Tag Archives for virgin atlantic.
The Virgin Atlantic lounge at Washington Dulles uses a QR code for ordering plated meals, and that code is given only to Virgin’s own passengers – and not to guests entering the lounge via American Express or Capital One credit card – creating two levels of service for passengers who are visiting. Is that acceptable? And is there a better way to handle the economics?
Sam Bowman reports that he was flying Virgin Atlantic in economy. He reclined his seat, he says, in order “to sleep and the grown man behind me started violently shaking and kicking my seat.” After the violent passenger was told to stop, “his wife loudly declared that I was a sociopath.”
The important point to make here, aside from the obvious “don’t physically shake the seat of the person in front of you” is that a passenger whose seat reclines gets to decide whether to put that seat in the upright or reclined position, outside of takeoff and landing where the government makes the decision for them. It’s not always appropriate to recline, but the decision belongs to the passenger whose seat it is.
Two days ago there was Delta business class award space to Zurich and now there’s space from New York JFK to Amsterdam and from Salt Lake City to both Paris and Amsterdam in business class for two passengers for January through March.
Delta Air Lines is offering generous business class saver award availability on its New York JFK – Zurich flight in November. Here’s availability for four passengers using 50,000 Virgin Atlantic miles apiece to take this Delta flight.
Introducing the Thompson Vantage XL seat in 2016 was fantastic in 2016 when doors in business class was still a novelty. In 2022 it’s… okay, but something of an also-ran. The seat is tight. Not quite as tight as United’s Polaris, but certainly not spacious either. In terms of passenger space it compares unfavorably to American Airlines.
In spring 2019 Virgin Atlantic unveiled a new business class product that would debut on the airline’s new Airbus A350 aircraft. It was a leap forward compared to their existing seat, but hardly revolutionary, and lacked doors.
Now Virgin has unveiled yet another new business seat which will debut on Airbus A330s. They have 16 A330-900s on order, and 3 of them are expected to be delivered between September and the end of the year. With a narrower fuselage than he A350, their old new seat wouldn’t fit and they needed another.
Virgin Atlantic is launching two positive changes for its Flying Club frequent flyer program. They’re guaranteeing to release a minimum number of award seats when loading a flight into the schedule, and they’re allowing Gold elite members to book any seat they want that’s for sale as an award ticket by spending double miles.
Somewhat counterintuitively the introduction of double miles awards without capacity controls are actually the bigger deal here for the program, I think.
Delta business class award space between New York JFK and Frankfurt is reasonably available between May and December 7 at the saver level. You can book these seats right now for just 39,000 points each way.
Right now for travel this month and next there are dates available for $900 roundtrip business class tickets, New York JFK – London Heathrow, on Virgin Atlantic.
Virgin Atlantic award space to Tel Aviv, Israel is outstanding right now. And it can be booked for just 85,000 Delta SkyMiles. On routes like New York JFK – London – Tel Aviv it’s available for at least two passengers nearly every day through mid-December. But it’s also plentiful out of Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Orlando.
You’ll find additional availability from other cities, especially those where Virgin flies but also cities where Delta offers connections (it’s the Delta domestic flight that can be hardest to get).
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 »
