In recent days, Virgin Atlantic has implemented the changes announced in September and which many feared could be yet another devaluation, and instead the Flying Club switched to dynamic pricing of award tickets, but there wasn’t the much feared blow.
Until this change, Virgin Atlantic guaranteed a minimum number of award seats on each flight, but now this certainty no longer exists because the logic of the award seats changes.
How Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club has changed
If I had to explain the change made by VS I would summarize it as follows: “From the fixed table and fixed availability model, to the same system used by Flying Blue with prices that vary based on the filling rate”
Virtually every seat on every Virgin Atlantic flight is now bookable with Virgin pointsin practice you can spend even less than before or book (with points) even the last seat on board and shell out hundreds of thousands of Virgin Points. While some award seats are now much cheaper, others are significantly more expensive
Saver seats and less taxes in low season
I have always written that the taxes and surcharges for flying with Virgin (as with BA) were crazy, the last ticket I redeemed in upper class had cost me over 620 pounds plus points, a real drain. Now the music changes.
In the low season it is possible to fly from London to New York with just 29 thousand Flying Club points (practically the price that was bought in the sales), but spending around £150 less.
Not to mention those who are content to travel in economy. Prices for a London/New York start at 6,000 miles plus tax. Without a doubt, it is the lowest price (in points) charged by any loyalty program in the world. Taxes and surcharges are less than half compared to business, but still high compared to those of Air France and KLM which ask for about half the cash on the same route.
However, the tax factor does not only depend on the company, the largest share of taxes in the UK are imposed by the government and the airportas can be seen, for those traveling in the opposite direction the cost in miles is identical, but the taxes are reduced by 1/4.
Of course, not all that glitters is gold
The downside is that, with guaranteed seats disappearing, if you want to travel in high season there will be no certainty of finding seats at the previous prices, but for us Italians it shouldn’t be a serious damage unless we want to fly at Christmas or Easter as school holidays and national holidays do not coincide with those of England.
Dynamic pricing means that the same flight can cost double or triple compared to the same flight the following day.
Thanks to the calendar it is always possible to search for the lowest price within 30 days. By doing so you can also perceive the difference with the previous situation where there would have been no availability, today it is, but at a price even 6 times higher than the minimum.
In conclusion
For many this news is a devaluation, for me, however, it is a notable improvement. Fewer taxes and cheaper tickets, the system is the same as Air France KLM and in my opinion it is the best on the market, of course there are also those who burn 1M points for a Paris/New York, but it means that they have many points and who has no idea how to spend it, for me, however, the real cool thing is to fly from the USA to Europe with 6K miles and $70 in supplements.
It’s just a shame that in Italy accumulating points from the Virgin Atlantic program is complicated even if it is always possible to use this card when flying with ITA and accumulate Flying Club points.
