Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Devalues ANA Awards (Again)

Given that there has been virtually no ANA biz or first availability for months as it is, the practical impact of this is limited.

strange that there is no mention that VS has not been allowing last minute bookings of NH departure within 14 days as of May. This is how you usually find ANA availability, so blocking it is much more devastating.

It is definitely thin on the ground. I managed to find a Business award for HND-SFO March 2025. But I burned way too much time looking.

you have to look 355 days out when the calendar opens, using either NH or SQ. I have been seeing 1-2 first seats and 2 business seats on ORD flights

VS only opens at 330 days, and AC doesn't show online and you have to call

That’s some BS!

I was able to book SFO-NRT and HND-LHR in biz for this early May within 5-10 days of departure. Both were in The Room suite.
Good luck that I was able to find and ticketed them in one call to VS (took almost an hour before the agent answered).

I have also noticed a ton of recent buzz and blog posts/articles this year about booking ANA award tickets through Virgin, so perhaps there was an increase in demand and the trend landed on Virgin/ANAs radars. Just a thought.

At this point, between the higher points requirement, having to call it in, marrying multi-segments manually, blocking close-in awards, and lack of awards for partners, best to look for ANA award (if any) through their own program.

I mentally eliminated VS from my own valuations when all awards disappeared in 2023. (I can’t last-minute travel, unfortunately.)

What’s more interesting is that despite all the massive devaluations, CC sign up bonuses rarely move in the same direction. We still get “best ever” 75k advertisements from blogs on transferable point cards.

Young the YouTuber? Lol. Where did you find this information? If in fact you can't book within 14 days that truly is devestating... ugh. I was planning on finding a flight this Oct... now I have to contend with raised prices and 15 days ahead.... wish me luck.

I read it in certain spheres and tried it out myself. Picked 3 TPAC NH J seats and asked on VS phone line. UA can see all 3 of them, but VS cannot see any of them. All departing within 2 weeks. Hope it is temporary. Called last Friday for 1.5hr because I am that bored.

Having to find round trip availabilty makes ANA pretty useless.

They open award space quite close in. Good availability, but annoying.

good, all these tiktokers making it seem like VS has been bookable at all.

You mean the trend started costing them a fortune, and the bean-counters pulled the plug.

We all have to face the facts - the Golden Age of award/reward travel has passed, and airlines are obviously tightening up on availability, or restricting the award availability of their very best product to their very best customers. If we're honest about it there was a long period where very nice awards could be redeemed for a song, like the mid 2010s when we scored SYD-BKK-HND and back in Thai first class for 110K Mileage Plus points + something like $40 in taxes each. It sure was fun while it lasted.

true. difficult to find more than 1 seat as well. U are able to mix classes for the return if you're open to PE.

Now I know it's you!