted]

Comments (6)

Return to » Virgin Atlantic Announces US Credit Card with Stellar Reward

I was really expecting the hotel announcement.

this is like the most anti-climatic announcement ever! i dont need another stinking credit card. but an in-flight massage chair would be nice. ok the 10 percent thing off is not bad either. still, i was expecting something much more!

either Chris or Steve mentioned it in passing to the crowd. So, there's that...?

This is a little disappointing--massage seats would've been fun--but weren't they gonna give away a free space flight? Who won?

I heard some guy named Sergey Brin won the space flight.

sadly.

Jaunted

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