How To Book Delta Flights With Virgin Atlantic Miles Online
One of the less heralded miles out there are Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles. Most people overlook them because flights on Virgin Atlantic come with hefty award taxes and fees. But one of their sweet spots that has value lies with their partner, Delta. It used to be a pain to book Delta flights with Virgin Atlantic miles because you had to do it over the phone. Not anymore, you can now book them online. I decided to do a quick guide on how to book Delta flights with Virgin Atlantic miles so you can take advantage of it as well. I will also show you how valuable doing it can be (hint: up to half off Delta prices with stacking).
Virgin Atlantic has a very promiscuous airline program that allows transfers from all 4 major transferable points program.
Updated 1/20/20
The Steps To Book Your Flights
You can search for award flights even without a Virgin Atlantic account but you will need one to book the flights. Once you have that follow these steps to book Delta flights online:
Step 1
- Go to Virgin Atlantic’s website and click book at the very top of the website (highlighted above with First).
- A drop down menu will appear – select book a flight (highlighted with Second).
Step 2
After that you will be taken to the search for flights menu
The Virgin Atlantic portal is a little buggy and you can only type in the airport code for either flying from or flying to. For some reason once one airport code is entered the second search is very limited. That means you have to click the pin button on the right side of the airport input box. Once you select the pin follow these steps:
- Select the country or state the airport is in.
- Then select the city the airport you want is located in.
- Example: Michigan, and then Detroit
For the search above the best route would be:
- Enter AMS for Amsterdam for the Fly To section
- Use the pin to navigate to Michigan and then Detroit
It is going to be easier to locate US cities most of the time since US states populate first. Input the foreign country’s airport code first to make it a little easier.
Step 3
Once you have your airport codes selected move down the page to the dates portion. Select pay with miles first before selecting dates. Sometimes it gets grayed out as an option when scrolling through dates. That is another little glitch of the site. I always select Pay With Miles and then Within 5 Weeks before selecting my dates.
Virgin Atlantic’s award availability for Delta flights is based on Delta saver space so 5 week searches gives you more options.
Once your dates are picked select search.
Step 4
The next page will be the 5 week calendar with your options. The prices listed are the roundtrip price, unless you searched for a one way ticket. You can change the cabin preference, highlighted above, and search for direct flights only as well. Make any changes you need to make.
Then scroll through the calendar until you find the options you want. I changed my search to Upper Class (Delta One) and direct flights only.
The Final Cost & Comparing It To Delta’s Cost
This is what the search came up with and the total cost. To fly direct from Detroit to Amsterdam in Delta One it would cost me 100,000 Virgin Atlantic miles and $49.21. That is some amazing value.
The program is less valuable when connections are added since each segment is priced out differently. So for LAX-SLC-AMS you would get billed for the LAX-SLC leg and the SLC-AMS leg. This can still show a savings over booking with Delta but it won’t be as beneficial as direct flights are.
Let’s take a look at if I wanted to book the same flight with Delta Skymiles
Delta wants 164,000 miles and $49.21 for the same flights. That is a savings of 64,000 miles which is like saving 64,000 Membership Rewards points etc.
But wait, it gets even better! American Express and Citi often have transfer bonuses to Virgin Atlantic. Amex currently has one that is for 30% more in points. So this flight would only cost 77,000 Membership Rewards miles with the bonus. A savings of 87,000 miles vs Delta’s price (a 53% discount)! Since Virgin Atlantic is not a US based airline you don’t need to pay the fee that you do when transferring MR points to Delta either.
I have used this domestically as well and have booked first class flights for 22,500 Virgin Atlantic miles when Delta wanted 40,000 for the same flight.
Book Delta Flights With Virgin Atlantic – Final Thoughts
Using Virgin Atlantic miles on Delta flights can offer amazing value. The downside is it does rely on Delta having saver space, which is unpredictable with Delta. Having said that being able to book Delta flights with Virgin Atlantic miles online makes the process a million times better than it used to be. Even if the site still has a few bugs.
Hopefully this helps you on your next trip and saves you some valuable transferable currencies!
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This sounds great in theory. I can’t find a single delta flight from NYC to any European country.
While not a ton of award space I saw JFK to Paris open in late March early April, to Amsterdam in June/July, London came up as all VA flights. There needs to be saver space on Delta to be able to book it so planning far in advance when using VA miles on Delta is best.
Even though Delta has flights to Brazil, Virgin Atlantic’s website won’t let me search for them. Brazil is not part of the list. Is there a way around it?
Thanks!
I find that weird. I am not sure if calling in would pull anything up or not. You should be able to find flights via their other partner Flying Blue which should save miles over Delta but comes with higher fuel surcharges.
Can you transfer Delta Skymiles to Virgin, I have accumulated both AMEX awards and Delta assuming I could book two tickets at 140000 Delta One round trip, not realizing rates had went up.
No unfortunately not. What you could do is book one way with Delta miles and the other way with Virgin miles. The taxes will be a hundred or so dollars more but if you find the space on Virgin it should only cost you 39,000 Amex MR (with the 1.3 transfer bonus) and then you could move the rest to Skymiles to book the other way which I would assume is in the low 80’s for your flight.
Also remember that City TY transfers to Virign as well if you have those and has a 30% bonus right now.
I have many miles on Delta but some of their high season business class RT tickets to Europe are at 450,000 miles making it absolutely senseless to book. On top of that I returned from Europe on a paid D1 tkt in a 767 with dirty carpets and torn headrests. Your advice at this point?
Delta is much better for economy international travel unfortunately (just booked Detroit to Kyiv for 25K on Air France). I have been finding a lot of good deals domestically honestly but I usually fly economy domestically and am in a Delta hub so that could be why.
I am surprised you didn’t burn any during their recent Delta Vacations promo where you got 2 cents per mile on flights, hotels, car rentals, Disney tickets etc.
that doesnt seem to work anymore. i am trying even same route as in this example (AMS-DTW), its coming up with same mileage on Delta One however with Virgin hefty fees of over 432 Euro!!! no $49
The flight needs to originate in the US – it has higher fees if originated in AMS
Unless I am missing something, the Reward search does not work when flying from US to “non-Virgin” EU cities (the many cities Delta flies to, but Virgin does not) such as flying from US to BCN, MAD, LIS, etc etc etc….. The “To” city field only lets you choose cities that Virgin flies to, and the map function does not work either. Am I missing something? Will Virgin even book those cities on DL flights, if we call?
I would think they are bookable if you call but I have never had to so I can not be 100% sure. It would be tough to since it takes saver space and it is hard to tell what that is with Delta at times. So you are kind of searching blindly on the phone with the agent even if it does work.
Delta flies non-stop JFK-LIS, but Lisbon doesn’t show up as a possible destination. How can I get around this?
You could try calling in to the call center and see if they are able to pull it up. I am not sure why some airports that should come up do not.
Useful thanks! Unfortunately I can never find a route to Western cities (California, Utah, Nevada) from Europe (Paris, Amsterdam) that doesn’t have the pay-with-miles option greyed out. Any advice? Which transatlantic routes work and which don’t?
You have to manually enter the second airport via the pin – you can’t type it in. That is what causes it to gray out – website glitch.
Delta has lost their mind. A simple r/t in D1 TATL is now 164K Skymiles. Virgin is 100K on either their metal or Delta’s. Nice 64% difference. Maintaining loyalty to Delta is becoming difficult.
Agree 100%
With the Virgin award, will it include connecting flights on either or both ends?
Flights with connections do come up in searches. Is that what you were asking?
Sorry, are connecting flights included for the same price? For example, is MEM-ATL-CDG-BUD the same price as ATL-CDG?
No flights with connections are usually a little more. Example on one day I searched LAX to AMS is 72,500 in economy (sometimes 60K too). On this day a flight with a connection is 85,000 with a direct on the return. So it looks like connections are tacked on as a separate charge (12,500 for the LAX to SLC stop). So a similar set up as BA but not distance based like theirs is.
I will be sure to add that into the post as well.
Is 82k each way the “saver” rate for a Delta flight with Delta miles these days? (I know there is no “chart”.) It seems high to me. It is also interesting that even though Delta appears to be charging more than their lowest possible number of miles the space is still available to Virgin.
Yes it was bumped up from 70K a few months back
Another thing you might be interested in is that DL flights are priced out based on flight numbers. If, for example, you are booking HND-LAX-SLC on the “direct” flight DL6, the VS system would price it at 60k miles for a J redemption. However, if you were to select the option of a different flight number for LAX-SLC, you would end up being billed 82.5k as if it were 2 separate awards.
Interesting. That is a great nugget of wisdom Joel – thanks for sharing.
Which TATL flights does DL operate that include more than one segment in the US?