Last month Virgin Atlantic disclosed that on October 30 it’d be moving to a dynamic pricing model for award flights. That day is here and sure enough, award flights are now being charged dynamically.
Right now things are looking pretty good, with some routes seeing a reduction in not only the number of miles required for an award flight but in the total taxes and fees too.
For example, when booking economy award flights from New York to London in the past, I believe it often cost 10,000 miles + ~$150 in taxes and fees. That route is now available from only 6,000 miles + $74 one way. That’s perhaps the best value way to fly to the UK if you don’t mind flying in economy.
Virgin is being generous with the number of seats available at that price too. For example, there’s availability for at least 8 people every day of the week in mid-March.
Economy pricing is very good, but premium economy and Upper Class (i.e. business class) can be had for reasonable prices too. The premium economy pricing below isn’t great, but 29,000 miles + $255 in taxes and fees for business class is a decent price.
There are some good premium economy fares out there, but as you can see in the screenshot below, there do seem to be some glitches with pricing – in this case with economy.
Other times the pricing glitch appears for premium economy – a stark contrast to the miles requirement for Upper Class.
The cheapest award pricing is available from the east coast, but pricing from the west coast isn’t bad either. For example, Seattle to London can be had for only 9,000 miles + $80 in taxes and fees.
That search above shows some extremely high pricing for premium economy and Upper Class. That’s not always the case, but Upper Class from the west coast seems high (considering the corresponding taxes and fees) on other dates too.
If you don’t mind flying in economy to London from the west coast, there’s excellent availability too. Here’s what availability is like for 8 people in March:
Availability in the other direction is good too. Here’s what it looks like from London to JFK in April and May – lots of 6,000 mile availability in economy. Taxes and fees are higher, but a large chunk of that is due to Air Passenger Duty (£213 is ~$276). That means you could fly round trip from New York to London for 12,000 miles + ~$350. That’s not bad, but there are sometimes paid economy fares that are comparable or slightly better. What’s worth bearing in mind is that the award pricing is for Virgin Atlantic’s Economy Classic product which includes a checked bag, whereas most cheap round trip flights to the UK only include a carry-on.
At first glance, it appears that Virgin has focused the best dynamic award pricing rates on flights to/from the US. For example, there’s economy pricing from Johannesburg to London for 29,000 miles + ~$95.50 in taxes and fees.
Award pricing from the Maldives to the UK isn’t particularly amazing either, especially if you’re looking to fly business class.
Ultimately, these dynamic pricing changes for award flights appear to be pretty good for US residents looking to fly to the UK due to the reduced cost, both in terms of the number of miles required as well as the taxes and fees.
What remains to be seen is how long this lasts. It’s not too surprising that Virgin Atlantic would offer some good pricing at first in order to gain positive coverage of the changes and give people a perception of dynamic award pricing being decent value. However, with Delta owning 49% of Virgin Atlantic and their penchant for absurd dynamic awards when redeeming SkyMiles, I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing some much less generous award pricing.
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Are you joking? It’s awful. I paid 67.5k miles for a one way upper to male 6 months ago. Dynamic pricing just cost me 225k to come back. Most are showing 350k it’s insane prices
How are you still able to view a calendar of available flights using points? i cannot figure out how to do it now. No longer have “flexible date” option. Thanks
Use the Reward seat checker for flights on VS metal
When doing an award search, I checked the flexible dates box. That displayed a weekly view, then on that results page there was an option to select a monthly calendar.
There are a whole lot of dates that the pricing is worse for everything but economy. Sometimes much worse.
OTOH, I booked VS SEA to LHR for 2 for 84k + $367 vs 55k + $992 under the old chart. I’ll trade 29K Virgin Miles for $625 any day.
I noticed that Virgin’s web page for their companion seat award chart now redirects to a generic reward flight page. I wonder if companion seat awards are still available via phone booking.
https://flywith.virginatlantic.com/gh/en/flying-club/spend-points/companion-seats.html
Everything is much more expensive
What was 57.5k one way lhr to JFK in upper is now 200 give or take.
Yes you can find deals but it is the end of the gravy ride.
And I just got my virgin credit card.
This is not true. Virgin is doing a good job of paying these influencers into claiming it’s ‘a good deal’. If I was able to book a seat yesterday for 35000 miles return it MEANT that seat was available. Tell me how I’m now looking at almost 200k??? The narrative that the cheap seats are gone and now Im looking at more expensive seats to spend points on is FALSE. These were the exact SAME seats already available! Virgin have screwed up big time. I will trading my points in to a hotel stay and shutting down my account.
I’m not sure which “influencers” are being paid by Virgin Atlantic, but we’ve received a grand total of $0.00 by Virgin to write about their dynamic award pricing.
That definitely sucks that the award flights you were looking at have jumped in price by so much, but depending on the flexibility of your travel dates you could find awards from the east coast for only 12,000 miles round trip plus taxes + fees.
you may be upset about specific dates, but I was fantasy shopping for award tickets yesterday, and I saw A LOT of 35K + $200 tax tickets available. Granted, they were mostly for low-travel days like Sundays and Mondays, but there were many still available if you were able to be flexible with your dates. Yes, it sucks for people who cannot be flexible with their travel dates, but it seem that there are now some incredible deals for those of us who can be a little looser with our travel plans. I’m sorry you feel like you got screwed.
I think for people that were willing to eat $500-$1000 in fees each way for a PE or Business class ticket are worse off, as there had often been availability on Virgin. It meant that you could get business class on demand for a reasonable cash price (similar to BA flights being available much later in the schedule). But flexible people that were otherwise unwilling to pay the fees are going to be happy, as the new program at least puts flying on VS metal in play. The willingness to pay high fees as always been a power for some people to get award space.
I think you may be looking for one of the other blogs? Around here the information is accurate even when opinionated, and people who throw around spurious childish insults just look like nincompoops. No one expects inventory at great prices to stick around long, and no one really expects the great prices to last all that long either. But if FM publishes that great prices were available then those prices were available — and your inability to find them is on you, not on FM.
Asia-LHR-US pricing for Upper Class is around 700k + $1,100 towards the end of the schedule. Same flights were 105k + $550 pre-deval.
Same craziness for the LHR/LOS route. There is only *one* saver fare between LHR and Lagos and *none* between Lagos and LHR for the next year. I guess their dynamic pricing gives them the ability to now freely “choose” who to fleece!
It looks like they also raised change/cancellation fees:
Nice catch, what a bummer
4.2.2 in this link if anyone is interested: https://help.virginatlantic.com/il/en/policies/terms-and-conditions/flying-club-30-october-2024.html
Bummer. I guess it follows with the increases by Flying Blue and is similar to the policy on Aeroplan.
Is anyone else having trouble booking? Can’t even get logged in on website. Via app I can and can get to the booking but it crashes when trying to assign person to the seat everytime. Any else get through?
Forgot to mention that I tried calling and they are currently not able to book award bookings (automated message)
Yes, they’re having severe IT issues. Earlier today I was trying to book a few business class tix JFK-LHR in summer 2025 for 35k + $255 and it kept erroring out, but finally got one through. The booking is showing in my flights but when I click on “manage booking” it says “Whoops! We’re sorry, we could not find any reservation with the information you have provided.”
I also see the taxes as a pending charge on my credit card but they’ve been refunded. So I’m guessing it didn’t ticket after all. I was able to reach someone on on the phone right now to check the booking to see if it ticketed (currently on hold being transferred to flying club dept), and it sounded like an absolutely catastrophe in the background. Agents all shouting over one another, seems like a real meltdown going on over there lol
They are also having problems if you try to cancel an award. I’ve tried multiple ways in the past 24 hours, and nothing has worked to cancel a ticket.
I’m seeing Vegas to London all dates in upper 150k-450k each way. I see prem econ at 250,000
I booked two business class tickets from Copenhagen to JFK on the Airbus A330-900neo, with a 3-hour layover in LHR for 101,000 points and $743.43 in taxes and fees. That’s pretty competitive with the best fares available on Flying Blue. FYI, leaving from Copenhagen increased the miles redemption, but significantly cut down on the taxes and fees. I can’t wait to experience the Virgin Atlantic lounge in Heathrow Airport.
temper your expectations. It is a very nice lounge, yes, but it’s not really any better than the best Delta lounges state-side. Nothing truly exceptional imo unless you consider the Instagram moment areas special. Food and drink were on par with Delta lounges as well. I was somewhat underwhelmed with my whole experience. Not unhappy, but just felt like it didn’t live up to the hype. Maybe I’m just spoiled haha
I am cautious about the long term value proposition with dynamic pricing but I feel like a little more excitement short term is warranted. There are some fantastic points redemptions available with the new dynamic pricing.
I’m seeing JFK or BOS to LHR Upper Class for 35K + $255 during peak July travel season with availability for a family of 9+ (25K + $255 with the Chase transfer bonus through end of November). Even for a daytime flight on 7/21. Iberia can beat that but good luck getting more than 2 seats and those are long gone for next summer already. If you are fine flying Premium Economy you can get many dates for 16.5K + $102 (12K with transfer bonus).
If we rave regularly about Flying Blue redemptions for 50K + $200 in taxes and fess then I feel like these new Virgin redemptions are even better, certainly more than “29,000 miles + $255 in taxes and fees for business class is a decent price.”
Pretty sure that was understatement. Business for 29k + $255 is bonkers. Plus with the Chase 40% transfer bonus it’s 21k.
Yep, this is definitely better than the Flying Blue business class awards for 50k miles + fees. However, the ~$255 in taxes and fees is still pretty high as we were able to fly ROC-BOS-LHR in the summer for 45k Alaska miles + $18.20.
I agree fees are on the mid-high end of carriers. Looking at it as all-in pricing I still think this rises to the top as one of best potential options for business across the Atlantic.
For quick mental math I like to think of total flight cost as the cash surcharges & taxes plus the points cost if valued at 1cpp. Obviously points aren’t worth that on redemptions but since almost all of the major transferrable currencies can be cashed out at around 1cpp with no-to-some level of effort, it seems reasonable to view redeeming 35000 points as passing on cashing out $350 to a bank account.
With that, summer availability on the JFK/BOS – LHR route comes out to $605 in total cost (35K + $255). With the current Chase or Citi transfer bonuses that drops to $505/$525 thanks to the 40% or 30% points boost (25K/27K + $255). Off peak this goes down to $465 (21K + $255).
It seems like the main options for getting redemptions under 50K to Europe are Iberia (off-peak only), Avianca (via mixed-cabin or mispriced routes), and Alaska. Everybody else is 50K and up for normal flights and still have some level of surcharges or taxes & fees to contend with. With the frequency we’ve seen Virgin 30% or 40% transfer bonuses and that everybody transfers to them it makes these routes right at a $500 or 50K all-in price, which is there with Alaska at 45K + $18. There’s no free stopovers, but there’s also 9+ seats available on a bunch of dates and times.
Anyway just my view on this. I’ve liked my interactions booking with VS for partners before and at similar pricing I’d much rather give them first look before trying Avianca and the potential headaches that often get mentioned about their program. This is all assuming these stick around and aren’t a one time gift from VS before Delta takes the rewards helm.
Yep, when you can find that cheap Upper Class award availability, it’s definitely one of the best values across the Atlantic. I searched a handful of dates on the JFK-LHR route and only found that availability on one day. That’s not to say there isn’t more of that availability out there, but I didn’t want to rave too much about that low award cost if it’s more of the exception than the rule. If 29k miles + $255 for Upper Class turns out to be plentiful though, that would be awesome.
Very fair. A lot of bookings are getting snatched up now so we’ll see what the future holds!
The mixed itinerary Avianca sweet spot you’re referring to from JFK is dead. Disappeared after they adjusted pricing a couple months ago.
Yeah, no reason to be frustrated right now. It is clear that amazing deals are possible. A bunch of people in various forums have been complaining of dry award availability to Europe next summer. Right now, there’s just an enormous amount dumped onto the market. If you were waiting for an opportunity, here it is.
But I also agree that we should not get too excited yet. We have to see how revenue management works for this in the long term. Honestly, Virgin was a questionable deal before because of the fees. Even if you get a trickle of availability with lower fees and a lot of outrageously priced stuff, that might still be a win for us. You can always just pay the BA fees if you are in a pinch.
Yes this could be a boon to those looking for Summer 2025 right now. The only reason I haven’t dropped an AA award snagged at schedule open is it’s for a rare daytime flight East Coast to Europe, and the daytime flight prices out at 350K with Virgin on the dates I would want now that other flight and hotel awards have been booked. I could switch to overnight and the availability is there, just would rather not with the family traveling.
Long term I’m sure the program will get worse with unannounced dynamic devaluations. With partner awards still intact, some new very well priced sweet spots appearing, and what seems to be good availability, I’ll count that as a win for the time being, especially with the plethora of VS transfer bonuses.