About Virgin Atlantic

Virgin Atlantic Airways (translated as Virgin Atlantic or Virgin Atlantic Airways, abbreviated as VS) is an airline based in Crawley, UK. It was founded in 1984 and is the second-largest airline in the UK, behind the well-known British Airways (BA). Its parent Virgin Group has many businesses under it. In addition to Virgin Atlantic, its airlines also include Virgin Australia, founded in 2000 (VA), as well as smaller side operations like Virgin Samoa and Virgin Nigeria. Virgin America, founded in 2004 (VX), is a U.S. company and, although it is not part of the Virgin Group, it has close ties to it. The head of the Virgin Group is the romantic Richard Branson, who is planning to launch Virgin Galactic for commercial space travel! Delta owns a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic.

VS's loyalty program is called Flying Club

On March 1, 2023, VS officially joined SkyTeam, and miles can be used to book award tickets on nearly all SkyTeam partners. Elite status is also matched across programs, and lounge access is reciprocal as well.

VS Membership Program

Since most readers are based in the U.S., most people probably won't go out of their way to earn VS elite status. So here is a quick overview of the SkyTeam benefits and lounge-related perks tied to status.

  • VS Silver corresponds to SkyTeam Elite status
  • VS Gold corresponds to SkyTeam Elite Plus status

For lounge access, SkyTeam Elite Plus members flying Virgin Atlantic, Delta, or Aeromexico can use the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at London airport. VS Gold gets the same treatment as SkyTeam Elite Plus and can access about 750 lounges worldwide.

How can you earn VS miles?

Flying

You can earn miles by flying VS's own flights, and the number of miles earned depends on the distance flown and the cabin class.

You can also earn miles by flying partner airlines, and the amount depends on distance and cabin class. Details can be found at the link below:

Points transfers

Virgin Atlantic has many transfer partners; the common ones are:

  • Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR), 1 UR = 1 VS mile.
  • AMEX Membership Rewards (MR), 1 MR = 1 VS mile. Sometimes there are extra transfer bonuses, ranging from 25% to 35%, which means 1 MR = 1.25-1.35 VS miles.
  • Citi ThankYou Points (TYP), 1 TYP = 1 VS mile. Sometimes there is a 25% bonus, which means 1 TYP = 1.25 VS miles.
  • Marriott, 3 Marriott = 1 VS mile. If you transfer 75,000 Marriott points, you can get an extra 5,000 VS miles, which works out to 3 Marriott = 1.25 VS miles.

Wells Fargo, Bilt, and Capital One are also good options, all at 1:1. These programs have fewer transfer partners, so if you want to transfer into VS miles, prioritize these first, then the four larger partners listed above.

Transferring hotel points from Hilton, Hyatt, and IHG is not a good deal, so you can skip those.

One more thing: VS miles can be transferred between accounts. After the program update, transferring points between accounts only requires a $15 fee each time, regardless of how many points you move. There is no transfer limit, so you can transfer as much as you want.

The only fee payable for transferring points to other Virgin Red members is a one-off £10/$15 transaction fee, which applies regardless of the number of points you are transferring. So, whether you transfer 1,000 points, 5,000 points, 10,000 points or another amount of points you will pay £10/$15.

Co-branded credit card

One advantage VS miles have over Singapore Airlines miles is that Singapore Airlines miles don't have a co-branded credit card in the U.S., while VS does.

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Full review

Synchrony Virgin Red Credit Card

A good pick for Virgin fans!

  • Welcome bonus: 75,000 Virgin Red points (spend $4,000 within 90 days of account opening)
  • Rewards: 3x on Virgin flights, hotels, and cruises; 2x on groceries, dining, streaming, and EV charging; 1x on everything else
  • Redemption: Redeem for flights, hotels, and travel packages
  • Annual fee: $99
  • Apply now>>

Which airlines can you book with VS miles?

After VS officially joined SkyTeam, VS miles can be used for award flights on most SkyTeam airlines. The award charts for Air France, KLM, and Delta, which were already supported before, remain unchanged.

VS own flights

After the program update, VS own-flight redemptions no longer use a fixed award chart and instead use dynamic pricing. Not only do the miles required fluctuate, but the hefty taxes and fees do as well. We usually redeem less often for VS own flights, mainly because the taxes and fees are honestly a bit extreme. That said, you can still find some good redemptions. For example, this JFK to LHR flight costs only 6,000 miles, although the $73 in taxes is a bit high.

Delta award chart

VS has long supported Delta redemptions, and the redemption chart is split into three parts:

One chart covers flights between the UK and the U.S., with peak and off-peak pricing.

  • Flights from Europe (excluding the UK) to the U.S. follow the chart below
  • All other routes are priced by distance
  • Another highlight is that infant tickets are a great deal

All of the above are for nonstop flights; if a connection is involved, the required miles are the sum of the miles from the relevant tables above.

Other SkyTeam partner airlines

Air France and KLM are also existing partners, and the award charts are in the link below

These airlines were added after joining SkyTeam. What’s interesting is that their redemptions use a unified chart, and the award charts are all calculated based on the actual flight distance.

  • Aerolíneas Argentinas
  • Aeromexico
  • Air Europa
  • China Airlines
  • Czech Airlines
  • Garuda Indonesia
  • ITA Airways — earning only for now
  • Kenya Airways
  • Korean Air
  • MEA
  • Saudia
  • TAROM
  • Vietnam Airlines
  • XiamenAir
Image from award wallet blog

Other partners

Before joining SkyTeam, VS also partnered with other non-SkyTeam airlines. These partnerships have not been discontinued, and these airlines are still listed under other partner, with all award charts temporarily kept in place. It’s still unclear how these partners will be handled going forward.

The partner list is as follows:

  • Air New Zealand
  • All Nippon Airways (ANA)
  • El Al Israel
  • Hawaiian Airlines
  • IndiGo
  • LATAM Airlines
  • Singapore Airlines
  • South African Airways
  • Virgin Australia

Redemption highlights

Award tickets + infant tickets

This program is very generous for tickets for infants under 2 years old. If you have already booked an adult award ticket, adding an infant ticket only costs a very small number of miles. That’s a great deal for long-haul international flights!

  • Economy:1,000 points
  • Premium:2,000 points
  • Upper Class:5,000 points

Redeeming for ANA

Although VS award prices for ANA have recently increased significantly, they still offer an advantage compared with other options like UA and AC. Below is the chart for booking ANA with VS. Note that these are round-trip prices; just divide by two for one-way.

  • If you book ANA business class from the U.S. to Japan, one way requires 52,500-60,000 points. UA and AC require at least 110,000. And there are fewer ways to earn UA and AC miles, so using VS is a very good option. Of course, you still need to pay attention to the taxes and fees when using VS.
  • If you are flying from Hawaii to Japan, VS can also save you quite a bit.

That said, this VS chart is still a bit worse than ANA’s own chart. But ANA miles are much harder to get, since only MR can be transferred, and ANA awards must be booked round-trip. VS, on the other hand, can issue one-way awards!

Booking Hawaiian Airlines

VS awards on Hawaiian Airlines are also very good. The chart below shows the miles required for round-trip awards; just divide by two for one-way. Searching can be a bit tricky, though. You need to search for award space on Hawaiian Airlines’ own site, and there must be at least saver-level availability in order to book with VS.

Short-haul Delta flights

As mentioned earlier, Delta awards for U.S. domestic flights are priced entirely by distance. The first band, 0-500 miles, costs only 7,500 miles, which is a great deal! You can use awardmaper to check the distance between two airports and see whether the flight falls into the 0-500-mile band.

  • ATL, BOS, DTW, and MSP are major Delta hubs. There are many flights within 500 miles departing from these airports, so if you are based there, it’s worth taking a closer look.

Other redemptions

  • Air New Zealand business class: From Los Angeles to the South Pacific for only 45,000 miles one way. Other charts are shown below (round-trip).
  • Redeeming Korean Air: 85,000 miles for business class from the U.S. West Coast to Korea
  • Redeeming ITA Airways: 75,000-85,000 miles for business class from JFK/BOS to Milan
  • Redeeming Saudia: IAD-JED only costs 37,000 miles in economy, or 100,000 in business class

Mile redemptions

Booking online

After the merger, the official website can directly search award tickets for most of its own flights and partner flights. Remember to check “Points” under “Advanced,” and you’ll be able to view award availability.

You can also check “Flexible dates” to view availability within a week.

By phone

You can call to redeem partner airline awards. Customer service numbers are as follows:

  • UK 0344 412 2414
  • U.S. +1 800 365 9500
  • South Africa +27 11 340 3535
  • Hong Kong +852 2532 6060
  • Mainland China +86 21 5353 4600
  • Caribbean +1 800 744 7477

According to FT’s shared experience, U.S. and UK agents are not very good at booking award tickets, perhaps because so many people in the U.S. use VS miles. The Shanghai and Hong Kong agents, however, are much more professional and much better at ticketing, so if you have the chance, it’s worth trying the Shanghai or Hong Kong call centers.

Award search tool

VS also provides an award ticket search tool, which you can use to search for award availability on Delta and VS-operated flights. However, I get an error every time I try to use it, and I have no idea why..

Ultimate redemption: the biggest highlight has to come last

If you have a lot of VS miles, you can “only” redeem them for a seven-day romantic getaway for two on Necker Island, with diving, meals, and drinks all included. But the miles required have kept rising, from 1,200,000 miles originally, to 1,500,000, then 1,700,000, and now it’s 2,000,000 points! You can read more about Necker Island here. This private island owned by Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson serves dishes prepared by the island’s private chef, and talking about life and dreams with Richard Branson would also be a pretty memorable experience. The airfare to Necker Island is not included, but if you’re already willing to spend such an outrageous number of VS miles at once, would you really care about the cost of the flight? For the details, you can refer to this link:

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