Tag Archives for virgin atlantic.
I wrote on Friday that Virgin Atlantic was expected to launch Austin – London Heathrow as its new U.S. route. Virgin is part of the joint venture across the Atlantic with Delta and Air France KLM. This is now confirmed. But they’ll be at a huge competitive disadvantage relative to British Airways on the route.
After receiving around $10 billion in direct payments from taxpayers, the airline is spreading its cash around the world. Delta is investing $1.2 billion in three airlines where it’s held an equity stake:
Before the pandemic Delta saw the U.S. market as mature and limited, but it had opportunities for growth around the world. Instead of focusing on alliances, it took stakes in foreign carriers to give them tighter control and greater participation in upside.
The JFK Clubhouse is a gorgeous space with great tarmac views. Here’s the menu to see whether you’ll eat and drink your way to $49 (the lounge has showers, too). A bottle of Lanson Black Label champagne will cover the cost of admittance, by the way.
The introduction of ‘Virgin Red’ branding and add-ons to Virgin Flying Club means that Virgin’s miles can be used in new ways – like spending 200 miles for a sausage roll. At least they admit it’s not a good deal,
The single best use of Virgin Atlantic miles is business and first class redemptions on Japanese carrier ANA. Indeed, it may be the best value award in the world. And it’s just become more flexible.
On New Years Day Virgin Atlantic updated its award pricing for travel on Delta. One of the few bright spots in Virgin’s Flying Club program was inexpensive Delta awards, so this was disappointing in the extreme. Prices went up in some cases more than 100%, largely focused on longer distance premium cabin awards.
Then, two days later, their spokespeople started saying that transatlantic awards wouldn’t go up as much as they had published and there would be an update. They’ve now said non-stop transatlantic awards will revert to their earlier pricing, but flying Delta anywhere else in the world or with connections will be a lot more expensive than it was in 2020 in many cases.
They have a diversity of partners that can be strategically useful in niche cases. And where they’re useful the value is extraordinary.
Virgin Atlantic says they are planning to make another no-notice change to their award pricing for travel on Delta, it’s expected to come in a matter of days, and they don’t even know what it is yet. That’s perhaps the worst possible practice in loyalty.
In general Virgin Atlantic has some of the least valuable miles but their points are ubiquitous since they’re a transfer partner of Chase, Ameriacn Express, and Citibank. They do have real sweet spots. My favorite is using their miles for ANA first class round trip to Tokyo for just 120,000 miles.
Perhaps their most useful redemption was award travel on Delta. Not anymore. And without any notice, boom, during the pandemic.
Virgin Atlantic is running a fantastic business class sale from the UK at $1334 roundtrip on pretty much any route. Delta codeshares on Virgin may be even cheaper (from US$1083).
And incredibly Virgin Atlantic is running 50% off of award travel, too. That’s important because with taxes and fuel surcharges a roundtrip award ticket can still, at normal pricing, cost almost as much as a paid business class ticket under this sale.
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 »
