How to fly for free in a bootstrapped startup

Last month I went to San Francisco for a week on business. It was the second time I’d been in as many months and I went with what I consider the best airline, Virgin Atlantic (alongside Virgin America, although their reward programs are unfortunately not linked) on two great flights, with great service, in Premium Economy. I booked my flight 5 days in advance, it was fully flexible and it was free when it should’ve cost many £1000s. How was that possible?

Airmiles.

I have a Virgin Atlantic Black American Express card. Every £1 I spend, I get 2 miles and I put all business expenses through it.

This means when we spend many £1000s per month on servers with Rackspace, I get airmiles. When I spend on Google AdWords, I get airmiles. When I book a train ticket I get airmiles. And even better, when I pay the taxes on the airmiles flight, I get x3 the miles because it’s a Virgin Atlantic purchase!

These miles add up. I’ve earned over 60k miles on personal and business expenditure since Dec 2009 and many more thousands of miles from paid-for flights. At a cost of £199pa for the card, it’s well worth it. I always pay off the balance each month which means it works just like a chargecard.

The US card gets an even better reward – tier points. Once you have 12 of these (you earn per flight normally, but the US Amex gets 1 point for every $2,500 spent) you get access to the Virgin Atlantic clubhouses and priority boarding/security channels.

You’re spending anyway, so you might as well get the miles! See where you can go.

I don’t often write about specific products but I think this is a handy tip for startups. I wasn’t asked or paid to write this, or any other post on the blog. And there are no affiliate links.