Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership provides large surcharge for Delta One redemptions to Europe, but it surely will not affect most members

The Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership program has devalued Delta One business-class redemptions to and from Europe with out discover, however this transfer will unlikely affect many members.
Delta One awards booked via Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership on most dates will nonetheless value 47,500 Virgin factors from the East Coast and central U.S. to Europe and 67,500 Virgin factors from the West Coast to Europe.
Nonetheless, Virgin Atlantic has now applied peak award pricing, growing awards to 57,500 factors from the East Coast and central U.S. and 77,500 factors from the West Coast to Europe (excluding flights to and from the U.Ok. which are already topic to this peak and off-peak pricing).
Maintain studying to search out out extra about Virgin’s newest devaluation of Delta One award flights.
Associated: Delta One Suites evaluate on the Airbus A330-900neo
Virgin Flying Membership will increase Delta One award costs, provides large surcharge
In case you’re trying to e book Delta One tickets via Virgin Atlantic, pay attention to the height and off-peak dates.
Peak dates for 2024 and early 2025 are:
- Jan. 1-3, 2024
- March 22-April 15, 2024
- June 16-Sept. 2, 2024
- Oct. 25-Nov. 5, 2024
- Dec. 7, 2024-Jan. 5, 2025
Including peak dates with a value enhance of 10,000 miles for a business-class ticket to pick locations inside a single area is just not an unreasonable devaluation and continues to be a aggressive redemption value throughout the Atlantic.
Each day Publication
Reward your inbox with the TPG Each day e-newsletter
Be a part of over 700,000 readers for breaking information, in-depth guides and unique offers from TPG’s specialists
What’s eyebrow-raising is that Virgin is now imposing a big service surcharge, with whole charges, taxes and surcharges including as much as over $1,000 per particular person every manner in enterprise class.
Subsequently, now you can anticipate to pay over $2,000 in charges, taxes and surcharges for a round-trip business-class flight on Delta booked with Virgin factors. That is proper in keeping with what Virgin imposes on Flying Membership redemptions it operates itself. Earlier than the devaluation, one-way Delta One flights to mainland Europe from the U.S. value prospects simply $5.60 in taxes and costs.
This extra surcharge appears to solely have an effect on business-class tickets, as economic system award seats nonetheless should not have a surcharge and may be booked for $5.60 in taxes and costs.
If you wish to e book a Delta One flight via the Delta SkyMiles program, which doesn’t cost any surcharges, you may readily discover business-class availability to Europe. You possibly can anticipate to pay as much as 375,000 SkyMiles per particular person, per flight.
Associated: Dynamic pricing vs. gas surcharges — which is the lesser of two evils on your subsequent redemption?
Why will this devaluation not affect most Flying Membership members?
Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership is a switch associate of all main transferable bank card currencies and infrequently provides switch bonuses and award flight promotions. Thus, there are some nice offers to be discovered when utilizing Virgin factors to fly from the U.S. to Europe. For instance, I flew from New York to London in April for simply 5,000 Virgin factors.
However relating to discovering Delta One award availability on Virgin, award flights have been nonexistent.
I’ve frequently monitored Delta One availability utilizing Virgin factors for flights throughout the Atlantic over the previous six months. There have been, at most, a handful of dates out there throughout your complete 12-month schedule, with most availability from New York’s John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport (JFK) to Iceland’s Keflavik Airport (KEF), a flight of simply 5 1/2 hours.
This 12 months, the scarce availability to the U.Ok. and mainland Europe has been totally on (tremendous) off-peak dates, such because the lifeless of winter when you should not have any drawback discovering availability on different carriers, particularly in case you have transferable bank card factors.
Associated: 10 no-annual-fee bank cards that earn transferable factors
For instance, one of many solely choices I discovered throughout my seek for Delta One availability to Europe over the following 12 months is from JFK to Portugal’s Lisbon Airport (LIS). Although it should value you lower than 48,000 Virgin factors, you will pay over $1,000 in taxes, charges and surcharges.
As a substitute, if you wish to use Virgin factors to fly to Portugal in January, it can save you greater than $700 in surcharges by reserving the Air France business-class possibility.
In case you desire Delta somewhat than Air France, you could possibly e book this identical flight for 20,000 extra miles via the Air France-KLM Flying Blue program to avoid wasting round $1,000 in charges, taxes and surcharges.
Once more, there are not any modifications to the costs of Delta-operated economy-class redemptions to the U.Ok. (which stay an important use of Virgin factors) or mainland Europe, as these are available to e book on-line. Thankfully, economic system awards have been spared this new surcharge, so you may usually anticipate to pay lower than $200 in whole for charges, taxes and surcharges when flying to Europe in Delta economic system via Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership.
Be aware that whereas Delta prices $5.60 in taxes and costs when flying from the U.S. to Europe, there are country-imposed taxes and costs when flying from Europe to the U.S.
Sadly, Delta’s premium economic system product continues to be unavailable to e book with Virgin factors.
Backside line
Devaluations are an unlucky actuality of the factors and miles trade. We suggest redeeming factors and miles quickly after incomes them somewhat than stockpiling them for a wet day.
Ordinarily, including a carrier-imposed surcharge of greater than $1,000 every manner with out discover could be unforgivable by Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership.
Nonetheless, the fact is that this variation is not going to have an effect on 99% of Flying Membership members, as there are just about no Delta One flights out there to e book with Virgin factors anyway. Within the unlikely occasion you discover a seat out there, it should possible be on an off-peak date (so the brand new elevated peak pricing will not matter). To not point out, you may most likely e book the identical Delta flight via Flying Blue to avoid wasting a whole bunch of {dollars}.