Here’s a solution to a problem that I expect relatively few readers will encounter or care about. But those who have run into it have no doubt been extremely frustrated. When using Virgin Atlantic’s website to search for partner awards (e.g. you want to use Virgin Atlantic miles to fly Delta, Air France, or KLM), it seems impossible to search certain routes. The option to search for “Points” is grayed out and unclickable. Fortunately, I found an easy work-around…
If the website only lets you choose to show the price in “Money” and not “Points,” the workaround is to temporarily change to a multi-city search, pick “Points” and then return to a one-way or round-trip search.
1) Enter your desired origin and destination
Go to VirginAtlantic.com, Click “Book”. Enter the route you want to search and click “Advanced Search”. If the option to show price in points is grayed out, then proceed to step 2.
2) Switch to Multi-City & Select “Points”
Once you switch from “One way” or “Round trip” to “Multi city” the option to select Points should now be available. Select it.
3) Return to “One way” or “Round trip” and search
After selecting “Points” in the Multi-City view, you can return to your intended search and “Points” should still be selected.
Related Posts
- Best uses for Virgin Atlantic points (Sweet Spot Spotlight)
- How to book Delta flights with Virgin Atlantic miles
- Book Air France & KLM with Virgin Atlantic Miles
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I cannot find any award seats on Virgin Atlantic for Delta flights, say, SFO to MSP until September 4. Then plenty of seats after that. Plenty of space on Delta booking directly.
It looks like these are just blocked for 3 months – any idea why?
This is not the grayed out issue. The message is “Sorry, no reward flights are available for your search, some flights don’t operate every day. Try selecting flexible dates to see more availability.#101638_A”
I care on behalf of all the other people who don’t care!
I just started searching for something last week and was running into this. You’re probably right, not a lot of people care, but the few of us that do really appreciate the short article with the workaround! Thanks
Thanks! If trying to look for a Delta One itinerary, does “Upper Class” work?
Yep
Thank you so much, Greg. Apparently you read my comment. It is amazing that you found a solution to that!
Yes, both you and another reader on a different post wrote about the issue. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
The other thing that’s even easier is that you click the origin city, then click “full airport search” and then use control + f to find the airport your leaving from, and do the same for the destination, and then the points button won’t be greyed out.
Thanks, that’s a good trick too!
This was a great tip.
However, from testing it out, looks like you can do it even more quickly because you can fill out the origin the normal way (i.e. typing the airport code). Your trick with “full airport search” only needs to be done for the destination to turn on Points selection.
I like this more than the tip in the OP, but I’m glad Greg got us talking about it.
Thanks!
Now, if only you can find a way for it to return results even when there is nothing available on that exact day…
It doesn’t have to be the exact day. If there’s anything between -3 and +3 days, it will return results and then you can switch to the monthly calendar.