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Virgin Atlantic Flying Club made some substantial changes at the beginning of 2017. You can read about them here. In terms of rewards, the short version is that Economy and Premium Economy rewards got somewhat cheaper, whilst Upper Class rewards became more expensive – at the same time, a peak / off-peak calendar was introduced.
Shortly after the changes were announced, Ian wrote a great post about how you could spend fewer miles by booking Flying Club partner rewards on Delta Airlines.
On 1 September, 2017, however, Flying Club’s reward chart for Delta Airlines rewards is going to change!
Until then, you can still book Delta rewards (by calling Flying Club) with this chart:
The most important item for UK readers is the 90,000 miles charged for a return reward in Business Class from London to the United States. After 1 September, the reward chart will look like this:
These mileage requirements should look familiar, as they are identical to the Virgin Atlantic reward chart. For those who don’t recognise some of the airport codes (shame on Flying Club really…), Delta’s Central destinations are Atlanta, Detroit and Minneapolis and its West Coast destinations are Portland and Salt Lake City. (I believe that the Seattle route is now operated by Virgin Atlantic)
The dates of “peak season” are:
- 22 June – 6 September 2017
- 13 December 2017 – 6 January 2018
- 29 March – 16 April 2018
- 22 June – 6 September 2018
- 13 December – 31 December 2018
You can read about these changes here. In a separate post I’ll cover the changes to miles earning and tier points. One of the big unknowns is whether the rest of the Delta reward chart will be changing or disappearing. (i.e. flights between the US and the rest of Europe and the world). Once I find out, I’ll let Inside Flyer UK readers know…
If you think this is bad, you should see the award miles Delta is charging from the US to the UK using Virgin metal.
No kidding. Skymiles is by far the least trustworthy and abusive frequent flyer programme, although at least DL don’t add Virgin’s outrageous surcharges on top…
True, the surcharges are not there, but the points charged make up that difference. At least VA is a much better hard & soft product than DL. Other than DL One, you couldn’t pay me enough to sit in those back breaking slim line seats. I tried that once. Once being the operative word.