Virgin Atlantic is joining the SkyTeam Alliance soon, which is very exciting as it means we will be able to earn and redeem Virgin Atlantic points on more airlines which belong to the alliance – Virgin already partners with the most important airlines in SkyTeam, so I think the added airlines won’t necessarily be that appealing to everyone, but the more options the better. The great news is that Virgin Atlantic just added a fantastic way to check Delta award availability, which I hope will be extended to more of their partner airlines in the future.
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is one of my favorite frequent flyer programs since they offer some really cool redemptions on unique airlines:
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Overview
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Sweet Spots (VS, NZ, DL, SQ, VA)
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Sweet Spots (AF/KL, NH, HA, SA)
Transferring Points to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points are fairly easy to acquire since you can transfer them in from most major transferable bank points programs:
- American Express Membership Rewards
- 1:1 transfer ratio
- instant transfer
- Capital One Rewards
- 1:1 transfer ratio to the Virgin Red program
- instant transfer
- Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 1:1 transfer ratio
- instant transfer
- Citi ThankYou Points
- 1:1 transfer ratio
- instant transfer
- Marriott Bonvoy
- 3:1 transfer ratio (for every 60k Marriott Bonvoy points you transfer, you will get a bonus of 5k Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points)
- average transfer time is 1-2 days
The transferable bank points programs frequently offer transfer bonuses, for example, like 30% more airline miles/points. Under a bonus like this you would receive 30% more Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points when transferring from a bank program.
Sweet Spots: Redeeming Flying Club Points on Delta Air Lines
One of the best ways to redeem your Virgin Atlantic points is on Delta Air Lines flights, here are a few of the best ways to redeem (sweet spots):
- UK <-> US (BOS, JFK): Economy Class: 15k, Delta One: 47.5k
- UK <-> US (ATL, DTW, MSP): Economy Class: 17.5k, Delta One: 47.5k
- UK <-> US (SLC): Economy Class: 20k
- Europe (excluding the UK) <-> US: Delta One: 50k
- all other flights with range of 0 – 500 miles flown: Economy Class: 7.5k
- all other flights with range of 501 – 1,000 miles flown: Economy Class: 8.5k
- all other flights with range of 1,001 – 1,500 miles flown: Economy Class: 11.5k
- all other flights with range of 1,501 – 2,000 miles flown: Economy Class: 12.5k
- all other flights with range of 2,001 – 3,000 miles flown: Economy Class: 15k
- all other flights with range of 3,001 – 4,000 miles flown: Economy Class: 22.5k
Partner Delta Award Availability
Delta has a terrible frequent flyer program. They regularly charge 350k+ miles for a one-way Business Class ticket to Europe while other airlines charge somewhere around 50-80k miles/points for the same routing. Thankfully, Delta does release award availability to partner airlines which means you can book the same flight for less miles through Delta’s partners – while the amount of award space may not be huge, they still do release it.
Up until now, it has been a pain to check award availability on Delta’s flights that are bookable through partner airlines – you basically had to check day-by-day using Air France/KLM or Virgin Atlantic and then if found, book it through one of these programs as the amount of miles required is significantly less than if booking through Delta.
Virgin Atlantic’s New Award Availability Tool
Virgin Atlantic has just introduced an incredible new tool that shows you an award availability calendar for either their own flights or Delta Air Lines flights – the incredible thing is that the calendar shows exactly how many seats are available both in Economy Class and Business Class each day of the month.
For example, let’s say we want to fly from London (LHR) to Seattle (SEA) on Delta. We would visit Virgin’s new award search tool:
https://travelplus.virginatlantic.com/reward-flight-finder
and then simply input our flight details:
Virgin Atlantic’s New Award Availability Tool
then we get a wonderful month’s view and are shown what is available and what isn’t:
Virgin Atlantic’s New Award Availability Tool
and based on that information, we can quickly confirm (using a new search on Virgin’s main page) that the flight is in fact available:
Delta award availability using Virgin Atlantic points
and, just for laughs, compare how many miles Delta wants for their own flight:
Delta award availability using Delta miles
The award availability we find on Virgin’s calendar for Delta flights should also exactly match what we can find with Air France/KLM since Delta will simply release seats either to no partners or all partners – so if a Delta flight is bookable through Virgin Atlantic, it should also be with AF/KL.
All in All
I love both flying Virgin Atlantic and redeeming their points. While their frequent flyer program may not be able to take you to every place in the world, it does offer some unique redemption opportunities on a number of airlines. The best part is that most of Virgin Atlantic’s phone agents are very competent and know what you are talking about when you want to make a booking on a partner airline using points.
Virgin Atlantic’s new award availability tool is incredible – to be able to easily check a month’s worth of availability quickly is very powerful. While this tool was just launched, my hope is that Virgin Atlantic makes searching for award space on more of their partner airlines available this way – and that eventually all of their partners will be fully bookable online (right now you have to call to book some of their airline partners).