Intercontinental for fewer miles than domestic travel: Stretching Virgin Atlantic and Avianca Lifemiles dynamic pricing

I am officially getting excited about our coming 100K Vacay team challenge, but today’s post isn’t about my 100K Vacay trip. Rather, during my planning phases for the coming trip, I have been surprised by the repeated number of times that dynamic award pricing on Virgin Atlantic and Avianca Lifemiles produced opportunities for some really compelling redemption opportunities. It surprised me that I found quite a bit of availability to fly very long distances on Virgin Atlantic or Avianca for fewer miles than you might expect to redeem for a domestic US award ticket.

Incredible Virgin Atlantic redemptions

The program that probably wowed me the most as we prepped for this competition is Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. I mostly ignore Virgin these days since many of the sweetest spots they offered have soured; Delta one to/from Europe now has high surcharges, ANA awards have increased in price, and while Air France Premium Economy redemptions looked great on paper, I never see them available via Virgin Atlantic.

I’ll admit that I have long ignored the idea of redeeming Virgin Atlantic miles to fly on Virgin Atlantic itself, thanks to a combination of Virgin Atlantic’s generally high surcharges and relatively limited route network. Essentially, I don’t want to connect via London in a premium cabin because the fees are too high and they don’t fly to enough places from which I want to get to London. High(ish) surcharges, even for an economy class award, pushed those redemptions off my radar since there are so many economy class airfare deals around the world (follow handles like Secret Flying and The Flight Deal for a while and you’ll see that if you are destination-ambivalent, there is almost always a sale to go somewhere for relatively cheap).

However, planning for this trip has opened my eyes a bit to some of the great deals you can find on Virgin Atlantic ever since their program went dynamic.

Economy class to London for 6K and about $110

Ever since Virgin adopted a dynamic award chart, they have begun charging as few as 6,000 points one-way for economy class redemptions from the East Coast of the United States to London.

I had mostly ignored those redemptions because of the now-$110 in taxes & fees. That is largely due to being based in New York state, from which inexpensive flights to London are not exactly a rarity.

Paying both $110 and 6,000 miles for a route that can often be had for under $150 one-way just didn’t feel exciting to me.

However, if you’re starting from a city like Miami or Atlanta, those 6K awards start to look a bit more appealing as compared to cash rates if you value flying nonstop over buying a cheap flight to New York or Boston, followed by a cheap flight to London.

Premium economy to London in relative abundance from 10.5K and ~$238

Premium economy redemptions start to look a bit more exciting when you can find them at the lowest levels. A recent search through Seats.aero popped up more than 100 flights with Premium Economy award space to Europe for 10,500 miles and less than $240 one-way.

Despite the increased cash outlay, this is still a potentially solid value in comparison to revenue fares, which often start around $1500 round trip from New York (and more from other cities).

That said,  the round-trip price may not be a good comparison since a leg from Europe to the United States comes with far more in taxes (around $500 one way!). I’d probably consider this for the trip to Europe, but not necessarily the way back.

Having flown Virgin Atlantic’s economy class to London during last year’s Million Mile Madness, I would welcome some additional comfort and space for just a few thousand miles more than the cost of an economy class ticket.

In fact, during my planning stages for 100K Vacay, I momentarily booked a Virgin Atlantic Premium Economy class flight to London. Dishoom is one of my favorite restaurants, and I had their Chicken Ruby in mind. However, I ended up cancelling that award, much to the dismay of my taste buds.

Virgin Atlantic economy class far afield for very few miles

Perhaps even more amazing to me was the chance to continue beyond London for what can sometimes be pretty incredible prices in the economy class cabin.

For instance, as seen in this screen shot from Award Tool, check out a few US airports to Johannesburg for just 13,500 miles and $238.

With a good transfer bonus, you’d pay fewer than 11,000 miles and $238 for an economy class ticket to get far away from home. Considering the fact that most programs charge around 30,000 miles for a one-way economy class ticket to Europe, the tickets to South Africa seem like a great bargain.

That said, you can get to India for even fewer miles. I saw numerous dates with seats from New York to Bengaluru for just 12,000 miles and about $238 one way. Premium economy starts at 21K and $469 during these dates.

Of course, Bengaluru was on my mind because of a podcast listener tip from a recent Giant Mailbag. Virgin Atlantic sometimes has stellar business class deals on long flights from India to London. The 23K and $211.94 ten-hour business class flight below wasn’t even the best deal I saw (and also notice premium economy at 10.5K and $112.84 here, meanwhile economy class is 150K).

To be clear, deals like those aren’t available all the time, but I found more availability at reasonable rates, particularly in economy and premium economy class, than I’d have otherwise expected.

Avianca LifeMiles deals to South America

Avianca LifeMiles is most often talked about in the context of Star Alliance flights to/from Europe or perhaps Asia (particularly mixed-cabin awards). However, if you’re looking to fly to South America in economy class, Avianca can get you there for about the price of a domestic economy class ticket within the US. Prices to Colombia and Peru start under 9K or 12K miles each way, respectively (before the 10% discount for Lifemiles+ subscribers).

Getting all the way to Santiago doesn’t cost much more at fewer than 14,000 miles one way (or fewer than 13K as a Lifemiles+ subscriber).

Once again, what impressed me most with these deals was the ability to travel really far for about the cost of a domestic economy class award ticket. Avianca offers some great deals for travel on their own flights.

If you fly to a place like Santiago, there are some good deals you can get flying around South America on the cheap. Unfortunately, Alaska’s partnership with LATAM ends on 10/1/25 as they had excellent pricing for those looking to get to the far southern reaches of Chile.

I certainly wasn’t going to copy our Party of 5 route for this trip, but if you want to get from Santiago to Buenos Aires, there are a number of inexpensive ways to do that, also.

Using Avianca Lifemiles to get to Santiago could provide for an excellent jumping-off point to get to South America and then combine with redemptions such as those above for multiple stops on your tour.

Bottom line

I don’t generally focus much on economy class award redemption, in large part due to the fact that it doesn’t always seem like a compelling deal versus buying a cash ticket (though it obviously can be a good deal in some cases). Seeing some of the surprisingly low award pricing offered by Avianca Lifemiles and Virgin Atlantic makes me wonder whether dynamic pricing offers some advantage over zone-based since zone-based award charts have the limitation of needing to set a price that works for a broad number of departure points. I still prefer award charts to dynamically-priced awards overall, but I am glad to see that there certainly could be some compelling economy and premium economy class opportunities with decent availability via both Virgin Atlantic and Avianca Lifemiles.

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