After Virgin Atlantic devalued ANA first class award pricing without notice last year and did the same thing to ANA business class awards this year they’ve now gone after redemptions on Delta.
Yesterday a Delta business class award from the U.S. to Europe would have cost 50,000 points and $5.60. Now the award chart has been updated:
- Prices range from 47,500 points to 77,500 points
- And they’re adding over $1,000 in fees
Here’s the new transatlantic award charts showing prices for flights between the U.S. and U.K. as well as the U.S. and the rest of Europe, with both peak and off-peak charges.
How Pricing Works
With Virgin’s Delta award chart this is for non-stop flights only and connecting flights have a separate award chart with additive pricing. For instance, Los Angeles to New York JFK to London Heathrow in business class would run 117,500 during off-peak and 127,500 peak.
Here’s how they define terms.
- East Coast: Boston, New York JFK
- Central: Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis
- West Coast: Salt Lake City, Seattle, Los Angeles
Peak dates are currently listed as: January 1-3, 2024; March 22-April 15, 2024; June 16 – September 2, 2024; October 25 – November 5, 2024; December 7, 2024 – January 5, 2025.
All non-transatlantic routes are priced based on distance, whether U.S. domestic or other long haul:
| Flight distance (miles) | Delta Main Cabin | Delta One / First |
|---|---|---|
| 0-500 | 7,500 points | 21,000 points |
| 501-1,000 | 11,000 points | 41,500 points |
| 1,001-1,500 | 16,500 points | 59,500 points |
| 1,501-2,000 | 18,500 points | 66,500 points |
| 2,001-3,000 | 22,000 points | 70,000 points |
| 3,001-4,000 | 35,000 points | 80,000 points |
| 4,001-5,000 | 44,000 points | 105,000 points |
| 5,001-6,000 | 49,500 points | 130,000 points |
| 6,001+ | 65,500 points | 165,000 points |
They’ve Tried This Before
On New Year’s Day 2021, Virgin Atlantic gutted redemption pricing on Delta. Then, amidst an outcry, they walked the changes back a week and a half later. What they’ve now done is re-implemented that same pricing, three and a half years later, and added cash surcharges.
Virgin Points Just Got Much Less Useful – And The Program Itself Less Trustworthy
Remaining sweet spots in Virgin’s program are limited. I just booked some Hawaiian Airlines first class awards for their Austin – Honolulu non-stop for 40,000 miles per person each way. ANA premium cabin awards remain the single best use of their points, even post-devaluation. The other opportunities are mostly edge cases.
And perhaps the most important thing is that Virgin Atlantic is a program not to be trusted. The changes they’ve made have nearly always been done without notice, and they’ve nearly always been bad. It’s these handful of sweet spots that made the program worth it as a transfer partner, combined with frequent transfer bonuses. But today one of the best remaining options is no longer very good.
Of course none of this should be surprising since Delta literally owns 49% of Virgin, and itself offers what is by far the least rewarding redemption program of any major U.S. carrier. The insane thing is that even with these exorbitant price increases, and despite $1,000 surcharges, it can still be cheaper to book Delta business class award travel through Virgin through to book the exact same flight with Delta SkyMiles.
(HT: Thrifty Traveler)
Virgin has been little more than a cheap scam for some time. The taxes alone make redemptions on their own planes completely uneconomic in J, and their redemptions are usually alomst 100% more expensive than alternatives. That ANA redemption bought them massive amounts of good will that they never deserved, and certainly don’t deserve after spiking it.
Premium SkyTeam partner…
Just like Delta, not to be trusted by fliers who care about the value of their miles
The vapor ware from Delta continues
@Gary… I don’t suppose you care to share how you “…just booked some Hawaiian Airlines first class awards for their Austin – Honolulu non-stop for 40,000 miles per person each way.”
On virgin’s WEB site I’m seeing 80,000 one way.
Thanks
SkyTeam is pretty much a joke for Miles & Points collector overall. Now when you look back at Delta, SkyPesos isn’t too bad if you view it as a cash back program lol
I’m curious if this devastating devaluation is at least accompanied with actual increased award availability. Finding Delta One at 50,000 for transatlantic was really tough. I had a flight booked for this summer but had to cancel at the last moment. I guess that was my last chance to experience Delta One.
I have not found any decent Virgin/Delta Europe redemptions in many years. More than 10. Maybe its me. There was a time when you could book Delta awards on Virgin and avoid the fuel surcharges. The points would be more on Delta, but usually the math worked for me using the extra points.
Here comes little Timmy Dunny to tell how good this is.
Maybe I’m off, but doesn’t this now mimic the horrid BA “surcharges” for using avios to/from LHR? Essentially the program pricing is similar to buying a cheap economy ticket and upgrading with a lot of miles, though it is sold as the opposite.
The sweet spots are rapidly disappearing. Virgin points are now skypesos.
I don’t know why anyone invests in a currency where the the bank can, and does, frequently just steal the value of your money. It’s a casino game these days, a casino where the house makes up the rules on the fly.
While Sir Richard owns a bare majority of Virgin Atlantic, the airline is controlled and run by Delta-imposed management. So, this isn’t surprising.
“ANA premium cabin awards remain the single best use of their points, even post-devaluation.”
Sure, ANA first class USA to/from Asia through Virgin miles is a great hypothetical value. Problem is, finding a couple of first class award seats with Virgin is about as easy as finding two Cathay first class award seats through American or Alaska. And business class isn’t a whole lot better. What good is a theoretical bargain that you can’t actually use?
Booked Cancun to Santiago for only 50k points on latam business class. Comes in just under 4,000 miles, but is still an 8+ hour flight.
“Virgin Atlantic is a program not to be trusted.”
Name me a program that can be trusted today. Hyatt, maybe. But they broke promises about limitations on peak pricing and category increases.
Broader question and comment – is the miles and points game finally over? The whole thing is a mess. At best there are some spots of value but overall it’s a “pay for your seat” approach. I am AA ConciergeKey and even that is mid at best. Lounge access and irregular ops coverage are the only remaining perks – using miles for premium travel is a joke.
What has been overlooked and unnoticed has been Virgin’s devaluation of ITA flights as well- even though they are edge cases, booking-wise. 75k miles from MIA-FCO in J is now 99k. I reluctantly booked because of a 25% transfer bonus and because it was a 339.
@JS: I don’t either. I value my airline miles at $0. Don’t factor them in at all when making purchases.
Status for me is much more better customer service, flexible ticketing, free bags (I use them), etc.
What a bunch of whiners!
Has anyone noticed how much the cost of fuel, new aircraft, employees etc. has gone up the last several years?
Not to mention how much the airlines lost during the pandemic. Zillions!
VA rates for biz class awards to/from South Asia used to be around 140K VA miles on their site, while Delta was charging 495K -595K Skypesos for the same flight/seat if booked through Delta.
140 K miles isn’t a bargain for a so-so biz class seat, but certainly vastly better than math challenged Tim Dunn’s ‘reasonable’ Delta 595K redemptions
@DT
My last 3 long haul international flights have been first class, paid for by miles.
My last 4 domestic flights have been very low end economy, with seat selection 1-2 times.
So I disagree the miles and points game is over. But Delta points are useless.
@Jon. Good for you. I hope you got the flights to places and dates you wanted. Obviously miles have value. At some redemption point, for some destinations and some dates, there will always be options. But I don’t want to do the mad 4 segment hops on off season and pay crazy taxes. This was not the case a few years back and the mass devaluation of miles and excess supply through credit cards has led to this unsustainable situation. If ConciergeKey has difficulty with redemptions on Oneworld – not much hope for others. This is the key problem. Status for better service lounges and irrops – that’s the only benefit worth chasing.
The more sweet points in redemption charts are publicised, the more popular they are. Inevitably they go up in price! It’s part of the game.
@Richard B Ranson – I wrote about all the sweet spots in Virgin’s program more than a decade ago, the devaluations have more to do with the timing of airline contracts which adjust a program’s costs
Wow! Dana Andrews must be an employee or spouse! An apologist for bad airlines at least. She must not pay for her travel with her own, hard earned money like US.
She is happy that we PAY for one thing, but go to pick it up and they give us a cheaper product AND we OWE more to top of it off! She thinks WE SHOULDN’T COMPLAIN??? What is broken?
What a JOKE! We paid and earned this with OUR MONEY. It was not FREE. How some people have been groomed into just accepting whatever a company does is SAD.
@Gary Leff over a decade ago, really! Then quit your whining, had a good run- prices go up, suck it up.