The Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership program has devalued Delta One business-class redemptions to and from Europe with out discover, however this transfer will unlikely influence many members.
Delta One awards booked by means of Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership on most dates will nonetheless value 47,500 Virgin factors from the East Coast and central U.S. to Europe and 67,500 Virgin factors from the West Coast to Europe.
Nonetheless, Virgin Atlantic has now applied peak award pricing, growing awards to 57,500 factors from the East Coast and central U.S. and 77,500 factors from the West Coast to Europe (excluding flights to and from the U.Ok. which might be already topic to this peak and off-peak pricing).
Maintain studying to search out out extra about Virgin’s newest devaluation of Delta One award flights.
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Virgin Flying Membership will increase Delta One award costs, provides huge surcharge
When you’re seeking to guide Delta One tickets by means of Virgin Atlantic, pay attention to the height and off-peak dates.
Peak dates for 2024 and early 2025 are:
- Jan. 1-3, 2024
- March 22-April 15, 2024
- June 16-Sept. 2, 2024
- Oct. 25-Nov. 5, 2024
- Dec. 7, 2024-Jan. 5, 2025
Including peak dates with a value enhance of 10,000 miles for a business-class ticket to pick out locations inside a single area isn’t an unreasonable devaluation and remains to be a aggressive redemption value throughout the Atlantic.
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What’s eyebrow-raising is that Virgin is now imposing a big provider surcharge, with whole charges, taxes and surcharges including as much as over $1,000 per particular person every method in enterprise class.
Due to this fact, now you can anticipate to pay over $2,000 in charges, taxes and surcharges for a round-trip business-class flight on Delta booked with Virgin factors. That is proper in keeping with what Virgin imposes on Flying Membership redemptions it operates itself. Earlier than the devaluation, one-way Delta One flights to mainland Europe from the U.S. value prospects simply $5.60 in taxes and charges.
This extra surcharge appears to solely have an effect on business-class tickets, as economic system award seats nonetheless don’t have a surcharge and could be booked for $5.60 in taxes and charges.
If you wish to guide a Delta One flight by means of the Delta SkyMiles program, which doesn’t cost any surcharges, you’ll be able to readily discover business-class availability to Europe. You may anticipate to pay as much as 375,000 SkyMiles per particular person, per flight.
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Why will this devaluation not influence most Flying Membership members?
Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership is a switch companion of all main transferable bank card currencies and sometimes presents switch bonuses and award flight promotions. Thus, there are some nice offers to be discovered when utilizing Virgin factors to fly from the U.S. to Europe. For instance, I flew from New York to London in April for simply 5,000 Virgin factors.
However relating to discovering Delta One award availability on Virgin, award flights have been nonexistent.
I’ve repeatedly monitored Delta One availability utilizing Virgin factors for flights throughout the Atlantic over the previous six months. There have been, at most, a handful of dates accessible throughout the complete 12-month schedule, with most availability from New York’s John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport (JFK) to Iceland’s Keflavik Airport (KEF), a flight of simply 5 1/2 hours.
This yr, the scarce availability to the U.Ok. and mainland Europe has been totally on (tremendous) off-peak dates, such because the useless of winter when you should not have any downside discovering availability on different carriers, particularly in case you have transferable bank card factors.
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For instance, one of many solely choices I discovered throughout my seek for Delta One availability to Europe over the subsequent 12 months is from JFK to Portugal’s Lisbon Airport (LIS). Although it should value you lower than 48,000 Virgin factors, you may pay over $1,000 in taxes, charges and surcharges.
As an alternative, if you wish to use Virgin factors to fly to Portugal in January, it can save you greater than $700 in surcharges by reserving the Air France business-class possibility.
When you want Delta fairly than Air France, you may guide this identical flight for 20,000 extra miles by means of the Air France-KLM Flying Blue program to save lots of round $1,000 in charges, taxes and surcharges.
Once more, there aren’t any modifications to the costs of Delta-operated economy-class redemptions to the U.Ok. (which stay a nice use of Virgin factors) or mainland Europe, as these are available to guide on-line. Luckily, economic system awards have been spared this new surcharge, so you’ll be able to usually anticipate to pay lower than $200 in whole for charges, taxes and surcharges when flying to Europe in Delta economic system by means of Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership.
Observe that whereas Delta prices $5.60 in taxes and charges when flying from the U.S. to Europe, there are country-imposed taxes and charges when flying from Europe to the U.S.
Sadly, Delta’s premium economic system product remains to be unavailable to guide with Virgin factors.
Backside line
Devaluations are an unlucky actuality of the factors and miles business. We suggest redeeming factors and miles quickly after incomes them fairly than stockpiling them for a wet day.
Ordinarily, including a carrier-imposed surcharge of greater than $1,000 every method with out discover could be unforgivable by Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership.
Nonetheless, the truth is that this alteration won’t have an effect on 99% of Flying Membership members, as there are nearly no Delta One flights accessible to guide with Virgin factors anyway. Within the unlikely occasion you discover a seat accessible, it should seemingly be on an off-peak date (so the brand new elevated peak pricing will not matter). To not point out, you’ll be able to in all probability guide the identical Delta flight by means of Flying Blue to save lots of lots of of {dollars}.
