Virgin Atlantic opens award space gates [when booked directly with Virgin points]

Virgin Atlantic recently vowed to make at least 12 award seats available on every flight: 8 economy seats, 2 premium economy seats, and 2 business class seats (they call these Upper Class seats).  In this overheated travel economy, that’s an amazing step to take.  That means that even if they expect to easily sell every available seat on the plane, they’ll reserve at least 12 seats for frequent flyers.  Amazing.

Update: It appears that Virgin Atlantic is no longer releasing their extra award space to partners.  When I originally researched this, I found that Virgin Atlantic award space booked through Delta or Air France closely matched what I saw on Virgin Atlantic’s own website.  Now, unfortunately, very few of those seats appear to be available to partners.

While I’ll admit that I didn’t check award availability before this change, I’m sure it was not nearly as good as it is now.  Take a look below at this award availability calendar from SeatSpy.  The red circles, even the faded ones, in the calendar below show days in which there are business class awards available for at least 2 adults for flights between JFK and London Heathrow.  Nearly every day is available through the end of the schedule!

Virgin Atlantic charges a reasonable number of points for these flights.  The problem is that they also levy very large surcharges.

As you can see above, round trip business class from New York to London during peak dates results in a price of only 115,000 points (57,500 each way).  That’s excellent for an award that’s nearly always available.  Unfortunately, the ticket also requires paying $2,057 in fees!  $1,700 of this is from carrier imposed surcharges (often known as “fuel surcharges”).  That’s awful.  That’s like British Airways awful.  But unlike British Airways, you can get around these high surcharges by booking flights through a partner program.

With either Virgin Atlantic or British Airways, you can reduce surcharges a bit by booking two one-way awards instead of a round-trip, but it’s not a panacea.  Virgin Atlantic charges $875 in fees for business class from New York to London, plus 621 GBP ($756) for the return from London to New York.  Altogether, you’ll still pay an outrageous amount: $1631 in fees.

Delta Ain’t the Answer

By booking Virgin Atlantic flights with Delta miles, you’ll pay only the taxes and fees without the carrier imposed surcharges.  Unfortunately, you’ll also pay a fortune in SkyMiles.  Virgin Atlantic’s round trip business class from New York to London costs a whopping 390,000 SkyMiles, but only $317.57 in fees:

390,000 miles is an absurdly high price to pay for this flight.  Moving on…

Air France / KLM Flying Blue to the Rescue

For Virgin Atlantic flights, Flying Blue charges slightly more miles than Virgin Atlantic, but far fewer than Delta.  Similarly, they charge higher fees than Delta, but far less than Virgin Atlantic.  Air France / KLM Flying Blue offers a great compromise.

Update: It appears that Virgin Atlantic is no longer releasing their extra award space to partners.  When I originally researched this, I found that Virgin Atlantic award space booked through Delta or Air France closely matched what I saw on Virgin Atlantic’s own website.  Now, unfortunately, very few of those seats appear to be available to partners.

As you can see above, Flying Blue charges 112,000 miles for the same round trip itinerary where Delta wants 390,000 miles.  And while $702 in fees isn’t cheap, it’s an absolute bargain compared to Virgin’s $2,057 (or $1,631 when booked as two separate awards).

Let’s look at the same flights booked as one-way awards through Air France’s website.  New York to London is widely available for only 56,000 miles plus $200 in fees.  That’s a great price:

It’s the return flight from London that’s the killer: 56,000 miles +$522. This is largely due to the UK’s departure taxes.

There’s a work-around if you don’t mind flying home from Paris or Amsterdam.  By flying from Paris to New York via London, you can reduce the fees to $356, but you’ll pay 75,000 miles rather than 56,000.  I don’t think it’s worth paying an extra 19,000 miles in order to save $165:

Similarly, you can fly back from Amsterdam with even lower fees, but with even more miles: 84,500 miles + $299.  Again, I don’t think it’s worth paying that many more miles for these cash savings:

The best option for the return flight is to forget about flying Virgin Atlantic and to try to find flights on another carrier that doesn’t depart from London.  For example, if you can find Air France’s own business class seats available at saver level, you may pay less in both miles and taxes.  Here’s a flight that costs 57,500 miles plus $356 in fees:

You can often save even more by starting from another country and connecting through Paris.  Here are two examples that cost 55,000 miles and just under $300 in fees:

Other ways to save on return fees

If you really want to minimize the taxes and fees for returning to the U.S. from Europe, there are other options:

• Book Premium Economy instead of Business class.  Premium Economy flights incur lower fees.  Most flights back from Europe to the U.S. are daytime flights and so you might find that lie-flat business class seats are less important to you.
• Book a Star Alliance award using miles that don’t pass along surcharges.  For example, if you want to fly Lufthansa or Swiss airlines business class from Europe to the U.S., you can avoid paying surcharges by booking with miles from United Airlines MileagePlus, Air Canada Aeroplan, or Avianca LifeMiles.
• Book an award on an airline that doesn’t impose fuel surcharges at all.  For example, if you’re lucky enough to find business class awards available on United or Air Canada from Europe to the U.S., you will have to pay airport fees, but no surcharges even if you book with a program that would otherwise pass along these fees (such as Turkish or ANA, for example).

Beyond Europe

It’s not just flights between the U.S. and London that have wide open award availability.  Flights to many other locations do too.  For example, there are plenty of awards available to South Africa, Israel, Hong Kong, and more.

One problem is that Air France’s website doesn’t do a good job of finding flights that connect in London from the U.S.  For example, I easily found a one-way business class flight on Virgin Atlantic’s website from New York to South Africa for 125,000 miles plus $847 (and the same number of miles plus about $675 in fees for the return), but I couldn’t find the same route on Air France’s website and so I don’t know how much they would charge for that flight.

Conclusion

Virgin Atlantic’s new pledge to release a minimum of 12 award seats on every flight has already led to unprecedented award availability on every route I inspected.  If you want to book an award, you can probably find one.  The trick to avoiding Virgin Atlantic’s insanely high award fees is to book through Air France’s website instead, and pay with Flying Blue miles (which can be transferred from any transferrable points program).  Air France still charges fees, and they can be high, but they’re far, far lower than what Virgin Atlantic charges.

Update: It appears that Virgin Atlantic is no longer releasing their extra award space to partners.  When I originally researched this, I found that Virgin Atlantic award space booked through Delta or Air France closely matched what I saw on Virgin Atlantic’s own website.  Now, unfortunately, very few of those seats appear to be available to partners.

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