Gliding through Heathrow Airport before sipping prosecco in a lounge, I couldn’t be happier – and it’s not just because I’m about to jet off to the Caribbean for my honeymoon.
I’m also beaming because my new husband and I managed to bag our Virgin Atlantic flights to Saint Vincent for ‘free’, paying just £596 in taxes.
How did we do it? By building up more than 140,000 Virgin Points while splurging on our wedding over the space of a year.
And we’re far from alone. Nearly three quarters of consumers (74 per cent) have paid for part or all of a flight with loyalty points, according to Virgin Red’s annual Points Index report.
If you want to do the same, here’s exactly how I built up hundreds of thousands of points in just 12 months – and how you barely need to change anything about your spending to do it.
The first step is also the easiest: signing up for a Virgin Atlantic Reward Credit Card, which offers 0.75 points for every pound spent, plus a bonus 3,000 points on your first purchase.
With it being the year of wedding spending, my bill at the end of 12 months is a pretty eye-watering £105,000. But that alone earns me 81,750 points – already more than enough for return flights to New York for my birthday in November, and almost enough to fly Premium.
However, I’m still more than 70,000 points short of those honeymoon flights.
Hayley Minn got her return flights to the Caribbean for free – after a year of wedding spending and weekly shops into points
As a regular Tesco shopper, I sign up to automatically exchange my Clubcard points into Virgin Points to help me reach my goal faster. All I have to do is join Virgin Flying Club online, get my account number, and link it to my Clubcard account.
I’m immediately rewarded with my first 5,000 points. Over the course of the year, I spend £3,877 on groceries at Tesco, which bags me another 7,754 points without changing anything about how I shop.
Another easy win comes from sending a referral link to my friends’ WhatsApp group. Ten of them sign up, which earns me 10,000 points.
Buying Virgin Money’s annual multi-trip travel insurance adds another 3,500 points, while switching my energy provider to Octopus Energy gives me a further 5,000. At this point, the points are already starting to rack up surprisingly quickly.
Most of our wedding suppliers are small independent businesses, so they’re not part of the Virgin Shops Away or Virgin Red schemes. But whenever I buy something online, I make sure to go through these portals first so I earn points on every pound I spend.
Spending £90 on two bridesmaids’ dresses at Pretty Lavish earns me 540 points. I get a point for every pound when I spend £200 at ASOS on two bridesmen suits and ties. My £99 bridal shoes from Rainbow Club at John Lewis earn me another 99 points.
While my wedding dress is from What Alice Wore, who isn’t on Virgin Red, the Whistles suit I wear to my civil wedding at Greenwich Town Hall earns me a whopping 4,244 points – although it is quite a big spend of £528.
After a trial run with my make-up artist, who uses Charlotte Tilbury products, I spend £136 at Sephora on foundation, lipstick, powder and setting spray – earning me 1,088 points in the process.
And it’s not just the obvious wedding purchases that help. Hiring a car from Avis to drive wedding bits back adds another 1,200 points.
Hayley (centre) bought her two bridesmaids’ dresses (pictured) at Pretty Lavish, earning her 540 points, and got 200 points for buying her bridesmen suits and ties (pictured) at ASOS
The suit Hayley wore to her civil wedding (pictured), from Whistles, earned her 4,224 points
Hayley earned 630 points through buying wedding stationery, including a welcome sign (pictured) from Papier
I also earn points on smaller, everyday wedding purchases that really add up. Buying gifts and matching pyjamas for the wedding party on Etsy brings in around 1,000 points based on a £500 spend. A £50 Waterstones order for books for the honeymoon adds 200 more. Even smaller items contribute – £70 of Vivienne Westwood wedding jewellery for my husband earns 280 points, and £85 spent on wedding underwear at Ann Summers adds another 340.
With our wedding taking place at Hedsor House, in Taplow, Buckinghamshire, and most of our family and friends living in London, we make a block booking of 12 rooms at Burnham Beeches Hotel through Booking.com.
The exchange rate here is incredibly generous at eight points per pound, earning us 12,960 points from a £1,620 booking – one of the biggest boosts of the entire year.
We also buy some of our wedding stationery from Papier, spending £59.20 on a welcome board and £134 on thank-you cards for our 140 guests. After the wedding, I even buy a 2026 diary with our photos in it for £24. Altogether, that adds another 630 points.
Then there’s the wedding album and photo canvases for our walls. Spending £400 at Photobox earns 1,600 points as a new customer – something I would have bought anyway.
As someone who spends quite a lot on hair and nails, I’m pleasantly surprised when I realise I can earn points on beauty appointments too – especially in the run-up to the wedding.
I earn 790 points on £1,580 spent throughout the year on Treatwell, and another 1,429 points through the £1,429 I spend at Rush Greenwich on my hair. It suddenly makes all those pre-wedding appointments feel slightly more justified.
Another part of the system I wish I’d discovered earlier is the Virgin Trains Ticketing app, which gives you three points for every pound spent.
Buying gifts and matching pyjamas (pictured) for the wedding party on Etsy brings in around 1,000 points based on a £500 spend
Hayley’s £99 bridal shoes (pictured) from Rainbow Club at John Lewis earned her 99 points
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I’d always assumed it was only for Virgin trains, so I used Trainline for years. But once I switch, I earn 2,976 points on £992.50 worth of train tickets around the country in just one year.
It’s still cheaper to use contactless for my daily London Underground commute, but if I’d been using it earlier for longer journeys, I could have earned even more.
By the end of the year, I’ve racked up 142,720 points, so have more than enough for the two Virgin Atlantic return flights from Heathrow to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, which cost 124,000 points plus £596 in taxes, fees and carrier charges.
And the best part? I didn’t change my spending habits at all. I simply made sure that every pound I was already spending worked harder – and turned one very expensive wedding year into a Caribbean honeymoon for (almost) nothing.
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