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Major changes for Virgin Atlantic Flying Club – what does it mean for you?
Virgin Atlantic yesterday announced major changes to its Flying Club. The headline is that members will be able to pay for any seat onboard with Virgin Points. However, there are many other changes that are not all good news. At this point, it will take time to see exactly how many seats are available for redemptions to know whether the changes are positive.
Virgin themselves title it “You might want to sit down for this” on their special web page.
Use Virgin Points to pay for any seat
From 30 October, Flying Club members will be able to use Virgin Points to pay for any seat on the plane on any date, rather than there having to be seats available as a redemption. I have always found it quite difficult to find reward seats on Virgin except when they are first released, so for those that have lots of Virgin points to use, this means you will always be able to find a flight where there are seats for sale. In 2022, Virgin Atlantic launched Guaranteed Availability, making 12 Reward seats available on every flight for Flying Club members, but this will make all seats available…for a price. While it will be unpopular for those who have been planning on a specific rate, I actually quite like this model as it does allow you to use the points you have and if necessary, buy some to top up (when there is a sale!) or move some from Amex Membership Rewards and get a seat rather than having to give up on the redemption altogether.
There has always been an option to use cash and points which is similar to part pay with Avios and not great value, but this is a different model to those options. The pricing of these points seats will be dynamic, meaning that popular flights and probably those closer to the departure date will be much higher priced. This is the same model as how cash flights are priced.
At the moment Virgin has not given any information about what these prices will be and what they are based on other than they are not based directly on a cash price for a ticket. Virgin did say that they expected many of the reward pricing to stay the same or less, but obviously, the proof will be when it actually launches. It will also be interesting to see how the taxes and charges change as these are pretty steep currently at around £800-950 per person return in Upper. These are also due to be more variable so let’s hope they do not rise dramatically.
We will take a further look at the exact pricing after the launch of the change, or if there is more information from Virgin.
Saver reward seats
Virgin Atlantic is launching new Saver reward seats at “their lowest possible prices” with “the best value we’ve ever offered.” The Saver reward seats will be available across thousands of flights. The good news is that they will start from prices even lower than reward seats today, with flights to New York from as little as 6,000 Virgin Points in economy. Not all seats will be lower, but Virgin guarantees Saver will be the same as today or lower. Currently there is a chart for the points required. This will not exist after 30 October. This makes it harder for people to see how many points they need, but if it is the same as other airlines, a quick glance across the months can give you a good idea of the range of points needed. Virgin has a handy tool that shows the number of seats available across a month, which you could then go through to the dates to see the range of pricing.
The model is similar many other airlines such as Qatar and Etihad where both airline offer a cheaper saver or standard price reward seat but then also offer more expensive seats. It is probably based on what their Skyteam partners such as Flying Blue as the pricing varies dramatically on those as I found out when trying to redeem to Tahiti where costs ranged from 100k to ~300k points for the same flight.
Upgrades and Companion/Upgrade vouchers
You will still be able to use their points to upgrade to any available Premium or Upper Class seat from standard or reward tickets. In addition, members will be able to use their Companion or Upgrade vouchers on any seat in any cabin. This is good news as previously you had to have Reward seats availability even when you were buying a cash ticket with a companion voucher. You also had to pay 50% of the points for the second companion seat if you were not Flying Club Silver or above.
There is of course a catch, as the voucher will be valid up to a maximum of 75k points for Flying Club Red tier members, or 150k points for Flying Club Silver or Gold tier members based on status at the time of voucher redemption. So really it is just a different way of splitting the points needed which still require a points top up for most flights for red status members since most Upper Class flights are currently 90k or more return per person.
All vouchers issued to credit card holders and to Gold tier members will be moving to a new Flying Club reward voucher.
Higher Virgin Points on Premium and Upper Class flights
The number of Virgin Points earned on Upper Class and Premium tickets will also be increased at the same time. BA recently reduced the Avios earnings for many flights when they switched to a spend based system, so it is good to see that Virgin have not gone that way. The amount of Virgin Points earned on Upper Class tickets will increase by up to 50% and Premium tickets will increase by up to 75%.
Shai Weiss, CEO, Virgin Atlantic, commented: “Our customers mean the world to us. We are flying because of them and for forty years we have existed to make their journeys safe and special. Our aim is always to do right by them and to make them smile. In our special Ruby anniversary year, we are making every single seat available for purchase with points, becoming even more rewarding for our millions of loyal Flying Club members.”
