Virgin Atlantic is running a hot 50% off award sale for bookings until March 20, 2024 for travel through June 30, 2024. This sale is for flights between the United Kingdom and United States for all fare classes (economy, premium economy, business).
With this sale, you can find economy tickets for as low as 5,000 points one way and business for 23,750 points one way. However, it's worth noting that award taxes & fees on Virgin Atlantic flights can be extraordinarily high.
Important Terms & Conditions
- Offer valid for new reward flights and upgrades booked using Virgin Points between 00:01 GMT 14th March 2024 and 23:59 GMT 20 March 2024
- To be eligible for this offer, members must book a new reward flight or upgrade through virginatlantic.com or Virgin Atlantic Customer Centre (This does not apply to existing bookings)
- Valid on Virgin Atlantic marketed and operated routes only (flight number starts with VS). Routes included are: LHR-JFK, MAN-JFK, LHR-LAX, LHR-BOS, LHR-SFO, LHR-MIA, LHR-MCO, MAN-MCO, EDI-MCO, LHR-IAD, LHR-TPA, LHR-ATL, MAN-ATL, LHR-LAS, MAN-LAS, LHR-SEA
- This offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other Virgin Atlantic promotional offer
- Bookings made within the promotional period which are then subsequently changed to new departure dates, outside of those detailed within this offer, will no longer be eligible for this offer and will be charged the difference in points plus any applicable fees, and additional taxes, fees, and carrier-imposed surcharges at the time of making the change.
Example Deals
London <> West Coast (LHR <> SFO/SEA/LAX) In Economy Class
Flying to the United Kingdom nowadays isn't as cheap as it used to be. A roundtrip economy flight can run about $800+ nowadays for flights departing on the weekends. With this sale, you can save a bit of cash and just have to pay the award taxes.
So, instead of paying the full $800+ required, you could just book roundtrip for 15k pts + ~$430 USD. And, you would have just a pure nonstop flight. If you were planning on flying to Europe anyways, this seems like a great use of points to help save on some cash.
Example "Lukewarm" Deals
London <> West Coast (LHR <> SFO/SEA/LAX) In Business Class
Getting a one way nonstop biz ticket from the West Coast for only 33,750 points sounds great in theory... until you see the award taxes associated with it. In Virgin's case, you can get roundtrip biz to/from West Coast airports for as low as 67,500 pts and ~$1,700 in taxes...
For me, having to pay that much in award taxes defeats the entire purpose of traveling on points. However, if you really want business class and were already planning on paying for it, this can be a good way to save some cash (where biz class seats typically run for about $3,000 roundtrip).
Example "Not So" Deals
London <> New York (LHR <> JFK) In Economy Class
At first, I thought 5k pts one way was a good—fantastic—deal. However, Virgin's award taxes make this so expensive in some cases that it's not even worth it. Roundtrip taxes wise, this flight in economy comes out to ~$430 + 10,000 pts. But, booking directly with cash costs around $500 (or less, and you earn points). It's kind of difficult for me to see the value here.
Conclusion
While this might seem like a fantastic deal at first, I urge anyone considering it to maintain some degree of caution. Virgin Atlantic award taxes to/from the United Kingdom are ridiculously high, and could easily undermine any actual value you could get. However, for those that can take advantage of this deal (reasonably), then this is going to be a fantastic promotion.
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