Virgin Atlantic: Huge Rewards Overhaul, “Interesting” New Upgrades

With most airline rewards program changes these days, there are usually both winners and losers on day one. Today, Virgin’s changes seem to largely create winners. Long may it stay that way. Fingers crossed.

The changes, which bring more available reward seats into play across more dates and a simplification of vouchers are set to kick in on October 30th, 2024, so here’s everything you need to know about what’s changing, what’s not and where to watch in the future.

Details matter here and Virgin Atlantic has a lot to get right.

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Changes

Virgin Points are an increasingly useful currency and can easily be created by flying Virgin Atlantic and their many SkyTeam partners, or engaging with Virgin Red, the wider loyalty program of the Virgin Group.

Transferring points from many financial products, like American Express Membership Rewards Points can also instantly create Virgin Points which can be used on Virgin Atlantic.

When you get Virgin Points, you probably want to use them for flights and that’s historically been a binary go, no go situation. Either seats were available using points in your cabin of choice on a specific day, or not. From October 30th, that’s changing. Here’s the big bullet points of what’s “new” with the Virgin Atlantic changes.

• New “dynamic pricing” will make every Virgin Atlantic seat available with points
• Vouchers earned from Virgin credit cards or Virgin elite status will have new flexibility
• Some prices using points will actually go down, for “saver” points redemptions
• Upgrades become a whole new game with endless twists

Virgin Atlantic’s New Dynamic Pricing

Dynamic pricing can be done well or done poorly, but when implemented well, as it seems to be done here, it can be really beneficial to rewards customers.

Instead of rewards seats simply not being available using Virgin Points on many key dates or entire months, aka often those dates when most people want to travel, all Virgin seats are now available on all dates with points, albeit at “dynamic” pricing which is based somewhat on the price in cash.

Instead of go, no go, it’s now always go with points, just with different points prices for different dates, instead of one fixed price or no price because it’s not available. The hugely important thing that makes this appear good, is that Virgin Atlantic kept “saver” reward pricing that will always be the same old level, or less.

Yes! They say they’ll have some flights at prices lower than before. Economy flights which started at 10,000 points one way will now start from 6,000 points one way in some instances. For transatlantic travel, that’s astoundingly good.

It’s vital that Virgin helps people benchmark lead in pricing for any cabin and route, to assist in the educational part of earning points and setting goals.

If Virgin had switched to purely dynamic pricing and not kept “saver”, it’d be a total bummer, but used this way to complement to “saver” points pricing, there are wins for all. Wins that did exist should still, but since every seat is available with points, new wins will be created.

People can still benchmark their points earning and set ballpark goals for how many points are needed provided Virgin creates a useful tool for doing so. This is table stakes to me for helping customers gain confidence.

There’s also more opportunity to get exactly what flight you want. Many people do not have the flexibility to fly four days later or earlier, just to lock in some saver pricing. Booking a full year in advance is also hard. I don’t know what I’m doing next month…

A practical example would be…

I want to fly to Premium to New York using Virgin Points. Before the changes, seats were either available at 17,500 points each way, or they weren’t. During a busy week there might have been just a flight or two, on one or two dates. I was at least glad to have a points number to work toward though.

Now, I’ll have some dates still for 17,500 or less, but every flight that is still available for purchase with cash will also be available with Virgin points at prices which might be 20,000, 30,000, 15,000 or any price. Points are as “easy” to spend as cash, in the sense that there are no dates you can’t use them. You’ll still have 17,500 point dates and can use that as a base guide for earning.

Upgrades Get Interesting…

One interesting piece of change is upgrades. Virgin Atlantic is saying that alongside all seats being made available to be booked with points, so too will upgrades. This means if there’s a seat still for sale in a cabin in front of you with cash, it’ll be upgradeable with points too.

This is brilliant from the program because it’s going to create so many more instant “feel good” situations, where people get cold feet about sitting in the back for a long trip — and are able to redeem points for any seats still available for purchase, rather than if Virgin arbitrarily decided to offer some for points — as is the case today.

The “wait and see” situation here will be whether any of the old fixed pricing levels on flight upgrades hold possible and true. From the UK to the US, upgrades have been fantastic value.

When Premium Economy was on super sale, you could then upgrade to Upper Class for a relatively small number of points and fair cash surcharge. Depending how the surcharges stay the same, or change, and just how dynamic these upgrade prices go, this could be a win some lose some.

As a potential “win” example, there may be cases where you book Premium Economy at a great price and are content there. But then, there’s a big Upper Class sale on! If upgrade prices using points move along the prices with cash prices and go down significantly, you might be able to score a shockingly cheap upgrade to Upper Class using Virgin Points.

Virgin Vouchers Get Easier To Spend Too

Virgin Atlantic offers the chance to earn vouchers from credit card spend in both the US and UK, and to Gold members of its Flying Club rewards program. I happily earn both. The vouchers have gone through a few eras of change as they attempt to become more competitive against British Airways stellar reward vouchers. The new changes go a long way here.

Under the new system, any new vouchers can be used towards the “any seat with points” game, and will be worth a maximum set number of points rather than only good for a specific cabin or restriction, with a welcome catch.

Virgin Red members, which are the automatic base tier you get as a Virgin member, will get up to 75,000 points of value for their rewards vouchers. Silver and Gold members will get 150,000 points of value for their vouchers. Virgin Flying Club Silver is very easy to attain if you’re flying Virgin, so people should strongly consider getting there to unlock double the voucher value.

Crucially, rather than take a draconian “the voucher is worth what we say” approach, Virgin members can exceed the value of the voucher by applying their points on top. Yes, if you want to use your voucher for something that’s more than its now technically worth, you still can.

Another practical example…

I am a Virgin member with Red status and want to use my voucher for Upper Class to Boston with a friend and would need about 90,000 points round trip. My voucher only covers 75,000 points of this. I can then use 15,000 more points on top of the voucher to get the job done.

These changes should allow people with flexible dates to benefit just as they have historically from their Virgin vouchers, but also for people (myself included) to get the exact dates we want and apply the value towards whatever the price in points is on the day. Sometimes, at least for me, it’s worth paying more points to get use or value.

Stronger Earning Game On Premium Cabins

In uniformly welcome news, all Virgin Atlantic Flying Club members will now earn more points each and every time they fly in Premium or Upper Class. Earning rates have been increased by 50% in Upper Class and 75% in Premium.

This means that if you’re forking out cash for tickets in either cabin, you’ll earn more points back than before. Simple as that. Undoubtedly, this will help more people earn enough points to burn for upgrades or reward tickets in the future.

GSTP View: A More Engaging Reward Program

I love a sweet spot in a rewards chart as much as anyone, but I also am the first to realize how important it is to offer every member of a rewards program a fair chance to benefit and strike value.

A program where families with kids in school can’t ever get seats is pretty alienating, innit?

I’m an unflinching fan of choice and Virgin just delivered an awful lot of choice and opportunity to members who lack flexibility but want to be rewarded. What still remains to be seen is what happens to taxes and surcharges under the new reinvention. Virgin stands virtually alone with the amount of cash surcharge required to fork out on “reward” flights, not necessarily in a very positive way.

Above all else, I believe the program will be more engaging to people now. Gone are the days of seeing no upgrades available or seats redeemable with points and simply moving on. You’ll be able to find something and figure out whether it’s palatable.

Bring on the days of watching points prices for upgrades bob up and down in hopes of catching a dip, or being able to travel on the exact date and flight you want, perhaps for just a few more points. I’ll be paying closer attention to flights than before with that new level of engagement. These changes really help make any vouchers earned more rewarding, rather than a golden noose. I rarely spent mine, historically.

The Virgin Atlantic Flying Club program changes kick in October 30th, 2024 and any points spent between now and then will be spent as they always have. It certainly feels like there will be more fun games to play with Virgin’s rewards program in the months to come! As long as dynamic pricing is met with substantial saver availability, there’s a lot to love here.

What do you think of the changes?