Signing your child up for a Virgin Atlantic Flying Club account is a different procedure than British Airways uses and one that is difficult to do entirely online. Before you get started, you’ll need an email address separate to yours, the ability to print a parental consent form and email or send it in or the ability to call Virgin Atlantic to verify the account.
Step 1: Online registration form
The online registration portion is straightforward, just requiring personal information — the same as an adult registration form. You’ll need info such as name, gender and date of birth.
Note that when I tried to use my personal email address for my son, it did not allow me to do so. I have a Gmail address for him, so I used that instead, which worked fine.
You’ll also have to select security questions for your child’s account, which can be hard for younger ones when it’s tempting to answer, “What is your favourite holiday activity”, with “eating sand”.
Like with the adult registration, you’ll need to fill out the address section, which is straightforward. You can search by postcode, noting the address can also be outside of the U.K.
The phone number used for your child can match the parent or guardian’s number.
The final stage of registration requires parental permission.
You can download the consent form by link, but if you do not, there are a few more instances when it’s sent to you — like in the confirmation email.
Step 2: Communication consents
The consent is straightforward communication consent; once you click through, you are automatically logged into your child’s account. From this stage, you can login and have an account number for your child. However, you cannot attach his or her number to a ticket or earn miles until the information is verified.
Step 3: Consent form
The consent form stresses the need for a unique and separate email address between parent and child. Once you print it out, sign it and scan it back in, you send it to customer.services@fly.virgin.com. Alternatively, you could mail it to the address in Crawley at the bottom of the form. I tested by emailing one and postal mailing one child’s to Crawley. The one posted to Crawley in 2019 never activated.
Alternative step 3: call to verify your child’s information
The consent form recommends calling, as did message boards I read online. I sat on hold for nearly 13 minutes until I reached a customer service rep. He asked me to confirm my son’s account number, name, date of birth and address, as well as mine. The customer service rep said an email would come to my son’s email address and then I would be able to attach his number to a ticket.
Two days later, the email still hadn’t arrived so I called again and sat on hold. When an agent answered, she asked for my son’s account number said his details were activated and ready to use. She didn’t know why the email didn’t send, though said she would send the confirmation again. She also confirmed that my youngest son’s account still said “pending”.
If you’re having trouble getting the verification to go through, it doesn’t hurt to call Virgin directly.
