Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership’s pesky surcharges are again within the information — and never in a great way.
After introducing dynamic award pricing in late 2024, this system slashed costs and costs on some award tickets. This resulted in business-class fares to Europe for as little as 29,000 factors and roughly $250 in charges. In reality, one TPG staffer and constant Virgin Atlantic flyer thought a lot of the modifications had been for the higher.
However these offers had been short-lived, because the provider’s charges have now spiked. This is all the pieces you must find out about Virgin Atlantic’s newest devaluation.
Devaluation particulars
Since Virgin Atlantic’s swap to dynamic pricing, award charges have various by route, date and fare class. You possibly can anticipate to pay roughly $250 on a business-class flight to Europe throughout low-demand dates — a steal in comparison with the $1,000-plus charges that was once commonplace.
Now, Virgin Atlantic is charging as much as $586 one-way for business-class redemptions from the U.S. to the U.Okay., together with to Heathrow Airport (LHR) and Manchester Airport (MAN) — greater than doubling these charges in a single day. Thrifty Traveler first broke this information.
Equally, one-way charges from the U.S. to the U.Okay. have elevated from round $75 to $111 for financial system redemptions and from roughly $106 to $240 for premium financial system. That may not appear unreasonable, however do not forget that it’s important to pay charges on the return journey as nicely.
These return charges have not modified (but), however they’re already steep, particularly whenever you issue within the present trade charge. As an illustration, the business-class price is 672 British kilos, which at present quantities to $924. Yikes.
The brilliant facet? Even after the latest spike, Virgin Atlantic’s transatlantic charges are nonetheless nicely beneath their pre-dynamic-pricing days. As for whether or not they’ll keep that method or proceed to rise, solely time will inform.
For now, we’ll be watching this area carefully to see if Flying Membership implements any additional modifications.
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Backside line
Regardless of this unfavorable change, Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership nonetheless presents some nice offers, particularly when you can journey on off-peak dates. (You possibly can’t actually beat 6,000 factors for a transatlantic flight.)
And since Flying Membership companions with a lot of the main rewards packages with transferable currencies — together with American Specific Membership Rewards, Bilt Rewards, Chase Final Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards and Wells Fargo Rewards — Virgin factors are extraordinarily straightforward to earn.
Nonetheless, it is all the time vital to test the taxes and costs earlier than you e-book an award ticket by means of any airline program, as these can rapidly eat into your journey finances.
