Home to more than 40 companies, the Virgin Group sees itself as a brand “well placed to do loyalty”.

Since debuting group-wide rewards club Virgin Red in November 2020, Virgin has made loyalty a priority. The scheme is seen as “the red thread” connecting customer relationships across the group, according to chief loyalty officer Andrea Burchett.

From its 2025 points index, Virgin Red found 90% of Brits are part of a rewards programme, 25% of which are actively collecting points in five or more programmes. Some 71% of Brits say collecting loyalty points is part of their daily routine.

For Burchett, loyalty is key to driving customer engagement. Having spent 20 years in the loyalty sector working for the likes of Avios and IAG, she believes the “value of people’s time” is equally as important as the “value of the reward” and claims Virgin is “all about emotional engagement”.

“There are certain industries that spend too much time acquiring them [customers] rather than thinking about how to keep them and how to drive deeper engagement. That’s where Virgin is unique,” says Burchett.

Indeed, as soon as a customer has one product with Virgin they’re 50% more likely than the general population to have another. The fact Virgin has such a broad portfolio of companies attracted Burchett. She argues the brand is “well placed to do loyalty”, because it has “all the tools to play with”.

It isn’t just pushing communication. Marketers have got to learn how to create that conversation.

Andrea Burchett, Virgin Group

Marketers from Ovo and Asos have already talked to Marketing Week about the changing loyalty landscape, and the need to offer differentiation and personalisation.

Burchett agrees, claiming the worst risk for any loyalty programme “is apathy”. She argues brands need to focus on “engagement” rather than simply offering points off shopping.

“Something I’m really bringing into Virgin Red is the sense that we can do cash offers and points, but they’re just the mechanic to get you to the reward,” she explains.

The team introduce “small hurdles” to ensure customers are engaged with the brand.

“It’s very easy to think someone’s loyal and spend a lot of marketing dollars on them, when the reality is they’re literally a member of everything,” Burchett adds.

She believes customers are frustrated by the “vertical” nature of loyalty schemes which don’t let you maximise your points across different areas.

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The top ways Virgin Red members earned points in 2024 included the Virgin Atlantic UK credit card, Virgin Atlantic flights, Virgin trains ticketing, conversion of Tesco Clubcard points to Virgin points and shopping with retailers through Virgin Red.

Alongside the range of offers, Virgin doesn’t let points expire and offers the option to donate points to charity or share them with others, as well as enabling consumers to claim rewards quickly. For Burchett, this is central to the “ease of the experience”.

The numbers reflect the loyalty of Virgin’s customer base. Some 60% of customers sign up to group-wide marketing emails when becoming a member of one element of the group, beating the industry average of 30%.

“We can have a place in someone’s life, a centre of gravity and can be somewhere very different. But we can use loyalty to build that relationship, and be much deeper and meaningful in the way in which we do it,” says Burchett.

Interaction, reaction and social

Burchett prefers to follow a model of “interaction, reaction and social” to create a conversation with customers, rather than the “standard model” typically favoured by loyalty schemes of “recency, frequency and value”. This involves providing “personalised and contextualised experiences”, she explains.

Data is essential and the younger generation, in particular, understand “the power of their own data”, suggests Burchett, who believes customers won’t give their data unless there’s a “reward”. 

“No one owns the customer anymore. The customers own themselves and they control the relationships they want,” she claims.

Feedback from customers informs the basis of the Virgin Red offer, which recently expanded across America through the launch of the Virgin credit card combining points spent with airlines and hotels.

“It’s about how do we evolve what we do as a company and as a loyalty programme to meet the different needs of different consumers,” says Burchett.

I can’t find many companies that have, at a board level, a chief loyalty officer and that’s a real statement from Virgin that loyalty matters right at the C-suite.

Andrea Burchett, Virgin Group

Virgin partners with third-party brands, which are selected based on assessments of where the group doesn’t fill a gap in the market.

Acquiring roughly 1 million customers a year, the Virgin Group measures customer lifetime value, which reflects how many products a consumer holds with Virgin companies.

“For us it’s about the number of product holdings, because that’s the depth of your relationship across the number of different Virgin companies we’ve got,” Burchett explains.

She believe making loyalty a C-suite level role means the consumer is considered in every decision made at a board level.

“I can’t find many companies that have, at a board level, a chief loyalty officer and that’s a real statement from Virgin that loyalty matters right at the C-suite,” says Burchett.

This ethos filters down to the brand and marketing team, who stay in touch with consumer feedback through social media. The marketers aim to keep messaging “straight talking” and honest, interacting with customers directly to gauge engagement.

“It isn’t just pushing communication. Marketers have got to learn how to create that conversation,” says Burchett.

We can use loyalty to build that relationship and be much deeper and meaningful in the way in which we do it.

Andrea Burchett, Virgin Group

With Virgin Red still “in its infancy”, Burchett hopes to bring her learnings from her past roles in airline loyalty. Her strategy is to make sure Virgin’s own ecosystems are “glued together” before going too broad.

She advises brands not to get into loyalty unless they’re committed and it works for the company. Many businesses regard loyalty as a “buzzword” and don’t realise how much of a “big undertaking” running such a programme is.

“I’ve spoken to pretty much every brand in the UK at different times and sometimes I just think ‘Actually, you’re not invested in your loyalty programme.’ It’s kind of a sideshow and it’s not integral in your business, and it’s not integral to your strategy,” says Burchett.

“That’s why my role as chief loyalty officer clearly signals how important loyalty is at Virgin.”