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£995 Virgin Upper Class return – London to Chicago with free stopover – book TODAY ONLY

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For some reason, Virgin Atlantic is having a one-day-and-a-bit Flash Sale on seats in Upper Class from London to Chicago.

The fare is just £995 return.

Here is the best bit.  You are, in theory, allowed a free stopover in:

  • New York
  • Atlanta
  • Boston
  • Detroit
  • Minneapolis
  • San Francisco
  • Washington
  • Miami
  • Orlando
  • Las Vegas
  • Los Angeles
  • Seattle
  • Philadelphia

A second stopover can be added for £125.

The stopover rules mean that in theory you can use the £995 fare to get to any of those places, and not bother seeing much of Chicago at all!  For example, you could do London to Los Angeles (stopover) to Chicago (must spend a Saturday night in Chicago) to London.

If you choose not to fly directly to Chicago, you will either be doing the entire trip on Delta using Virgin codeshares or on a mix of Virgin Atlantic and Delta.

If you want to stopover at somewhere other than Chicago, you should use delta.com to book.  Under ‘Fare Class’ select ‘Business (Z or higher)’.  When you are shown flights, you MUST only select those marked ‘Business (Z)’ or ‘First (P)’ which will be the cheap ones.

You must book this flight before midnight on Friday 28th August.  You can travel at any point until the end of June 2016, as long as you can find seats.  Remember that you need ‘Z’ in Business Class.

I can’t find any official online information about this deal but it is definitely NOT an error fare.  If you want to learn more about Virgin Upper Class, take a look at their website here.  The Clubhouse lounge at Heathrow is regarded to be one of the top 3-4 airport lounges in the world.

Have a play around at virgin-atlantic.com and see what you can find ….


How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Virgin Points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

You can choose from two official Virgin Atlantic credit cards (apply here, the Reward+ card has a bonus of 15,000 Virgin Points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

A generous earning rate for a free card at 0.75 points per £1 Read our full review

You can also earn Virgin Points from various American Express cards – and these have sign-up bonuses too.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for a year and comes with 20,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 20,000 Virgin Points.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with 40,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 40,000 Virgin Points.

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Small business owners should consider the two American Express Business cards. Points convert at 1:1 into Virgin Points.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Virgin Points

(Want to earn more Virgin Points?  Click here to see our recent articles on Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club and click here for our home page with the latest news on earning and spending other airline and hotel points.)

Comments (64)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • john says:

    interesting to see some of these can be used on ‘Delta One’. Any views on which is the better service?

    • James Ward says:

      Virgin UC is WAY better (both hard and soft product) than Delta One, IMO

  • RIccati says:

    Cannot find May or July next year.

  • Mycity says:

    Am I missing something? How do I book multi city likes yours Rob, all I see as options is one way or return on virgins web site Thanks

  • Paul Molyneux says:

    Are they the only stopovers or can you stopover in Austin/Houston/New Orleans with Delta?

    • Rob says:

      I copied the list from the fare rules so, in theory, only the ones I listed.

  • Solo says:

    Hmmm call me stupid but I can’t get this to allow me to a stopover?

    • Solo says:

      For this prices that is

      • Raffles says:

        Go to the Delta website
        Choose multi-city
        Select under fare ‘Business (Z) and higher’
        Make sure you only select Z flights (and P in First)
        Make sure you are in Chicago over a Saturday night

        and it should work. Try replicating my stopover itinerary above for the same dates so you can see it working.

  • Paul says:

    Nice fare! Thanks for the tip-off, Rob.

    Not convinced that west-cost SFO or LAX stopovers seem do-able without significantly bumping the fare, though…

  • Pol says:

    The Virgin site dips out when you try and select seats. When did Chicago stop being a seasonal Virgin route? Used to be June – October only, and still is according to the Virgin route map, maybe it’s only just become year round hence the prices. Delta will let me get through to the payment page though.

  • Nick says:

    With a multi city itinerary, booked at delta.com, make sure all sectors are on Delta aircraft if you want to collect Flying Club points. Virgin do not credit points for journeys on Virgin aircraft booked with a Delta codeshare flight number as stated on their website:

    “Flying Club members can earn on all Delta operated and marketed services including the flights operated by Delta regional services; Delta, Delta Shuttle, Delta Connection. This excludes any codeshare flights unless booked with a VS flight number”

    • Paul says:

      Thanks for the warning… never knew that. Is it definitely true in reality, I wonder?

      Seems odd if VS tier points are awarded for a Delta numbered, Delta metal, flight, and yet not for a Delta numbered, VS metal, flight…

      • James says:

        I’ve had points for VS operated DL coded flights.

        I guess it means DL codeshares with other non virgin airlines?

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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