30% bonus Virgin Points from your Tesco Clubcard vouchers, but you'll need to switch off auto-exchange

Virgin Red has launched a 30% bonus on Tesco Clubcard voucher exchanges, running from today until 30 June 2026. The bonus stacks on top of the standard 1 Clubcard point = 2 Virgin Points, meaning that 1,000 Clubcard points will come out as 2,600 Virgin Points instead of 2,000.

But there's obviously a catch.

Manual exchange only, and you've probably set them to auto-convert

If you took advantage of the 5,000 Virgin Point sign-up bonus Virgin and Tesco ran a few times in the last year, you've almost certainly got auto-exchange switched on and forgotten about it. It quietly converts your Clubcard vouchers to Virgin Points at regular intervals.

This offer flips that. Only manual exchanges qualify for the 30%, so to take advantage you'll need to disable auto-exchange in your Clubcard account first, then manually exchange your vouchers yourself during the offer window. More on how to do that down below.

Why the inversion when Virgin/Tesco spent the last couple of years training people to switch auto-exchange on? My guess is to re-engage people to Clubcard, because I certainly haven't logged in since I last set up auto-convert.

What you get

The minimum manual exchange is £1.50 in Clubcard vouchers, or 150 Clubcard points. Beyond that you can convert in £0.50 increments. Here are a few examples:

• 400 Clubcard points = 1,040 Virgin Points

• 1,000 Clubcard points = 2,600 Virgin Points

• 2,500 Clubcard points = 6,500 Virgin Points

If you were to spend Clubcard vouchers at Tesco you get 1p back per point. Converted to Virgin Points at the standard rate they're effectively doubled in value, and that's before you add the 30% bonus on top.

One word of warning, there's no way to move the points back once you've exchanged, so it's worth being sure before you convert.

What can you actually do with Virgin Points?

Flights are where your points will work hardest. Virgin Atlantic's points pricing shifts constantly, but on the cheaper end of the range you're looking at:

• Economy returns from London to the US East Coast (Boston, New York, Washington) from around 12,000 points

• Economy returns to the Caribbean (Barbados, Montego Bay) from around 12,000 to 16,000 points on the right dates

• Premium returns to New York or Boston from around 21,000 points

• Upper Class returns to New York from around 42,000 points if you catch a bargain

Our Bargain Bin series tracks the current cheap pricing. Partner redemptions on Delta, Air France-KLM, and ANA open up the rest of the world if you're willing to spend time hunting for availability. You can check the Virgin Points cost for any Virgin Atlantic flight here.

To give you a real-world example:

• Helena flew Upper Class one-way from London to New York on Virgin's A350 for 35,000 Virgin Points (full review here)

• I used 26,000 Virgin Points to fly Air France Business Class from Budapest to Athens via Paris CDG (review here)

You will have to pay a cash element for taxes and fees, and this is where Virgin Atlantic redemptions trip people up. Taxes and fees on a reward flight run from around £60 to over £700 depending on route and cabin, which can take a real bite out of the value. You can find the the full list by route here.

Outside of flights, Helena and I are using 40,000 Virgin Points on a pair of Red Room box seats at the O2 Arena for Rufus du Sol this week. Box seats typically cost £500+ a pair to book, which makes this one of the better non-flight uses of Virgin Points.

New to Virgin Red?

There's also a referral bonus running until 1 June 2026 with 2,000 Virgin Points each for the referrer and the new joiner.

If you'd like to refer someone then you can do so via the Virgin Red refer-a-friend page, and you'll both pick up bonus points.

If you don't know anyone with an account and would like the bonus points anyway, feel free to use my referral link.

One catch worth knowing. The 2,000 points only land once you've earned Virgin Points through a qualifying transaction, and the Tesco Clubcard exchange in this article doesn't count. You'll need to earn another way first, such as a Virgin Trains Ticketing booking or some online shopping via Virgin Shops Away.

How to disable auto-exchange and convert manually

If you previously set up auto-exchange, you'll need to turn it off before you can manually convert. Sign into your Tesco Clubcard account, select "Clubcard Account" from the headings at the top of the page, click "Clubcard management" from the drop-down, and then select "Voucher schemes." Find Virgin Points in the list of active schemes and remove it.

With auto-exchange off, your Clubcard vouchers will sit in your account each quarter rather than converting automatically.

To then convert manually, head back to the Tesco Clubcard partner page for Virgin Points, enter the value of vouchers you want to exchange, and the Virgin Points should land in your Virgin account within 24 hours.

Sam

Points Well Made is a passion project from Sam and Helena. If you've enjoyed this and want to help us keep the lights on, please consider buying us a Ko-fi or subscribing monthly. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok for more of the same. Thanks for reading.