Book Air France & KLM with Virgin points

Thanks to Virgin Atlantic’s partnership with Air France and KLM, it’s possible to book Air France and KLM flights with Virgin points. This is great because it dramatically increases options for flying cheaply between the US and Europe, within Europe, and between Europe and many other destinations.

Virgin Atlantic has reasonable award rates and their points are incredibly easy to get. In fact, you probably already have access to Virgin points indirectly. All major transferable points programs transfer one to one to Virgin Atlantic and/or Virgin Red. And transfer bonuses are common. See our Current Transfer Bonuses page for up-to-date information about which transfer bonuses are currently available and which ones have been available in the past.

Virgin Atlantic also has reasonably low award change and cancellation fees. Virgin Atlantic charges $50 per passenger. Even better, on awards that incur less than $50 in taxes and fees to book, you’ll lose those fees, but you won’t have to pay $50 to cancel and get your miles back.

Step by Step Guide to Finding Awards Online

Here’s how to find Air France and KLM flights bookable with Virgin Atlantic points:

Enter your search criteria

Browse to virginatlantic.com and enter your origin and destination airports; select “round trip” or “one way” (I recommend booking one-way awards); select your travel dates, and the number of passengers.

Set advanced search criteria

Click the “Advanced search” link, then select “Miles” under “How Are You Looking To Pay?”  Then choose whether to search for Economy, Premium, or Upper Class seats. At the time of this writing, you can book Air France Premium Economy with Virgin Atlantic points, but not with Delta or KLM. With any of the three airlines, you can book economy or business class (Upper Class).

Find available award days

Not all flights and seats are available to partners, so there may be days with no seats available at all. Or, if you’re lucky, you may find the exact flights you need.  Most often you’ll find a week long calendar view:

Switch to 5-week view

If your initial search doesn’t reveal useful results, switch to the full 5 week calendar view.  Click “Calendar view” from the one-week result screen, to get to something like this:

If needed, use the filter drop-down to filter to only direct flights.

Select and (try to) book your flight

Once you find a date that has award availability, click the link within that date to see available flights. Here’s an example showing Air France flights from Atlanta to Paris:

Dealing with online bugs and limitations

“Sorry, there are no longer seats available on your chosen flight. Please try another search”

There is an exasperating bug when trying to book Air France or KLM flights online with Virgin points. Frequently, after entering your passenger and credit card information, the system will claim that there are no longer seats available. The work-around is to do an online chat to book the flight. Full details can be found here: Solved — Problem booking Air France/KLM with Virgin points.

Pay with Points is grayed out

If the website only lets you choose to show 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.

Destination doesn’t auto-complete

This problem used to happen regularly, but it seems to be mostly fixed.  Still, if you type in your destination city and the text box doesn’t auto-complete, you have two options:

1. Type the destination into the departure airport text box and then copy and paste it into the destination box.
2. Use the map icon to find your destination from a drop-down list.

Airport not found

Some foreign airports aren’t loaded into the Virgin Atlantic system. If you want to book flights to one of these airports, it can’t be done online. You’ll have to contact Virgin Atlantic to book those flights.

Contact Virgin Atlantic to confirm and book

Before moving points from a transferable points program to Virgin Atlantic, I recommend contacting Virgin Atlantic Flying Club to confirm that the award you want is really available and to confirm what they’ll charge.

Below you’ll find Virgin Atlantic Flying Club’s contact information.  :

Customer Centre: +1 800 862 8621
Reservations, Customer Service and Flying Club
Opening hours: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Award Charts

You can find Virgin Atlantic Flying Club partner information here. The partners listed as “Earn and Spend” are those where you can use Virgin Atlantic miles to book awards on the partner airline.

Standard vs Peak

Virgin Atlantic offers different award prices depending on whether you fly during standard or peak dates. Check Virgin Atlantic’s website for current standard and off-peak dates.

Short Haul

When flying Air France or KLM within Europe, the following short haul pricing applies.  It’s great to see that you can fly one-way for as few as 4,000 miles (4,500 Peak):

North & Central America to/from Europe

Virgin Atlantic’s award charts for Air France and KLM are extensive.  For those looking to fly between North or Central America and Europe, I pulled out the relevant award prices.  Note that you can book Premium Economy on Air France flights, but not KLM.

The following are one-way prices:

Complete award charts can be found towards the end of this post.

Award Taxes & Fees

Fuel surcharges are imposed along with other standard fees (such as airport departure fees). Fortunately, these fees are far lower than what Virgin Atlantic charges for flights to and from London.

Through a number of award searches I found the following fees between the US and Europe.  Note the the actual fees will vary depending upon the route you fly.  Also note that I’ve estimated some of the fees based on current Euro to US Dollar exchange rates…

Here are a few award results showing these fees:

Complete Zone Based Award Charts

The following are the complete zone based award prices for using Virgin Atlantic miles to fly Air France and KLM.  All prices are one-way.  Note that Premium Economy awards are not available on KLM.

Zones: 1) Western and Central Europe; 2) Eastern Europe and North Africa; 3) Middle East and Russia; 4) Central Africa; 5) Southern Africa, Indian Ocean and Indian Subcontinent; 6) East Coast North America & Caribbean; 7) West & Central North America and Central America; 8) South America; 9) Far Eastern Asia and Eastern Russia; 10) Oceania;

Zone Definitions

Flights that don’t qualify for short haul pricing are priced based on zone to zone award prices.  Virgin Atlantic defines the following award zones for Air France and KLM flights:

• Zone 1 (Western and Central Europe) includes:
  UK, Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Denmark, Balearic Islands, Finland, Italy, Malta, Norway and Sweden.
• Zone 2 (Eastern Europe and North Africa) includes:
  Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Canary Islands, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Libya, Lithuania, Latvia, Macedonia, Madeira, Moldavia, Morocco, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, West Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Tunisia, Ukraine, Montenegro, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. West Russia includes the following Federal Districts – Central Federal District, North-western Federal District, Volga Federal District, Southern Federal District and North Caucasian Federal District.
• Zone 3 (Middle East and Russia) includes:
  Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Central Russia, Egypt, UAE, Georgia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Syria, Qatar, Uzbekistan and Djibouti.  Central Russia to include the following Federal Districts – Urais Federal District and Siberian Federal District.
• Zone 4 (Central Africa) includes:
  Benin, Burkina, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Uganda, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Sudan, Republic of South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Chad, Zambia and Sierra Leone.
• Zone 5 (Southern Africa, Indian Ocean and Indian Subcontinent) includes:
  Angola, South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, Rodrigues, Reunion Island, Seychelles, Mayotte, Comoros, Madagascar, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
• Zone 6 (East Coast North America & Caribbean) includes:
  East Coast USA, East Canada, Antigua, Barbados, Bahamas, Cuba, Bermuda, Dominican Republic, French Guyana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Caiman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Martinique, Haiti, Porto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago and Saint Marteen. Includes the following US states – Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Washington D.C., West Virginia, Virginia, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida.  Includes the following Canadian provinces – Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island
• Zone 7 (West & Central North America and Central America) includes:
  Central & West USA, Hawaii, Central & West Canada, Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama and Nicaragua.  Includes the following US states – Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, California, Hawaii and Alaska.  Includes the following Canadian provinces – Nunavut, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Northwest Territories, British Colombia and Yukon.
• Zone 8 (South America) includes:
  Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay.
• Zone 9 (Far Eastern Asia and Eastern Russia) includes:
  China, South Korea, Japan, Mongolia, East Russia (& Siberia), Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Laos, Macau, Myanmar, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.  Eastern Russia to include the following Federal Districts – Far Eastern Federal District.
• Zone 10 (Oceania) includes:
  Australia, Fiji, Guam, Marianas Islands, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, New Zealand, Palau Islands, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia and French Polynesia.

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