Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is an underrated program that offers all kinds of useful redemption opportunities. In particular, the program has some of my favorite niche, sweet spot award deals in the world.
Continue reading: Best Uses Of Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Points: Value With SkyTeam & Beyond
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
People should be aware that Virgin can no longer see business class seats between Japan and mainland USA within 14 days of departure, and this “sweet spot” is effectively gone.
Recently redeemed Virgin miles for El Al business. While the total cost in miles was high, with a 40% transfer bonus it wasn't too bad plus the fees were under $50.
Convenient and great value for:
Virgin Atlantic Upper class YYZ-LHR (23k + CAD$399)
Saudia Business Class YYZ-JED (100k)
Frustrating trying to use VS points (or any partner's points) for Aeromexico, which I'd love to do.
Like avianca LifeMiles, VS are (for my uses) easy-acquisition, difficult-redemption points. I frequently find availability with Flying Blue that VS doesn't "see".
I’ve gotten decent use on LATAM. Under 4,000 miles is 50k points, so Cancun to Santiago is only 50k for a 9 hour lie flat flight.
Awards can be booked online for travel on Air France-KLM, China Airlines, Delta, Garuda Indonesia, Korean Air, Middle East Airlines, and Xiamen Air; all other partner awards need to be booked by phone
As I remember I can redeemed Vietnam Airline online. or say as least I can search and found Vietnam Airline award seat online, but not China Airline.
Just redeemed 62,500 VA points (plus about $53 in taxes) for AKL-IAH in Air New Zealand Business Class (on the ex-Cathay 777). With the 40% transfer bonus, this came out to about 45,000 Amex Membership Rewards (even accounting for needing to spend another $150 on a positioning flight on United from IAH to my final US destination). Sure, I could have booked the ticket with Air Canada Aeroplan including the UA connection, but price, surcharges and potential cancelation fees would have been higher.
"Awards can be BOOKED online for travel on Air France-KLM, China Airlines, Delta, Garuda Indonesia, Korean Air, Middle East Airlines, and Xiamen Air; all other partner awards need to be booked by phone..."
How about where to SEARCH for partner award availability? I just spent the last hour searching for business class award seats pretty much anywhere in the world, for the next 12 months. I found exactly zero available seats - except for the JFK-LHR Virgin Atlantic flights shown in the example - except rather than the 29K shown, I'm seeing 150K and up - plus over $600 in fees, a far far cry from what's flogged here. Looking for ANY business awards on partner airlines appears completely useless if searching on Virgin Atlantic's site. So where do you search - before then calling to try and book? I'm very skeptical about the content here, after wasting an hour trying to verify it.
I found plenty of AFKL business availability for IST-CDG-Italy on some dates in Feb I checked the other day... though I had only been looking for Y awards on that occasion.
I would use the 'secret' Flying Blue calendar to identify availability. E.g. it shows plenty of seats from Europe (I've used DUS, MXP, and MAD) to BOG in October, and the VS system reflects much/most of that availability- though it's not a great deal at 87.5k miles plus €300 each way.
Ben, can you say more about how to find these redemptions? I have also come up short, finding any of them using virgin points.