Excellent, but convoluted, Virgin Atlantic / Delta business class deals to the US from £939

Virgin Atlantic is currently selling some exceptionally cheap – no argument there – Business Class flights to the United States.

It is unfortunately a niche deal on connecting flights only.  If you can make it work for you then, of course, you clearly are not beating this price anywhere else.

So …. this is how it works:

You can ONLY fly to places where Virgin Atlantic does NOT fly directly (so forget about New York, Boston, LA, San Francisco, Atlanta etc)

Since all of the trips involve a connection, part or all of your journey will be on Delta.  There are no ‘100% Virgin Atlantic’ services.   However, if your transatlantic leg is on Delta you CAN still use Virgin Clubhouse lounge in Heathrow Terminal 3 and your flight will earn miles and tier points in Virgin Flying Club.

It seems that you can ONLY fly out on a Tuesday or Wednesday

You must book six months ahead according to the fare rules, but in reality the window seems to be from mid-December 2018 to March-ish 2019 depending on route

Here are some of the places that you CAN fly to:

• Austin £979
• Charlotte £939
• Dallas £979
• Denver £979
• Fort Lauderdale £939
• Nashville £939
• New Orleans £939
• Phoenix £939
• San Diego £979
• San Jose £979

You can find out more about Virgin Upper Class on their site here although some routings may be entirely on Delta – take care when booking.  You will often get a variety of options.

How to book

The Virgin Atlantic booking page is here 

Select one pair of dates which are roughly OK for when you want to travel, preferably in early 2019 but December 2018 may also work

Before you click, select ‘5 week view’

On the results page, switch to ‘Upper Class’ (top left) which will bring up lots of date pairs where the ‘Upper Class / Business’ fare (toggle the class in the top left) is £900+ 

Click on the price / date combo you want and you can pick your exact flights

Is this a good deal?

Undoubtedly.  You will have to change planes on your trip, but it is very rare that you get a price like this which starts in the UK as opposed to some odd EU capital.

The only question is whether you actually know now that you want to travel to a 2nd tier US city next January, February or March …..!   To help you decide, here are the average January maximum temperatures:

• Austin – 15 degrees c
• Charlotte – 10 degrees c
• Dallas – 12 degrees c
• Denver – 6 degrees c
• Fort Lauderdale – 24 degrees c
• Nashville – 8 degrees c
• New Orleans – 16 degrees c
• Phoenix – 19 degrees c
• San Diego – 19 degrees c
• San Jose – 19 degrees c

To maximise your miles when paying, your best bet is one of the two Virgin Atlantic Reward credit cards.  These earn double miles (3 per £1 on the paid card or 1.5 per £1 on the free card) when you book at virginatlantic.com or via Virgin Holidays.  Another option is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold which offers double points – 2 per £1 – when you book flight tickets directly with an airline.

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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):

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.

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

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

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.)