It’s official, once again we can say we deliver award-winning employee rewards! After an exciting few weeks for Virgin Incentives, we’re we’re celebrating not one, but two major industry award wins, alongside three shortlistings at the GCVA Hall of Fame Awards 2026. We were already pretty excited after taking home the Service Provider Excellence Award for Incentives at The Rewards 2026. Now, our Merlin Gift Card has won Excellence in Gift Cards at the IMA Europe Awards 2026!
We hate to brag (honestly…), but we think this one deserves a little shouting about.
From our brilliant team and the clients we work with every day to exciting products like the Merlin Gift Card, there’s been plenty happening behind the scenes. To see that work recognized by some of the biggest organizations in the reward, incentives and gift card industries makes it all the more special.
Winners at The Rewards 2026
Frist up, Virgin Incentives was named Service Provider Excellence Award – Incentives winner at The Rewards 2026, hosted by Reward Strategy at Hilton London Bankside.
The award recognizes providers delivering outstanding reward and employee benefits solutions, with judges looking at areas including product and service innovation, client engagement and satisfaction, tangible outcomes and the ability to respond to changing client needs. Those are all things we care hugely about.
Over the past year, we’ve continued to develop our reward offering while supporting hundreds of businesses with their employee recognition, incentives and gifting programs. And there have been some pretty exciting milestones along the way.
Our team successfully delivered a major Virgin Gifts eGift Card program for Microsoft in the USA, giving employees the freedom to choose memorable experiences ranging from kayaking and ziplining to wine tastings and getaways. Closer to home, we’ve continued developing new ways for businesses to make rewards feel more personal, including bespoke branded digital gift card communications for corporate clients. We’ve also seen fantastic growth from the Merlin Gift Card – but more on that shortly.
Most importantly, the award belongs to the people behind Virgin Incentives. Our small but mighty team works across sales, account management, agency partnerships, retail and marketing to make sure our clients and their recipients receive a service we’re genuinely proud of.
As our Global Head of Sales, Jessica Hankers, puts it:
“We’re incredibly proud to receive the Service Provider Excellence Award. It’s a fantastic recognition of the passion and hard work of our team, who continually find new ways to help our clients create meaningful and memorable rewards for their people. A huge thank you to our clients and partners for trusting us, this award means a lot to all of us at Virgin Incentives.”
Three GCVA Hall of Fame Award shortlistings
The celebrations didn’t stop there. We were also thrilled to receive three shortlistings at the GCVA Hall of Fame Awards 2026:
- Best B2B Product or Service
- Team of the Year
- Rising Star of the Year – Andy Keating
While we didn’t take home a trophy on the night, being recognized across three very different categories by the Gift Card & Voucher Association was something we were hugely proud of.
Celebrating our team
Our Team of the Year shortlisting recognized something particularly important to us: the people who make Virgin Incentives what it is.
We’re a specialist team working across the UK and US, but our reach goes far beyond our size. During the year, we supported our existing corporate clients and partnered with hundreds of new businesses, while achieving a 92% client retention rate. Even more impressively, 65% of our top 20 clients have worked with us for more than a decade. That’s what award-winning employee rewards look like to us, not simply delivering a gift card, but building relationships with businesses that last.
A rising star in the gift card industry
There was also some very well-deserved individual recognition for our Global Agency Lead, Andy Keating, who was shortlisted for Rising Star of the Year.
Since moving into the gift card industry, Andy has played a major role in some of our biggest innovations. He helped lead the launch of the Leisure Choice Gift Card across the UK and US, with the UK proposition giving recipients access to 140+ brands and generating a record number of sales during its first full year. He has since played a key role in growing the Merlin Gift Card and continues to be an active member of the GCVA and IMA communities. We’re incredibly proud to have him on Team Virgin.
The Merlin Gift Card gets a shoutout
Our third GCVA nomination, Best B2B Product or Service, recognized one of the projects we’re most excited about: the Merlin Gift Card.
Created through our partnership with Merlin Entertainments and Edenred Payment Solutions (EPS), the Merlin Gift Card gives businesses a very different way to appreciate employees, customers and partners. Instead of another physical gift, recipients can put their reward towards experiences across Merlin’s portfolio, from theme park tickets and family days out to hotel stays, annual passes and more. Behind that simple idea was a much more complicated challenge.
With more than 20 attractions, hotels and booking platforms, creating a conventional closed-loop gift card would have required numerous individual integrations. Working with EPS, we instead developed a solution using Private Label Gift Card technology on the Mastercard payment rails, allowing the card to work through Merlin’s existing online payment journeys.
The results have given us even more reason to celebrate. Within its first year, the Merlin Gift Card was onboarded onto 100+ reward, incentive, gifting and retail platforms, while sales exceeded Merlin’s original expectations by 134%. It’s now on track to generate record sales within its first 24 months which shows the huge demand we’ve had for this incredible gift card.
And now, The Merlin Gift Card is an award winner!
We were already delighted when the Merlin Gift Card was shortlisted for Best B2B Product or Service at the GCVA Hall of Fame Awards. But apparently, that wasn’t enough excitement for one year…
We’re absolutely thrilled to share that the Merlin Gift Card has now won us ‘Excellence in Gift Cards’ at the IMA Europe Awards 2026! The award recognizes outstanding B2B gift card programs, products and services, with entries assessed across objectives, strategy, creativity, implementation and measurable results.
For a product that is about to celebrate just it’s 2nd anniversary, it’s a huge achievement and one we’re incredibly proud to share with our partners Merlin Entertainments and EPS.
A big thank you from Team Virgin
Awards are lovely (especially when there’s a trophy involved), but they’re ultimately recognition of the work happening every day. Whether that’s helping a HR team say thank you to thousands of employees, finding a bespoke solution for a client, launching an entirely new gift card or simply making someone’s reward a little more memorable, that’s what motivates us.
So, a massive thank you to our team, clients, partners and everyone across Virgin Experience Days and Virgin Gifts who has played a part in what we’ve achieved. We’re incredibly proud to be delivering award-winning employee rewards, and we’re certainly not finished yet.
Want to create rewards worth shouting about? Get in touch with the Virgin Incentives team below to discover how we can help reward and recognize your employees, customers or partners:
