Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Adds Huge Surcharge to Delta One Rewards Flights to Europe, But Won’t Affect Most Members
The Virgin Atlantic Flying Club The program has slashed Delta One business-class fares to and from Europe without notice, but the move is unlikely to affect many members.
Delta One awards booked through Virgin Atlantic Flying Club on most dates are still priced at 47,500 Virgin points from the East Coast and Central US to Europe and 67,500 Virgin points from the West Coast to Europe.
However, Virgin Atlantic has now implemented peak award pricing, increasing award prices to 57,500 points from the East Coast and Central US and 77,500 points from the West Coast to Europe (excluding flights to and from the UK where these peak and off-peak prices are already in place).
Read on to learn more about Virgin’s latest price-cutting move on Delta One award flights.
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Virgin Flying Club raises Delta One award prices, adds big surcharges
If you want to book Delta One tickets through Virgin Atlantic, keep in mind peak and off-peak dates.
Peak days in 2024 and early 2025 are:
- January 1-3, 2024
- March 22 – April 15, 2024
- June 16 – September 2, 2024
- October 25-November 5, 2024
- December 7, 2024-January 5, 2025
Adding a peak day with a 10,000 mile price increase to a business class ticket to several destinations in a single region is not an unreasonable price break and remains a competitive change rate across the Atlantic.
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Surprisingly, Virgin is now imposing a hefty surcharge on air travel, with fees, taxes and surcharges totaling more than $1,000 per person each way in business class.
So you can now expect to pay more than $2,000 in fees, taxes, and surcharges for a round-trip business class flight on Delta booked with Virgin points. That’s exactly what Virgin charges for its Flying Club redemptions, which it operates. Before the devaluation, one-way Delta One flights to continental Europe from the U.S. cost customers just $5.60 in taxes and fees.
This surcharge appears to only affect business class tickets, as economy class seats remain surcharge-free and can be booked for $5.60 in taxes and fees.
If you want to book a Delta One flight through Delta SkyMiles With no extra fees, you can easily find business class seats to Europe. You can expect to pay up to 375,000 SkyMiles per person, per flight.
Why doesn’t this devaluation affect most Flying Club members?
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is a transfer partner of All major transferable credit card currencies and often offer transfer bonuses and reward flight promotions. As a result, there are some great deals when using Virgin points to fly from the US to Europe. For example, I Fly from New York to London in April for just 5,000 Virgin Points.
But when it comes to finding Delta One award flights on Virgin, there are no award flights at all.
I’ve been tracking Delta One availability regularly using Virgin points for transatlantic flights over the past six months. There are at most a handful of available dates across the entire 12-month schedule, with most of the availability from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Iceland’s Keflavik Airport (KEF), a flight that takes just five and a half hours.
This year, the dearth of flights to the UK and mainland Europe has been mainly on (super) off-peak days, such as mid-winter when you won’t have any problem finding available flights on other airlines, especially if you have transferable credit card points.
Related: 10 credit cards with no annual fee and transferable rewards points
For example, one of the only options I found during my search for Delta One in Europe in the next 12 months was from JFK to Portugal’s Lisbon Airport (LIS). While it would cost you less than 48,000 Virgin points, it would cost you over $1,000 in taxes, fees, and surcharges.
Instead, if you wanted to use Virgin points to fly to Portugal in January, you could save over $700 in surcharges by booking Air France business class.
If you prefer Delta over Air France, you can book this flight for 20,000 more miles through Air France-KLM Fly Blue The program saves about $1,000 in fees, taxes and surcharges.
Again, there is no change to Delta-operated economy class change fares to the UK (still Using Virgin points is great) or continental Europe, as these fares can be easily booked online. Fortunately, economy class awards are exempt from this new surcharge, so you can typically expect to pay less than $200 total in fees, taxes, and surcharges when flying to Europe in Delta economy class through Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.
Please note that while Delta charges $5.60 in taxes and fees when flying from the US to Europe, there are country-specific taxes and fees when flying from Europe to the US.
Unfortunately, you can’t currently book Delta premium economy flights with Virgin points.
Last line
Devaluation is an unfortunate reality of the points and miles industry. We recommend redeeming points and miles as soon as you earn them instead of save them for a rainy day.
Normally, an airline surcharge of more than $1,000 per way without prior notice will not be accepted by Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.
The reality is, however, that this change won’t affect 99% of Flying Club members, as there are virtually no Delta One flights that can be booked with Virgin points. In the unlikely event that you do find a seat, it’s likely to be on an off-peak day (so the new peak price increase won’t matter). Not to mention, you could book the same Delta flight through Flying Blue and save hundreds of dollars.
