Can someone explain Virgin Airmiles to me?

[chopper.]

As their website is rubbish. As we are going to San Francisco in September and I have to go to Sydney in January I am waying up the thought of going Virgin. Its about £400 more for us to fly to San Fran with Virgin but what will the airmiles (5580) and 4 tier points get me or towards an upgrade to premium economy on my Sydney flight? Does anyone use the virgin credit card to gain extra miles and is it worth doing? I could easily spend 1k each month on it and pay off each month. Any other tips? Chop

[RobsyUK]

It's not worth doing the credit card as you need spend over £15k to get the points you will need.

On average you will need 50,000 points for an economy return flight from the states.

If you use miles on a flight you can not use miles to uprage you can only do one at a time.

Your best bet is to call virgin and see what they say they helped us save £1000 on 'free' upgrades as aposed to a buddy flying.

Using your points isn't just using your points you can only use them on certain flights/ routes & times. - again you only can find out by calling.

Finally we found its cheaper to do a complete holiday rather then booking flight & hotel seperatly...

We are doing the whole airmiles thing through American Express and again the points are good if your not fussy etc.