Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is a useful frequent flyer program, especially with the airline now being in the SkyTeam alliance. Not only does Flying Club have useful niche redemption rates on airlines like All Nippon Airways and Air New Zealand, but the program also allows members to redeem points on all SkyTeam carriers.
Unfortunately Flying Club has just devalued its best award redemption value on Delta, as flagged by Thrifty Traveler. Worst of all, this is the second Flying Club devaluation that we’ve seen for Delta awards in just a matter of months.
How Flying Club redemption rates on Delta have changed
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
For a long time, Flying Club hasn’t changed award pricing between the United States and United Kingdom, which has both standard and peak pricing, and pricing based on the part of the United States you’re traveling to. These redemptions have carrier imposed surcharges in both directions.
Now, with absolutely no notice, Flying Club has just increased award pricing between the United States and the rest of Europe (excluding the UK). For context, below is what the award chart used to look like, through July 1, 2024.
Meanwhile below is what the award chart looks like as of July 2, 2024.
On the surface, this might not look that bad. Economy awards are staying the same price, while business class is going from costing 50,000 points consistently, to costing anywhere from 47,500 to 77,500 points.
But here’s the really bad news. Historically these redemptions didn’t have carrier imposed surcharges when originating in the United States. However, now they do, and you can expect to pay $1,000+ for a one-way business class award in Delta One from the United States to Europe. That’s awful, of course.
This latest devaluation follows the devaluation that we saw at the beginning of the year, to Flying Club’s distance based award chart for travel in all other regions. For what it’s worth, below is what that award chart looked like through December 31, 2023.
Meanwhile below is what the award chart looked like as of January 1, 2024.
I’m guessing that Delta is behind these changes
There are ultimately lots of mileage arbitrage opportunities out there, where you’ll get better value earning or redeeming miles with a partner program, rather than directly with the program of the airline you’re traveling with.
Over time we’ve seen many opportunities like these devalued, though not across the board. In the case of Delta and Virgin Atlantic, I’m not surprised to see this change:
- Delta owns a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic, the two airlines have a joint venture, and Delta is also known to be a rather controlling partner
- Delta is determined to turn SkyMiles into as much of a revenue based program as possible, and that includes eliminating outsized value for premium cabin redemptions, and for any partner arbitrage opportunities
- I suspect Delta was seeing an uptick in award redemptions through Flying Club, and the airline wanted those redemptions to instead be made directly through Delta SkyMiles
Here’s the statement that Virgin Atlantic released about these changes:
“We routinely evaluate our pricing and from 2 July we have updated pricing for redemption flights using Virgin Points on our Business class cabins, to align with our Joint Venture pricing. Virgin Atlantic remains committed to offering our loyal members the most competitive pricing for redemption flights across our partner airline network.”
Bottom line
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club has just devalued awards for travel on Delta for the second time in several months. Earlier this year we saw Flying Club’s distance based award chart for Delta devalued, and now we’ve seen Flying Club’s award chart for travel on Delta between the United States and Europe (excluding the UK) devalued.
Being able to redeem 50,000 Flying Club points for Delta business class from the United States to Europe was an amazing value, assuming you could find availability. Now you can expect to pay 47,500 to 77,500 points, plus pay $1,000+ one-way in surcharges. Ouch.
What do you make of these Virgin Atlantic Flying Club changes?
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