Several weeks ago, Virgin Atlantic announced plans to “reinvent” its Flying Club loyalty program. At the time, we learned that the program would adopt dynamic award pricing, though not much was revealed beyond that.
Well, Flying Blue’s new dynamic award pricing has now been implemented, so we have all the details of the changes. While there are some negative developments, there’s also a lot to love here. So let’s dig right in…
In this post:
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club award redemption changes
As of October 30, 2024, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club has changed how members can redeem points for award flights. It’s now possible for Flying Club members to redeem points for any seat onboard a Virgin Atlantic flight, though with dynamic pricing. In other words, the price of an award seat varies in line with demand, just as it does when paying cash for a ticket.
The good news is that Virgin Atlantic isn’t fully adopting revenue based pricing, which is to say that there are still ways to get outsized value. For that matter, there are ways to get more value than ever before.
Flying Club updates how saver awards work
Historically, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club had consistent award pricing. As long as there were saver awards available, the only variable was whether you were traveling during a peak or off-peak period (and if there weren’t saver awards available, you were out of luck).
The program is sort of maintaining the concept of saver awards. The catch is that:
- Flying Club will no longer have a saver award seat guarantee, whereby at least 12 seats per flight will be available as saver awards (two in business class, two in premium economy, and eight in economy)
- Flying Club won’t offer any saver awards on roughly 25% of flights; on the 75% of flights that do have saver awards, there’s no guarantee that there will be at least 12 seats, as was the case under the old policy
The good news is that for those situations where saver awards are available, pricing will be no more than it was under the old award chart. Below is the off-peak saver award chart, showing the most you’ll pay when saver awards are available.
Below is the peak saver award chart, showing the most you’ll pay when saver awards are available.
Here’s where the huge upside is, though. In many situations, pricing will be way below the maximum saver award rates that used to be required. Below is a chart showing the minimum costs you’ll find in Virgin Atlantic’s five most popular redemption markets.
Indeed, I’m seeing some New York to London awards starting at 6,000 points in economy, or 29,000 points in Upper Class, which is an exceptional deal.
It’s not just that the number of points required have been lowered, but…
Flying Club makes award fees variable
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is known for historically charging outrageously high carrier imposed surcharges on awards, separate from the UK Air Passenger Duty. For a one-way transatlantic Upper Class award, you could expect to pay around $1,000 in taxes, fees, and surcharges.
Under the new program, award fees are also variable. The good news is that at least as of now, I’m not seeing any awards that cost more in fees than before, but I am seeing just about all awards costing less.
For example, in the above New York to London example, I see an Upper Class ticket for 29,000 points plus $254 in taxes and fees, around $750 less than before. It’s super exciting to see fees lowered in that way, since that was a major hurdle to getting value from the Flying Club program.
Flying Club now offers last seat award availability
Under Virgin Atlantic Flying Club’s old system, either there was saver award availability or there wasn’t, and if there wasn’t, there was no way to redeem points. With the new program, every seat can be booked with points. As you’d expect, though, for situations where there’s not saver award availability, prices can be steep. For example, I see one-way Upper Class awards that cost 350,000 points.
So while that’s a higher cost than we’ve ever seen from the program in the past, these are also seats you probably couldn’t have otherwise booked with points. So some people may appreciate the additional options.
Flying Club increases award change fees
To coincide with these changes, Virgin Atlantic has also increased the cost to change or cancel an award ticket for travel on Virgin Atlantic. While this previously cost £30 per ticket (or $50 for awards originating outside the UK), that fee has now been increased to £70 per ticket (or $100 for awards originating outside the UK).
That’s of course a very customer unfriendly change. I suppose the logic is that people may be rebooking tickets more often if the points requirements are constantly changing. So I guess the goal is to create a penalty so that people don’t constantly reprice tickets. I of course don’t like that, but…
Flying Club isn’t changing partner award pricing
Some of my favorite uses of Flying Club points are for travel on partner airlines. The good news is that this new dynamic award pricing applies to tickets on Virgin Atlantic, but not to tickets on partner airlines. So while we’ve seen some devaluations to partner award redemptions, there are still some good deals to be had.
My take on these Virgin Atlantic Flying Club changes
When Virgin Atlantic announced that Flying Club would adopt dynamic award pricing, I feared the worse. Virgin Atlantic is 49% owned by Delta, and we all know how Delta approaches its SkyMiles program, and I worried that was the direction that Virgin Atlantic was headed.
So I’m now breathing a sigh of relief, as these changes are much better than I was expecting, and I’d even perhaps consider them positive, on balance.
Of course it’s a loss that Virgin Atlantic will no longer consistently release a dozen saver award seats per flight, since that eliminates an aspect of the program that provided certainty. If you usually redeemed for tickets during the busiest periods the minute the schedule opened, then these changes will almost certainly be bad for you.
However, just about everything else is good news, if you ask me, especially for those of us who are willing to plan our travels around being able to get a deal:
- There are now many awards that are way cheaper than they ever were, making for some great redemptions (you can easily compare pricing with the Reward Seat Checker)
- Fees in many markets have been lowered considerably, which was one of the biggest annoyances people had with the program
- While I don’t personally want to redeem for non-saver awards, there are many people who value being able to redeem points for any seat on a flight
Anyway, my initial impression here is quite positive, and the implementation is better than I feared it could be. I want to of course caution that this is my impression based on the initial implementation. The thing about dynamic award pricing is that the cost of awards can change at any time, and there are few promises.
So let’s see how award pricing (in both cash and points), as well as award availability, evolves. But if it stays like it is now, then I’m a fan.
Bottom line
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club has implemented its new dynamic award pricing, and it’s better than expected. The bad news is that there’s no longer a saver award seat guarantee, though the good news is that some awards are cheaper than ever before, and many fees have also been lowered. Some people will also appreciate the ability to redeem points for any seat on a flight.
What do you make of these changes to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club?
The more examples of flights I research, the more I’m convinced the true game changer here is the tax/fee reduction.
Sure, I’ll take fewer-point redemptions any day, but being able to fly upper class from the west coast to LHR for $254? That was basically unheard of until now.
Just locked in a VS J flight IAD-LHR. With the 40% bonus from chase, this is a steal.
Just booked 30K + ~$256 in taxes from NYC - LHR. Stack that with the current Chase 40% transfer bonus and you fly across the Atlantic in J for 22K UR and a couple of hundred greenbacks. The last time I booked VS that cheap was when I transferred 20K SPG points to Virgin America yielding 25K which was enough to fly VS Atlantic UC OW. That was like eight years ago or more. This is truly amazing and the taxes are slashed also.
I love how multiple commenters here look up ONE example and then claim this is a negative change. Unless you're carefully reviewing the VS reward seat checker, you really shouldn't be commenting on this.
Anyway, imo it's a mixed bag but overall I think this is a wonderful update. SEA to LHR UC for 44k and slightly less tax? I'll take it.
One-way Upper Class seats LAX to Heathrow went from 135,000 points for two and $2,000 to 700,000 points and $900. And that isn't a last minute booking. In no way is that a good deal. The spend to get to 700,000 points isn't worth it, even with Capital One double points.
Flying Blue, eh?
Award fees to the UK from the US are indeed much better, but fees on flights from the UK to the US are still quite high (usually $600-$900 on saver awards).
Ex U.K. its staggering if you need to travel in term time and less flexible but if you are then there are deals to be had, winners and losers as everything in life! Use the VS reward seat checker rather than the site proper to get an idea;
https://travelplus.virginatlantic.com/reward-flight-finder
Just searched MCO-LHR flights in economy across several weeks for next year. Previously these were available for 12,500 for 7 out of 10 days. Now, you'd mostly get 38,000, 66,000 and even 150,000 for most days with 1 out of 15 days for 7500. Can't say change is positive in any way.
Well you may do better to position to a different airport. I found PE flights for as little as 14K + $100. If you don't look you don't find. I look at NYC, BOS, YYZ, IAD, ORD and ATL. Look harder, the Easter Bunny hides the golden egg.
DUDE. Combined with the 40% transfer bonus, I just snagged a JFK-LHR round trip in upper class at the end of may for under 60k chase points plus about $1,100 in fees. I'm loving this dynamic pricing lol.
(Though it was a bit stressful. Their website is struggling, their app won't even let me log in, and their phone line just gets a busy signal, so no holding tickets for this one. Thankfully, chase...
DUDE. Combined with the 40% transfer bonus, I just snagged a JFK-LHR round trip in upper class at the end of may for under 60k chase points plus about $1,100 in fees. I'm loving this dynamic pricing lol.
(Though it was a bit stressful. Their website is struggling, their app won't even let me log in, and their phone line just gets a busy signal, so no holding tickets for this one. Thankfully, chase helped me transfer the points fast and the deal was still there after the transfer went through.)
Yeah, the website and app has basically melted down for booking awards. It will APPEAR to book through but the record locator that is generated won't work, and the charge on your credit card gets instantly refunded. Can't log in using the app.
Sigh.
Huh? Considering you can routinely fly from NYC to London or Paris in J for 2-2500 round trip I fail to see that as a good value. Also, you could have booked that same rate you just did on VA before now.
??? Where are you finding $2,000 round trip tickets in J across the atlantic? Especially into heathrow where the airport taxes eat up a third of that on the spot
The change is not good for family travelers, who can only get away during high season when the kids are not in school.
Last week, I preemptively booked our June flight to London for next summer knowing the change was coming using the 40% bonus transfer from Chase.
Our economy ticket was 25K points + $152 under the old system (even cheaper with the 40% bonus). As of today, the same economy seat is...
The change is not good for family travelers, who can only get away during high season when the kids are not in school.
Last week, I preemptively booked our June flight to London for next summer knowing the change was coming using the 40% bonus transfer from Chase.
Our economy ticket was 25K points + $152 under the old system (even cheaper with the 40% bonus). As of today, the same economy seat is 150K points + $92. Yeah, right, how many people are going to cash in that many points for an economy seat?
I'm in the same boat as you with family travel. I didn't know what would happen with partner awards when the news was announced, so I booked my summer flight from SFO-FCO last week. No J class tickets, so I purchase economy. About 17k points with the Chase bonus + $175 in fees per person on AF. Glad to know partner awards are not affected...yet.
Wait a year. If there aren't substantial changes that hurt the passengers then I'll agree that it's really not so bad.
"Well, Flying Blue’s new dynamic award pricing has now been implemented..." *Flying Club's
I feel like the title should be "No So Bad...For Now?" You may find lower rates now, but with dynamic pricing the rates can creep up over time.
It's terrible if you only travel in peak seasons, in/around Easter, summer, Christmas, as prices have gone up multiples in one day. Some routes are also showing crazy pricing for offseason e.g., Nov from LHR-JNB. And some fees are also showing as much higher. That said, if you can travel on weekdays, and out of season, there are bargains to be had. The big Q is whether they stay like this, or increase significantly over...
It's terrible if you only travel in peak seasons, in/around Easter, summer, Christmas, as prices have gone up multiples in one day. Some routes are also showing crazy pricing for offseason e.g., Nov from LHR-JNB. And some fees are also showing as much higher. That said, if you can travel on weekdays, and out of season, there are bargains to be had. The big Q is whether they stay like this, or increase significantly over time eliminating the lower priced opportunities. It's what we've seen before and it would not surprise me for one minute to see that happen with Virgin.
btw - you should reference the Virgin reward seat checker. That's the best way to view the pricing at a glance https://travelplus.virginatlantic.com/reward-flight-finder
Is November really offseason for LHR to JNB? Usually that would be a peak time to leave England and head to the southern hemisphere.
It seems like a mixed bag, and especially in favor of those with the flexibility to travel outside holiday seasons. Which, I think, is the whole point of Virgin: they can say that they actually offered award seats, but the either someone will burn up an ocean of points, or the awards won't get claimed due to pricing levels, leaving opportunities for revenue seats.
I'll definitely keep an eye on any possible bargain deals though!
One more bad news: I don't think you can combine Virgin Award and SkyTeam Award in a same trip anymore
Oh, that is unfortunate.
Still trying to figure out what points you need for “on the day” upgrades from PE to UC which I used to do very often. And in todays budget the government announced an increase on APD so expect an overnight update as VS apply the changes.
@Ben APD rates effective April 25
https://www.businesstravelnewseurope.com/Air-Travel/UK-government-announces-increase-to-Air-Passenger-Duty
Current rates;
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-air-passenger-duty-rates-from-1-april-2024/increases-to-air-passenger-duty-rates-from-1-april-2024
It has its pros/cons. It's great to see upper class to be redeemed that low at 29k but during peak season it is crazy at over 150k. Even economy redemptions at peak season is crazy nowadays with the new pricing! (Beforehand it used to be set at 20k one-way which was great!)
I myself am not a fan of dynamic pricing but it is what it is. Even with the old award chart, even...
It has its pros/cons. It's great to see upper class to be redeemed that low at 29k but during peak season it is crazy at over 150k. Even economy redemptions at peak season is crazy nowadays with the new pricing! (Beforehand it used to be set at 20k one-way which was great!)
I myself am not a fan of dynamic pricing but it is what it is. Even with the old award chart, even though it is fixed from time to time VS had discount sales on awards (6000 miles one-way in economy).
I have seen lots of August & July awards at 35K. Nothing to sneeze at in high season.
Flights with connections seem the hardest hit. LAX-LHR-MLE was pricing at 125k yesterday, now its 700k.
Anticipated the devaluation and booked 2 UC award seats on a flight BOM-LHR-SFO for 105k + ~$550 each.
Today the same flights for next summer price at 700k + ~$1,000 each. Not only has the miles required skyrocketed, but the already exorbitant surcharges have now doubled. @Ben - 'Not Bad' is not the shade of lipstick I would use on this pig!
Is there any way to combine a Virgin flight with one if its partners on one award?