a woman with curly hair and red nails

These definitely look better than some “O” faces…

If you haven’t played around with the slo-mo feature on your camera phone, you simply must. There’s just nothing like capturing the exact moment of good news, or a slow motion look at a pie hitting someone in the face. In perhaps the greatest social experiment of all time, Virgin Atlantic has used Hollywood quality camera work to capture the precise moment a passenger finds out they’ve been upgraded. Now this – is good stuff.

The “U” Face

Virgin Atlantic is promoting their new credit card, and rather than boring you with lengthy articles like this one, they’d rather show you the genuine happiness, shock and bewilderment an upgrade can bring. It’s compelling stuff. Why? Because travelers forget how simple scoring an upgrade can actually be. Two words won’t get you an upgrade, but points certainly can. If you earn points, which you would every single day with the Virgin credit card, even for things like buying your morning latte, you can take advantage of Virgin’s easy upgrade system using points. In addition, Virgin Atlantic credit card holders can earn premium economy upgrades, lounge passes and other perks via their daily spending.

a woman holding a sign in a planeStrongest Earner

The Virgin Atlantic Premium Credit Card is the strongest Virgin Atlantic points earning credit card in the UK. No other card offers as many points for every bit you spend. Anyone who gets the card can choose a round trip upgrade to Premium Economy when using points for an Economy flight, when they spend £10,000 with the card in a calendar year. With the points saved from the free upgrade, anyone could then book a paid Premium Economy flight and upgrade to Upper Class using points, making it a year of travel upgrades.

a row of chairs in a planeDon’t Try These

Speaking of upgrades, we’d like to take a moment to offer this public service announcement of things which won’t get you upgraded, such as wearing a suit, flirting with agents, or saying two idiotic words. If you want an upgrade, earn points, find flights where upgrades are actually available and if you need a trick, book onto full flights and volunteer to take a later one.

Have you ever scored a free upgrade?

Gilbert Ott

Gilbert Ott is an ever curious traveler and one of the world's leading travel experts. His adventures take him all over the globe, often spanning over 200,000 miles a year and his travel exploits are regularly...

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4 Comments

  1. The card looks great but what is the reward availability on Virgin like? Eg BA guarantees at least 2 x CW & 4 x Econ on every flight.
    Is there something similar on Virgin? We’re limited to flying at peak times and I struggled to find any availability on Virgin, even as soon as schedule released.
    If there’s hardly no availability during peak times then the upgrade or 2-4-1 voucher has limited value.

  2. I was only upgraded twice so far, both times by sheer luck. However, I love the fact that they used a Mozart symphony as the background music for the commercial!!!

  3. Two weeks ago I was in the Ba galleries lounge at Heathrow waiting for my flight to Sofia. The gate was announced so I grabbed my stuff and headed to the gate. I checked my phone for the gate name and noticed my seat had changed from 28A to 4C. I asked the gate agent why my seat had been changed and she checked and was like “oh – you have been upgraded”. I was in shock when she told me. Been flying ba solid for 3 years now (silver status) and this is first time ever had free upgrade at the gate, what’s even more surprising is it was a short haul flight which they never seem to do free upgrades on because they are all about that LCC lifestyle.

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