Has Delta Discontinued Their Partnership With Virgin Australia?

By: Ben Schlappig

Updated: December 13, 2021
Published: March 24, 2015

32 comments

For a few years now, Delta and Virgin Australia have had a partnership, allowing members of both airlines’ frequent flyer programs reciprocal mileage earning and redemption.

Australia is one of the toughest destinations in the world to get to on miles, and Virgin Australia releases more saver level business class award availability between the US and Australia than any other airline. So this is a huge partnership for SkyMiles members, and one which greatly increases the value of SkyMiles, in my opinion.

Virgin-Australia-Business-Class
Virgin Australia’s current 777-300ER business class

However, something screwy has been going on lately.

Despite Delta having recently advertised that they’ve added a bunch of new partners to the SkyMiles online search page (and Delta displaying Virgin Australia award space online since 2012, actually), Virgin Australia award space no longer shows on delta.com.

Not only that, but Virgin Australia award space isn’t bookable by phone with Delta at the moment either. I found plenty of flights with saver level award availability on Virgin Australia’s website, yet they’re not even bookable by phone with Delta.

At first I assumed it was an IT glitch or an incompetent SkyMiles agent, though I called several times and got the same results. On FlyerTalk, some report being told by SkyMiles agents that the partnership with Virgin Australia has been discontinued.

For what it’s worth, Virgin Australia is still listed as a Group 1 Partner on Delta’s website.

While I’m not sure it’s necessarily related, Virgin Australia seat assignments don’t show on delta.com either anymore, even though they previously did.

Bottom line

It would be a real shame if the partnership between Delta and Virgin Australia were discontinued, given that this is one of the best options for getting to one of the toughest destinations in the world on miles. It’s especially a shame if this happens before Virgin Australia introduces their new business class product, which looks fantastic.

I’ve reached out to Delta SkyMiles for clarification, and will report back when I hear something.

Have you had any luck redeeming Delta SkyMiles for travel on Virgin Australia recently?

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Steve A New Member

March 27, 2015, 1:41 am

Delta rep on FT posted this afternoon (3/26/15) "All thanks for your patience. The root cause of the error has been identified and will be corrected early Saturday morning. Apologies for the inconvenience and please try again Saturday."

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Bill Meier Guest

March 25, 2015, 8:13 pm

I booked LAX TO MELBOURNE via Sydney and return several months ago for a flight on Virgin Australia using Delta miles (160,0000) on the Delta website. The flight is in mid October. Will this affect my flight?

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Andrew Guest

March 25, 2015, 4:30 pm

Seems like Delta is aware of the issue and no shenanigans are afoot unless their rep is misinformed: from http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta-air-lines-skymiles/1666183-skymiles-award-partner-update.html " Virgin Australia Separately we are experiencing a technical issue with availability on Virgin Australia. Apologies for any inconvenience and please bear with us as we work to remedy the situation. "

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JonW Guest

March 25, 2015, 6:21 am

I'm a VA Platinum, and I usually fly DL around the US at least 8-10x per year when I'm over there. DL and VA seem to have made the recognition seamless now - I didn't even need to show my card to get in the lounge as my status was automatically in DLs system, Sky Priority was printed on the passes etc. This is all new, and the IT back-end to do it is pretty intensive. I can't imagine DL having done it if they were dumping DL as a partner. I suspect it could even have something to do with VA's IT systems, which are undergoing a much needed and long overdue *massive* overhaul at the moment. Perhaps because of this VA data sharing for DL awards is temporarily on the fritz? That being said, if a VA/DL split was the price of VA joining join Star Alliance I would support it in a heartbeat. I wouldn't even groan that it meant I had to use UA (well... not that much anyway). Sorry DL fans.

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Michael Kao Member

March 25, 2015, 1:11 am

From my end as a VA member, I can't see award space on DL either! So it's possible the 2 CEO's had a fight? After all, the marriage between VA and DL has always been an odd one. VA is owned by NZ, SQ and EY, so it should be closer to Star Alliance, and therefore UA. (EY is partnered with AA, but AA being OW and already partnered with QF so there is no way VA will partner with AA.) I guess VA initially partnered with DL so it won't get too close to star alliance. But if there is a conflict of interest, I wouldn't be surprised that VA divorces DL and marries UA.

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