Virgin Atlantic is making major changes to their frequent flyer program in one month but they refuse to give us the details of those changes. All they will tell us is that,
- Premium cabin tickets will earn more points – “up to” 50% more for business class and 75% for premium economy.
- Points will be able to be used for any seat, basically as a currency to pay for tickets (“the price of seats will vary in line with demand, in a similar way to standard tickets”).
- While “[a] new Saver reward seat product will be launched for seats priced at or below today’s prices” we don’t know much about availability – it’ll be “available across thousands of flights” but thousands over what time period?
- The value of credit card vouchers will be capped as follows: “up to a maximum of 75k points for Flying Club Red tier members, or 150k points for Flying Club Silver or Gold tier members based on status at the time of voucher redemption” with customers required to top off towards more expensive redemptions.
Credit: God Save the Points
Virgin has had a low value program for as long as I can remember. It did have sweet spots, which I outlined a decade ago and updated in 2021. They’ve gradually been eroded.
Changes to the program have usually been made without any notice, making it both a low value and untrustworthy program. Here Virgin clearly knows the changes but still won’t share them -just that they are happening October 30. None of which should be surprising since they are 49%-owned by Delta and operated as a vassal of Atlanta.
So now they have decided they offer too much value and will move to dynamic pricing – something never done to benefit the consumer and never on net benefits the member. They’ll gravitate towards more average value, making pockets of great value (the times you want to use your points) far less common if available at all, though perhaps these changes won’t affect partner redemptions at all.
Some awards during low price off peak periods will get cheaper but mileage costs go up when people actually want to travel using points as a low value currency towards ticket purchase. And the savings for off-peak times (which you can do without dynamic pricings, a la British Airways) aren’t super relevant because the major cost of awards is the surcharges anyway.
I guess I am ok with my own Virgin stash since they were transferred from Bilt at 1:2.5 but even there I am regretful.
Look I hate the fact I can’t get award tickets for the redemption levels of years ago (started in mid 80s) but these are businesses, not charities. They are accountable to their bottom line and shareholders. I’m sure each of these “devaluations” has been extensively modeled with respect to their bottom line impact and it has been determined they are positive.
Understand that people who frequent these blogs (myself included) are a very small percentage of airline passengers so we don’t factor into decisions like this.
Your only options are quit flying or change preferred airlines but then that airline will do the exact same thing. I’m retired w lifetime status on AA, DL and UA but usually fly foreign carriers internationally so I’m a true free agent as everyone should be. Understand any reference to “loyalty”by an airline means your loyalty to them. Everything else is, and always has been, marketing spin.
@ Gary — Great. Last speculative tranfers I EVER make for a bonus. I really have no time/energy for trying to use up oints to avoid a devaluation. Sigh.
@ Gary — Wanna bet all the lowest price ever saver seats are all in economy. No thank you.
Bastian really seems to hate for engaged loyalty members to get good value for that loyalty.
“So now they have decided they offer too much value and will move to dynamic pricing” should be changed to:
“Ed has decided Delta’s SkyTeam and JV partners offer much more value” compared to SkyMiles and has this decided to devalue Virgin’s program, too.
Ed also insists that it’s not his fault…
Vassals of Atlanta is a catchy title for a reality TV show.
@AC Just because almost all aspects of society these days are being devalued to screw people over so the “shareholders” can can maker more money, doesn’t make it right. Yes, capitalism allows and even encourages raising prices for no reason other than simply to make more profit (ie most of the increased costs in the recent inflationary period were due to price gouging), these points were acquired based on an assumption of value, and changing that value after the fact isn’t right. Particularly in industries that are subsidized or get bail-outs when they get into trouble.
Is there an economist in the house? If the airlines eliminated “loyalty programs” outright, what would the reduced overhead do to airfares?
How much advice were Virgin Atlantic given by Delta and how much more of a copy of SkyMiles should we expect Virgin Flying Club to be?
I have earned a VA point in at least 4 years for a reason… and I’ve been sitting on near 200k and never used. I hope they add some other uses for these points that have decent value…
I have some very good niche use for Virgin Atlantic miles — it’s for economy class travels — but the problem is that each and every devaluation by an airline program increases the chances that the programs become a lot less useful for me.
Is this change going to be for Virgin flights or includes partner award flights too?