2021 New Virgin Business Class Award Space For 4+ People Wide Open From East & West Coasts

At the beginning of the month I mentioned Spencer Howard who runs a free email newsletter where he sends out award availability alerts. He’s found something interesting: Wide open business class awards for four or more passengers between the U.S. and Europe in Virgin Atlantic’s new product for multiple cities.

Virgin Atlantic New Business Class

A year ago Virgin Atlantic announced their new business class debuting on the Airbus A350-1000. It’s a gorgeous product, and a great improvement over their standard business seat (but does not offer doors, and isn’t in the league of QSuites or ANA’s ‘The Room’ in my view).


Credit: God Save the Points


Credit: God Save the Points

Reasonable To Book Now For Early 2021

Virgin of course is grounded, along with much of the world’s airlines. They’re in a tough financial spot, since they haven’t received government funding the way British Airways has. And Delta, which effectively controls them, isn’t in a position to inject additional cash (and can’t legally increase its ownership stake either).

However the airline has London Heathrow slots, which will one day be very valuable again, which gives them pretty good odds of survival. If you have Virgin Atlantic miles I’d personally commit those to awards like business class between the West Coast and London (or elsewhere in Europe) rather than transferring them to Hilton or IHG and taking a huge haircut.

If you redeem miles from (bailed out) Delta or miles from (bailed out) Air France KLM for Virgin Atlantic awards and Virgin folds, you’ll still get your miles back.

Which Routes Are Available?

Spencer found availability for four business class award seats flying on the new A350-1000:

  • New York JFK – London Heathrow: January – March, 2021 plus the first week of April
  • Los Angeles – London Heathrow: January – March, 2021
  • San Francisco – London Heahrow: January – March, 2021

Note that while the San Francisco flight was announced to be flown with an Airbus A350-1000, it is currently scheduled as a 787 – not the new business class, but also several days where I’m seeing more than four award seats in business class and this is historically a real rarity from the West Coast.

Whose Miles To Use?

Your best bet redeeming for U.S. – Europe is Delta SkyMiles at 86,000 miles each way if you’re traveling just to London, or the price goes down to 75,000 miles each way if you connect onward such as to Paris (on Air France) or Amsterdam (KLM). Delta doesn’t add fuel surcharges to awards originating in the U.S. American Express points transfer to Delta.

You might consider flying to London but booking a one-way to Paris as a throwaway with no luggage, but then the return trip gets more expensive because a Europe-originating one way to the U.S. will incur surcharges.

You can also spend 72,000 Flying Blue miles and a couple hundred bucks each way, Flying Blue is a transfer partner of Amex, Chase, Citi and Capital One.

You’re going to want to avoid actually cashing in Virgin Atlantic miles for Virgin Atlantic travel, with taxes and fees as high as $1500 roundtrip, unless of course you have a big haul of Virgin miles and need something to do with them (Virgin of course is a transfer partner across the bank currencies as well.)

While the world is shut down now, there’s a good chance that things will be opened up by early next year when these seats are available. That projection could change of course depending on the course of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. If booked with connection to Paris, are you able to access Virgin clubhouse at LHR during transit if onward is on AF?

  2. 14-day quarantine upon arrival is for right now not in 2021. if this is still going on requiring a mandatory 2 week quarantine in 7+ month from now on, we are in a serious trouble and there will be far more things to worry about than this. If things don’t start to return to normal by this fall, I am forgetting millions of miles I have and building an underground bunker!

    and @Phil

    like Gary is saying, flights originating Europe to US have hideous tax/surcharges so it can’t never be a good deal. you will be better off finding cash fare deal. Some round trips originating from certain cities in Europe to US runs for just 1000-1300 euro. That will beat any mileage redemption deal you might ever find after factoring in all taxes and surcharges.

  3. Round trip from easy coast 172k skymiles. Is that even close to a good deal?

  4. Flights from SEA-AMS and SEA-CDG are wide open. I booked for September, 100k on Delta one with no fuel surcharges ($50 in taxes RT). I’m hoping some country is open for travelers in September. My other reason is that I have miles there from a trip that got cancelled. At least if I have September booked Delta might honor it even if VS goes bankrupt.

  5. You are presuming that Virgin is still operating then right?
    I can understand telling people to book with DL miles as you can cancel the ticket if Virgin goes under, but to tell people to transfer points to Virgin ………….Come on Gary,

  6. Couple of things:

    BA hasn’t been bailed out. It’s been given a loan NOT by the govt, but normal commercial sources, but the loan is guaranteed by the govt

    Secondly: I’ve flown in upper on every type of Virgin aircraft: 747, 787, 330, and even 340, and I have NEVER slept so well as I did on the 350. I don’t know what it was: It’s noticeably quieter than even a 787, and, sorry Boeing fans, but it’s far superior. The little “lounge” that it has in upper was much better than the old bar, and was such a change to be able to just sit somewhere quiet and read

    Just my tuppence.

Comments are closed.