Often you’ll find that the best options for redeeming points on a particular airline are through the frequent flyer program of a partner airline. Actually, I’d argue that’s the case more often than not, and it’s where we see many of the best award sweet spots. The catch, as you’d expect, is that these redemptions tend to get devalued over time.
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is a program with a few great partner redemption opportunities, whether it’s redeeming on All Nippon Airways, or on a SkyTeam partner airline. In this post, I wanted to take a look at the current reality of redeeming Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points on Delta, especially in light of the recent devaluation.
I’d say there’s still value to be had, though it’s not nearly as lucrative as it used to be…
Redeem Flying Club points for travel on Delta
In many cases Virgin Atlantic Flying Club has lower redemption rates than Delta SkyMiles for travel on Delta, assuming there’s saver level award availability. For example, in some situation Virgin Atlantic might just be charging 80,000 points, while Delta charges over 300,000 points. Yes, the difference can be that significant.
On top of that, there are some other benefits to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club:
- Virgin Atlantic points are easier to come by, since the program partners with Amex, Bilt, Capital One, Chase, and Citi, while Delta SkyMiles only partners with Amex
- Virgin Atlantic points can often be acquired with a transfer bonus, while we almost never see a transfer bonus from Amex to Delta
- Virgin Atlantic often sells points at a reasonable cost, which is another way to acquire the points currency
With that out of the way, let’s look at the details of this opportunity.
How many Virgin Atlantic points do you need for travel on Delta?
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club’s redemptions on Delta aren’t exactly straightforward in terms of pricing, as there are three separate award charts:
- There’s an award chart for travel between the United States and United Kingdom
- There’s an award chart for travel between the United States and Europe, excluding the United Kingdom
- There’s a distance based award chart for travel in all other regions
Flying Club’s first award chart is for travel between the United States and United Kingdom, and this just factors in what part of the United States you’re traveling to or from, and whether you’re traveling in standard or peak season.
Flying Club’s second award chart is for travel between the United States and the rest of Europe (excluding the United Kingdom), and this factors in the general length of the itinerary, and whether you’re traveling in standard or peak season.
Flying Club’s third award chart is for travel in all other regions (anything except between the United States and Europe), and pricing is entirely distance based, with no peak or standard pricing.
Does Flying Club have surcharges when redeeming on Delta?
Flying Club has steep carrier imposed surcharges (often referred to as fuel surcharges) when redeeming on Virgin Atlantic, but what about when redeeming on Delta?
- There are fuel surcharges for travel on Delta between the United States and Europe, including the United Kingdom
- There aren’t fuel surcharges for travel on Delta between or within any other regions
So as you can tell, there are significant fuel surcharges for any travel involving Europe, while there aren’t surcharges for all other awards.
How to book Delta awards through Flying Club
You can search and book Delta awards directly on Virgin Atlantic’s website. In some cases you may need to log-in to search availability, but you don’t need any points balance for the inventory to show.
When you go to Virgin Atlantic’s website, just search award availability on Delta the same way you would search availability on Virgin Atlantic, and if something is available it will automatically show up. Virgin Atlantic’s website displays award availability on Virgin Atlantic, Delta, Air France, KLM, and select other partners, so at times it can be hard to differentiate between those options when looking at the calendar feature.
Let’s look at how this works in practice, and use a Detroit to Munich ticket as an example. On Virgin Atlantic’s website, just select the “Reward flights” tab, and enter your origin, destination, date of travel, number of travelers, and class of service.
If there’s availability for the day that you searched, it should automatically show up on the next day. If there’s availability within a few days of when you searched, then you’ll see a calendar. Once you select the date you’ll see the flight option.
Note that you may very well search award availability and get a message saying “Sorry, no flights are available for that search.” Unfortunately that’s not a glitch, there are just long periods of time with no award availability.
I can’t emphasize enough the quirkiness of Virgin Atlantic’s award space on Delta, especially for long haul business class. For example, between the United States and Europe, you sometimes won’t find a single award seat for months at a time, while other times availability is quite good.
The award search tool Seats.aero can be really useful for this, as it has a Delta One award finder. Just enter the origin and destination region, and you’ll see all the transatlantic flights with reasonably priced awards.
When you do find space, this pricing can be extremely lucrative. For example, take a Delta business class flight from New York to Dakar, where Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is charging 80,000 points, while Delta SkyMiles is charging 410,000 miles.
Is it worth redeeming Virgin Atlantic points on Delta?
While there are absolutely situations where redeeming Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points on Delta can be a good deal, it’s not some consistent slam dunk. Award availability is extremely limited on long haul flights (especially in business class), and in some cases the surcharges can be significant. Still, pricing is quite often better than through Delta SkyMiles, so if you want to fly Delta, Flying Club is often the best option.
Beyond long haul flights, there’s also potentially merit to redeeming for short haul travel on Delta, based on the distance-based award chart.
For example, for 7,500 points you could book a one-way economy award for a flight of under 500 miles, like Tampa to Atlanta.
Or for 11,000 points you could book a one-way economy award for a flight of 501-1,000 miles, like Los Angeles to Seattle.
Redeeming 22,000 points for a one-way economy award for flights of 2,001-3,000 miles could be a good deal as well, like Los Angeles to Kona.
Of course you’ll always want to compare these to revenue tickets, since in some cases these flights might not cost all that much when paying cash. I should also mention that in many cases redeeming Delta SkyMiles for domestic economy travel can be a pretty good value, given how the program is structured. Still, there are situations where I could see this being a good use of Virgin points, especially in conjunction with a transfer bonus.
How to earn Virgin Atlantic points
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is transfer partners with all major transferable points currencies, including Amex Membership Rewards, Bilt Rewards, Capital One, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Citi ThankYou. Therefore these are among the easiest points for consumers to earn.
Historically we’ve often also seen transfer bonuses from these currencies to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, so that’s something to keep an eye on, as it will stretch your points even further.
Bottom line
Redeeming Virgin Atlantic points for travel on Delta can potentially be a good value. While some of the best sweet spots have been eliminated over the years, there are still some opportunities that could be worth it. Unfortunately redemptions to and from Europe are subjected to huge surcharges, but other than that, the fees on Delta award tickets aren’t too high.
The catch is that award availability on Delta is highly inconsistent, especially for travel in long haul business class. But still, sometimes there are good opportunities.
Have you ever redeemed Virgin Atlantic points for travel on Delta? If so, what was your experience like?
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