Without notice, Virgin Atlantic spiked pricing and added exorbitant surcharges to transatlantic redemption awards on Delta Air Lines in business class. This move has Delta’s fingerprints all over it.
Delta Air Lines Transatlantic Business Class Awards Now Priced Much Higher Via Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, Including Massive Surcharges
Up until now, transatlantic non-stop flights to destinations beyond the United Kingdom have been perhaps the sweetest of sweet spots on the Virgin Atlantic award chart. For 50,000 miles and $5.60 in taxes, it was possible to travel nonstop from the USA to Europe on Delta. Often, the same flight would cost 350,000 Delta SkyMiles one-way if booking with Delta.
Of course, disparities like that rarely last, and with Delta’s 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic, that “loophole” has been closed. As noted by Thrifty Traveler, redemption rates have gone up overnight with pricing now distance-based (East Coast / Central / West Coast), calendar-based (peak/off-peak travel), and most importantly, carrier-imposed fees of $1032.30 added in each direction.
So let’s take an example, say Seattle to Paris on Delta this summer. Yesterday, a ticket in Delta One Business Class cost 50,000 miles and $5.60. Today, it costs 77,500 miles and $1032.30.
Nice, huh?
Here are the revised award redemption charts for travel between the US and Europe on Delta using Virgin Atlantic miles:
They now largely mimic the charts for UK-US travel:
The reason Virgin Atlantic will get away with this is because 55K miles plus $1032 is still a better deal than 350K miles one-way. But it is still a gut punch to its Flying Club loyalty members, as is every unannounced devaluation.
The problem is not in the devaluation itself, though brutal, but in the lack of notice. Look, it’s not like there was much award availability anyway…giving a few weeks of notice would not have hurt and would have shown respect for its members. Instead, the content was shown.
To Virgin Atlantic Flying Club member: caveat emptor.
And don’t think for a moment that Delta did not push this change…
CONCLUSION
Virgin Atlantic jacked up pricing and added hefty surcharges to Delta One transatlantic redemptions. While redemptions may still make comparative sense to similar redemptions on Delta or Air France-KLM Flying Blue, the disappointment here is in the lack of notice…especially during a period in which Virgin is aggressively selling miles on the basis of its attractive award chart.
image: Delta Air Lines
When will you all learn the airlines don’t respect award —or even revenue -travelers! They’re slapping us because we are too wimpy to tell them to screw off and fight back. I see a lot of you bitch and moan online and in the chat rooms when this stuff happens, but rarely do you take it beyond that. We only have ourselves to blame for this — and greed.
TL;DR Sky is blue, water is wet, Biden is senile, and points get devalued
As you said, this is easily traceable to Delta. Nobody hates engaged loyalty members like Delta does. Well, except Marriott.
This isn’t bad news from the perspective of a UK resident VS member. To begin with, it makes the programme less attractive to points collectors in the USA, thereby making it less likely that they will end up competing for award space on VS itself, particularly their limited number of African and Asian routes, Moreover, the fact that this was almost certainly done at the request of Delta (because LATAM also devalued DL redemptions at the same time) likely means that Virgin themselves haven’t been considering devaluing redemption rates for VS, AFKL, or SkyTeam (because they would have taken the opportunity to do it all together). Other than the lack of notice, what’s not to like?
LMAO, none of you are actually loyal Virgin Club members, you just transfer points in from Amex.
Honestly, F$ck Delta. They’re the one that started this garbage by hiding their award chart