How To Book Virgin Voyages With Points

You will often hear award travelers say that cruises are not a good way to redeem your points. Up until recently, the only options for redeeming points for cruises has been through travel portals or travel eraser credits. These ‘redemptions' are often among the lowest value uses of your points and are booked through a third party, offering the least flexibility. Enter Virgin Voyages, Virgin's cruise line that first set sail in 2021. Virgin Voyages was born out of CEO Richard Branson's idea of disrupting the cruise industry. One such disruption was adding the ability to book Virgin Voyages with points within their own program.

This was possible since Virgin Companies already had a very strong award program presence with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club and Virgin Red. They essentially rolled Virgin Voyages under the same loyalty umbrella to streamline things and get the program afloat. Or, did they? While using points for cruises is amazing, the booking process leaves a lot to be desired. Let's take a look at the process after recently booking my Virgin Voyages cruise with points.

What Is Virgin Voyages?

Virgin Voyages or VV for short, is Virgin's take on the cruising experience. A relative new player to the game; Virgin has only 3 lady ships. These ships are dubbed: Scarlet Lady, Valiant Lady and Resilient Lady. Being that these ships have all only entered service recently – a consistently modern approach can be found aboard all of Virgin's cruises. Virgin distinguishes itself with its interesting twist on the classic cruising experience. Namely, Virgin is the world's first adults only cruise line – leave the kids at home! This creates for a more relaxed and refined experience. The cruise line also distinguishes itself by having only ala carte dining options – no buffets are found here! Again, this creates a more premium experience for travelers that are looking to enjoy the best of cruising, while elevating the experience.

How To Book Virgin Voyages With Points Using Virgin Red

Virgin cruises are bookable on points exclusively through Virgin Red. Virgin Red is Virgin Companies' loyalty program, and the sister program of the companies Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. In order to redeem points for a cruise, you have to go through Virgin Red. A nice thing about the program(s) is that Virgin Red and Virgin Atlantic can be linked so that your points work seamlessly between the two. Another important thing to note is that Virgin Cruises are not always bookable with points. The Virgin Cruises operate on a limited drop model. Several times per year, Virgin Red will drop cruises on it's website that you are able to redeem. Because of this, there can be several months where there are no cruises to redeem. Further, not every sailing is available even when Virgin Voyages are available to book with points.

Steps to Redeem for a Virgin Voyages Cruise

Below I will break down all of the important steps to redeeming your points for a Virgin Voyages cruise.

Step 1: Find an Available Deal on Virgin Red

The first step to booking your cruise is to locate a deal on Virgin Red's website. Once logged into Virgin Red, you want to navigate to Rewards and search through the available options to see if cruises are available. You can also select Spend at the top if not logged in. If you find cruises, you'll want to see the available dates and options. All cruise redemptions book into Sea Terrace rooms with a balcony, and include all food and non-alcoholic soft drinks.

Step 2 (Optional): Call Virgin Voyages To Confirm Availability For Your Dates Before Transferring Points

Once you redeem your points, it takes up to 3 business days to receive your access key. An access key is simply a promo code that can be used to book your cruise reward. Because it takes up to 3 business days to receive this code, you may want to call Virgin Voyages to confirm how many cabins still remain for your desired date. You can confirm availability for a particular cruise date by calling Virgin Voyages ahead of redeeming, and asking them how many central sea terrace cabin's they have left for your desired dates (1-954-488-2955). When I called for my dates, an agent told me there were over 100 cabins available, providing me comfort before redeeming.

Step 3: Receive your Access Code

This can be the most torturous part. Now you have to wait – and in my experience there is no way to expedite this process. I tried calling and or emailing Virgin to see if an agent could process it for me, but once it is in their queue it is up to the mercy of the queue. Since Virgin Red does these cruises as ‘drops' they can get quite busy, and it did take the full 3 business days in my case to get the access key.

Step 4: Book using your Access Code with Virgin Voyages

Once you have your access key, you can call Virgin Voyages to book or simply book the cruise using their website. In my experience, all port fees and taxes and fees were included. My Voyages was a European departure, although I have heard that Caribbean departures sometimes do require paying some port fees and taxes. The best way to confirm this is by reading the terms and or calling prior to booking.

Step 5: Enjoy your Cruise

The last and final step is to get ready to enjoy your cruise. Don't forget to bring a red outfit for Scarlet Night!

My Experience Redeeming Points For A Virgin Voyages Cruise

I booked my Virgin Voyages cruise in May of 2024 for a August 2024 sailing. For my cruise dates, the equivalent cash price was $3,400 – and the points required was 170,000. I actually had some stranded Virgin points kicking around from a cancelled flight as well as a 125% BILT transfer bonus from August of 2023. I guess you could say I earned between 2 cents per point and 4 cents per point depending on how you look at it. When Virgin Voyages had their first sailing in 2021 they were facing a pandemic and establishing a name and had some great deals. Since then I have noticed that cash and award prices for the cruises appears to be on the rise as they have started to build some hype around the brand.

Booking Virgin Voyages Using Virgin Red Points: ToP Thoughts

Booking a Virgin Voyages cruise using points was a great deal for my needs. I always wanted to try a European cruise, and who doesn't want to do that WHILE burning some points. With alternatives being booking via a portal for 1-1.5cpp, I was glad to get more value. The booking experience is a bit strange in that you need to redeem points and wait to get an access key. This access key then can be used to book an available cruise. Waiting for the key to arrive can be a bit anxiety inducing, but calling ahead to confirm how many cabins are available should help ease tensions. In a sea full of subpar cruise redemptions, Virgin shines scarlet as a great option.

Let me know if you have used points to book a Virgin Voyages cruise over in the ToP Facebook Group.