Thanks to Virgin Atlantic’s partnership with Air France and KLM, you can 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 its points are straightforward to get. In fact, you probably already have indirect access to Virgin points. 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.
Step-by-Step Guide to booking Air France/KLM Awards Online with Virgin Atlantic
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. Select “Search for Reward Flights” above the “Flying from” box.
Find available award days
Not all flights and seats are available to partners, so there may be days with no seats available. Or, if you’re lucky, you may find the exact flights you need. Regardless, you’ll find a week-long calendar view in addition to the date that you searched for
Select and (try to) book your flight
Once you find the flight that you want, click to see available cabins. Here’s an example showing Air France flights from Atlanta to Paris:
“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. Sometimes, after entering your passenger and credit card information, the system will claim that there are no longer seats available. The workaround 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.
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I can’t believe that 2 years later, it’s still necessary to use the “Multi-City” trick to bypass grayed-out “Points” option. Mon dieu!
I recently booked IAD-CDG. Is there a way to find your Air France confirmation number?
Pay with Miles is grayed outThe trick does not work, for example, ATL/JFK-ATH. Does expertflyer show award availability of DL flights?
Oh, that’s weird. I just tried it and you’re right. I can’t find a way to get that to work. I can’t remember if expert flyer shows Delta availability. I think so. You can also try searching on Air France but you’ll have to check day by day because the Air France award calendar doesn’t show Delta availability
I found a work-around! Switch to Multi-city, that un-grays “Points”. Select “Points”. Switch back to “One way”. Search. I’ve updated the post with this work-around
[…] Book Air France & KLM with Virgin Atlantic Miles […]
So what zone is Germany in? It’s not listed in any of the above zones that you provided. I’m seeing some weird pricing for 16k one way from the east coast
Thanks for pointing that out. I fixed the zone list. Germany is in Zone 1.
[…] on Delta. My bet is that those award prices won’t change materially any time soon. Plus, Virgin Atlantic recently added the ability to use miles on Air France and KLM. I found that Air France Premium Economy awards can be booked very cheaply with Virgin Atlantic […]
I like Air France Premium Economy, however I have never been able to find any dates/times on which I can fly it SFO-FCO using Virgin Atlantic miles. Is it because it is a popular routing? I can always find it using UR/AF points at 72,000 ow.
[…] Book Air France & KLM with Virgin Atlantic Miles […]
I thought I stumbled on a great deal using Virgin Atlantic miles: OPO – MSP, 15K+EUR43 in economy, two legs on KLM via AMS. Unfortunately errored out during booking.
I did a little more digging. This flight is available at 33.5K + $120 on Flying Blue – not the cheapest level on the calendar. It is however available on Delta at 25K + EUR169 and is the cheapest option on Delta calendar. So this brings up a few questions:
1. Why is it cheapest option on delta.com if it’s not the cheapest at KLM (both legs are KLM)?
2. If Virgin Atlantic finds this flight in Delta inventory – why is the mileage lower than Delta’s and lower than Virgin Atlantic’s own normal saver mileage from Europe to NA?
3. Why is Virgin Atlantic displayed surcharges are different from Delta’s?
That’s great that you found that departing from OPO on KLM results in such low surcharges when booked with Virgin Atlantic miles!
1. Delta’s award pricing changes regularly. They don’t publish an award chart and so they charge whatever they want. Sometimes that’s good for us and sometimes bad. In this case it looks good since Delta usually charges at least 30K for an economy transatlantic flight.
2. Virgin Atlantic has separate award charts for Air France & KLM than they do for their own flights and different from booking Delta flights as well. For flights on AF/KLM to central US, they charge 15K miles.
3. I don’t know why each of these airlines charge different surcharges for the same routes, but they do. That’s common. You’ll often see that with other alliances as well.
[…] Virgin Atlantic Miles Just Got More Valuable!: Virgin Atlantic just partnered with Air France and KLM. What does that mean? Virgin Atlantic has good award rates and this opens up more options for award flights to Europe. […]
That YQ is a real ouch……
And is downplayed. The YQ is what kills all of these. Of course, bloggers gotta push credit cards…
You don’t know our blog well if you think that we post content for the purpose of pushing credit cards. If that practice bothers you (and it should), then consider subscribing to Frequent Miler. The content of our posts is never motivated by credit card sales. And we always publish the best public credit card offers even if it means (and it often does) that we won’t get a commission for that offer.
In the case of this post, I wrote about the issue with high taxes and pointed out that Premium Economy seems to be the sweet spot with relatively low fees and very low mileage requirements.
Just remember before u book the French love to go on strike . Almost cost me a bundle.
CHEERs
The Virgin Atlantic online search has had more destinations added to it as well. For example, I’ve been looking at a Delta ATL to EZE flight, Argentina was never an option in online searches before with VA’s website (you had to use KLM to search & then call in to VA), now it’s there.
Yes they have! Thanks for pointing this out. I wonder if they now cover ALL airports that Delta, KLM, and Air France fly to?
If not all then very close to it. There are some small domestic airports with like one or two Delta flights per day loaded in. All the major German airports have been added.
Can confirm it’s not. Air France flies to Male, but MLE doesn’t come up on VS.
Good to know. Thanks!
It’s a shame the Virgin website is so awful to find awards on
Another great benefit of this is the ability to add a connection with no worry about connection time/positioning to a Delta redemption across the Atlantic.
Maybe niche but I live near Indianapolis and our only European route is to CDG on Delta. I can now book 1 award to go to almost anywhere in Europe for cheaper and more convenient then a lot of Star Alliance or Oneworld awards that always need a domestic connection for me.
I checked online and I can book IND to MUN with a connection in CDG and it adds the short haul AF fare to single award.
1 caveat is it only adds business class seat online. I’m sure you could call in and get economy ticket for short leg at cheaper price. Gets me an extra day in actual destination because I dont have to overnight in Paris (first world problems having to spend an extra day in Paris I know but want to maximize vacation days)
Excellent info, thanks for the post! Do you know if these awards show up yet in Juicy Miles, Award Nexus, Expert Flyer, etc?
Great & very useful information.