Jaunted

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]