Virgin Atlantic Plays Gotcha With Delta Award Surcharges
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles are a valuable currency when it comes to redemption on ANA First and Business class or certain Delta flights.
You often need to use less Flying Club miles than SkyMiles on some routes, and they don’t add carrier imposed surcharges to most Delta awards. There’s some exceptions such as Delta award flights to London or flights from Europe to the US.
That left plenty of opportunities for using Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles for Delta award flights to Europe, or even better to Asia while paying almost nothing in fees.
But it seems that they caught on to the loophole. Virgin Atlantic Flying Club temporarily started imposing fuel surcharges on all international Delta award flights. It lasted about a day or two earlier in the week. Now it’s all back to normal and you’re still able to book most Delta award flights for almost no fees.
Conclusion
The best use for Virgin Atlantic miles is for travel in ANA First and Business class. But Delta also adds some good redemption options. The fact that they added fuel surcharges, even briefly, could mean that it might soon become permanent. If you’re already planning to use your Virgin Atlantic miles for Delta flights, then it’s safe to do it sooner than later.
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I priced Delta flight thru Virgin during the little surcharge game. Until I read your blog, I just figured s***, another good redemption is gone. Tried again after your blog. Sure enough, back to normal.
I don’t know how you happened to catch it or how you knew it was just an aberration, but thanks for pointing it out to the rest of us who weren’t as sharp. btw — how did you figure out it was just a temporary thing?