Virgin Atlantic Flying Club for Indians – CardExpert

Flying Club is the frequent flyer program of Virgin Atlantic, which is a member of “Sky Team”. Flying club is a popular program among small set of Indians especially with those flying to London and connecting to European countries.

If you’re new here, do check out the Intro to airmiles article to get started. Here’s everything you need to know about the Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club loyalty program as an Indian,

Overview

Flying Club recently moved to dynamic award system with increased award availability but usually at a higher point requirement based on demand, route & season.

However, the cheaper ones are still available as saver reward seats with availability as good as before.

Why Flying Club?

Most regular family (or) business travellers prefer taking direct flight to the destination without any stop overs.

This is where Flying Club comes handy, especially when travelling from Bombay/Delhi/Bangalore to London. I personally see travellers prefer with this option, especially for London as even the last minute availability (1~2 weeks) is pretty good. The return leg however is expensive because of UK tax.

Other than that, it’s also pretty good for Intra-EU flights as we can book award seats with their partners.

On top of it, availability of saver fares for multiple passengers are also pretty good, as many a times you can find 2+ seats available in economy.

Membership Tiers

Flying Club is a 3-tiered membership:

1. Red
2. Silver
3. Gold

Every time you fly with Virgin Atlantic or its airline partners, you’ll also earn Tier Points. And with three tiers of membership, the higher you go, the more benefits you’ll enjoy.

There is no major sweet spot with the benefits on higher tiers hence better to ignore.

Intro to SkyTeam

SkyTeam is one of the world’s three major airline alliances. Founded in June 2000, SkyTeam was the last of the three alliances to be formed, the first two being Star Alliance and Oneworld, respectively. 

Here is a list of Sky Team members:

Taxes & Fuel Surcharge

Fuel Surcharges are passed on to the redemptions for Virgin Atlantic flights however they are not passed on to some of the partner bookings like Delta.

Miles required are relatively lesser than other programs but Fuel surcharge does add up a lot when redeeming for premium cabins.

Earning Miles

1. American Express India: You may transfer points from Amex at 2:1 in the blocks of 800 MR : 400 miles
2. Marriott Bonvoy: Transfer at 3:1 and (get 5k more on every transfer of 60k Marriott Bonvoy points). As Axis don’t directly transfer to Virgin, you may first transfer to Marriott (or to ITC and then to Marriott) and then to Virgin.

If you wish to book quick, Amex is the option for you as it allows you to instantly link & transfer, just like Marriott Bonvoy.

If you’re looking to accumulate Amex MR points, Amex Gold Charge & Amex MRCC will help with small monthly milestones but if you don’t have time for that and need miles quick, then Amex Platinum Charge is perhaps the only option.

Apart from Amex, Axis Magnus Burgundy is perhaps the only other card that can help you get Virgin points through Marriott Route as mentioned above.

While its not very common, virgin does come out with transfer bonus once in a while when transferring points from credit cards.

Note: Accor transfers only to Virgin Australia and not Virgin Atlantic. Tricky names, be careful!

Redeeming Miles

In order to search for award flights, once you login you have to click on advanced search and choose “points”. Here are the sequence of pages you’ll go through.

Note: Virgin updated the interface recently but looks largely similar.

So if you look at it closely, you’ll find a new term called “Upper Class” which is the Virgin’s way of calling “Business Class”.

Along with it, you would also notice that taxes increase with the class of cabin. This is sad to see, as it makes business class a costly affair even with lower miles requirement.

Peak Season: Note that Virgin has peak season dates & rates where-in you’ll need to spend a lot more points for the seats, usually 2X the regular points rate.

Ideally, it’s a common sense to avoid these dates unless you’re sitting on lot’s of miles.

Other than that, Virgin also has a tool called Reward Seat Checker which will help one to have a bird’s eye view of the award availability for the entire month.

It’s similar to the monthly calendar view on United Mileage Plus, but here it’s bit better as it shows cabin wise availability.

The only flipside with this tool is that you can only check award availability for flights either to or from UK.

Partner Redemptions

Virgin Atlantic has introduced a new Sky Team award chart. Award costs are distance based and one-way costs can be found on their website.

Partner Airlines bookable online: Delta, KLM, Air France, China Airlines, Korean Air, Middle East Airlines, Xiamen Air.

ITA Airways and China Eastern redemptions will be available for redemptions by late 2023.

Redemption Ideas

India to UK

In standard season, you’ll need as little as 10,000 points for an Economy Classic one way flight to London, and in peak season you’ll need 20000 points in Economy.

We’ve seen London route already above, but here’s one more with Air France.

Intra-Europe

Virgin offers excellent availability for intra-Europe flights, thanks to its partnerships with Air France, KLM, SAS, and others. In my experience, KLM has particularly good availability, while Air France tends to have the least.

I flew the above sector in Business Class on KLM recently, primarily to experience the KLM lounge, which wasn’t really exciting anyway.

Otherwise, economy (standard) is sufficient in most cases, as it also comes with check-in luggage.

India to Europe

While the availability to London on Virgin is great because of the direct flight from India, the availability with their partners to EU are not that great.

India to USA

Redemptions to US are pretty expensive on premium cabins and doesn’t make sense to any.

Stop Overs

Flying Club doesn’t allow Stop Overs. Flying Club prices one-way awards at half of the award chart price for most partners. As Flying Club charges for each flight segment separately, you can build in a stopover in a connecting city.

However, it may not be worth the extra mileage cost to book an award with a connection or stopover.

Cancellation Fee

Date Change: You may amend your travel date, route or class of service prior to travel for an amendment fee of £30 for changes to international flights originating in the UK, US$50 for changes to international flights originating in the US or local currency equivalent of US$50 for changes to flights originating in any other region.

Cancellation: If for any reason a flight Reward is cancelled by the Member outside 24 hours of the outbound flight, 100% of the Virgin Points will be re-credited to the Member’s account.

A cancellation fee of £30 for changes to flights originating in the UK, US$50 for changes to flights originating in the US or local currency equivalent of US$50 for changes to flights originating in any other region will apply.

Infant Ticket

While most airlines charge 10% of revenue fare on international routes, Virgin Atlantic charges a flat rate based on partners. They charge a small amount of miles for infants, as below:

• 1000 miles on Economy
• 2000 miles on Premium Economy
• 5000 miles on Upper Class (business)

There is huge saving here and for illustration here is the miles required with Infant from Bombay to London for various cabins

To include infant all you need is to add under “Lap Infants” while choosing the number of passenger. It’s a super simple process. Wish all air-miles follow Virgin for this matter.

Things to note

Family Pooling

Virgin Atlantic has introduced household accounts for all members which was previously limited only for highest tier members. This allows Flying Club members registered at the same address to pool their points into a single account.

However, the existing points balance (before joining the pool) does not get automatically pooled. So it’s better to just transfer the points by paying the fee in most cases.

Friends & Family

You can book flights for your friends and family using your Virgin Atlantic account. However, since Virgin Atlantic is quite strict and often verifies accounts with passengers during boarding, it’s better to transfer miles to your friends (for a small fee of £10 per transfer) and let them book using their own accounts.

There have also been reports of some accounts being suspended when booking for friends. To keep things simple, it’s advisable to book for yourself or immediate family members to avoid complications during an audit.

Award Ticket hold

Flying Club allows you to have a hold of 24 hours on award inventory for Virgin Atlantic flights. For this you’ll need to call the Virgin’s customer care.

Other Redemption Options

What else can I do with my Virgin Atlantic points besides flights? This wouldn’t be a complete guide to Virgin Atlantic if we also didn’t share some of the more unique redemptions of Flying Club points.

• Convert points to hotels: Members may exchange their points with Hilton Honors (2:3 ratio) or IHG Rewards Club (1:1 ratio).
• Hot air balloon rides: Redeem 30,000 points per person for a hot air balloon ride over the English countryside (U.K. members only).
• Chauffeur service to or from the airport: When flying on Virgin Atlantic, you can book chauffeur service to or from the airport using points.
• Sir Richard Branson Private Retreats: Book stays at exclusive resorts in Morocco, Switzerland, Kenya or South Africa.
• Fly into space: Members with two million points earned on Virgin Atlantic flights can enter a drawing to redeem points for a trip into space on Virgin Galactic.

Virgin Flight Experience

Puneet traveled on Virgin in 2019 and tried their Upper Class on A340. The ground experience at Heathrow was quite nice as they had a dedicated check-in facility for upper class passengers. All upper class passenger get access to their signature lounge at Heathrow terminal-3 called Club House.

Unlike most of the other lounges nothing here is self-serve except for bread, pastries, cold items etc. One can order from the menu and it will be served hot to you just like the American Express Lounge in Mumbai.

Speaking of the product, Cabin was arranged in a 1-1-1 herringbone configuration with the centre and lefthand seats facing each other until Row 7 and the righthand and centre seats facing each other from there to the back of the cabin.

The privacy was decent, but I didn’t like the hard product especially compared to the likes of SQ and other Middle Eastern airlines.

Support

• India:  +91-124-4693030 (9:15 am to 5:15 pm)
• UK: 0344 209 2722

They’ve a chat support with live agent & I recently had to use it for a reason. It took about 5 mins to get connected to an agent but once connected the agent was able to help quickly with my query.

Bottomline

While Virgin is already popular for its direct connection to London from India, we got more opportunities now to redeem on many partners without needing to call the support line.

While Virgin Atlantic is already popular for its direct connections to London from India, there are now more opportunities to redeem miles on various partners without needing to call the support line.

From an Indian perspective, the future success of Virgin Atlantic’s frequent flyer program depends on their ability to add SkyTeam partners to their online booking system. Without this, their route options remain quite limited compared to the major players in the industry.

That said, considering the large number of travelers flying to the UK from India, it would be great to see more banking transfer partners in India. 

Have you redeemed your miles on Virgin? Feel free to share your experience in the comments below.