Where can you fly with Virgin Points, given the new 30,000 points credit card bonus?

Today I wanted to take a look at a regularly asked question – “Where can you fly using Virgin Points?”

This is especially pertinent as you can – until 6th June – get a substantially higher bonus on the Virgin Atlantic / Virgin Money Reward+ credit card. 

As you can read here, the the Virgin Atlantic Reward+ card currently comes with a huge 30,000 Virgin Points bonus.

You can apply for the card here.

Click for an article which will help you decide which of the two Virgin Atlantic credit cards is best for you.

You can find out more about the benefits of the Virgin Atlantic Reward+ credit card in this article.  The free Virgin Atlantic credit card, with no sign-up bonus, is examined here.

Before covid hit, Virgin Atlantic had emerged from a major period of flux.  Delta Air Lines of the US had acquired a 49% stake in the business, and a new transatlantic joint venture was formed with Air France and KLM.

Whilst ‘never say never’, I would hope that the reopening of the US market will now put to rest any concerns about the financial stability of Virgin Atlantic.

As far as mileage earning and redeeming, and status earning, goes, you now have the full Virgin Atlantic, Delta, Air France and KLM networks to choose from.

Where does Virgin Atlantic fly?

Virgin Atlantic has now rebuilt its US network, and will even launch a brand new route – Austin – next month.

This is the current route network as per the Virgin Atlantic website, which was last updated in January 2022:

USA:  Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Orlando, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington

Caribbean:  Antigua, The Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, Havana, Montego Bay, St Lucia, St Vincent and Grenadines, Tobago

Africa, India and Middle East:  Cape Town (seasonal), Delhi, Islamabad, Johannesburg, Lagos, Lahore, Mumbai, Tel Aviv

Asia:  Hong Kong, Shanghai

From Manchester, Virgin flies to Atlanta, Las Vegas (still suspended post-covid), Los Angeles (seasonal), New York, Orlando, Islamabad, Barbados and Montego Bay.

From Edinburgh, Virgin flies to Barbados and Orlando (seasonal).

From Belfast, Virgin flies to Orlando (seasonal).

Missing from that list are numerous axed destinations – Sydney, Dubai, Cancun, Vancouver, Tokyo, Varadero, Detroit.  Go back further and you can add Accra, Athens, Mauritius, Nairobi, Nassau, Port Harcourt and Toronto.

Virgin also has a close partnership with Delta Air Lines, its 49% shareholder.  This added – pre-covid – Detroit, Minneapolis, Portland, Salt Lake City and Philadelphia to the ex-Heathrow options.  Delta has also historically run Summer services from the US East Coast to UK cities outside London.

If you’re tempted to redeem on Virgin Atlantic in business class, here is our review of the new Upper Class Suite which is rolling out on the new A350 aircraft.  Our article from the re-opening of the Clubhouse Lounge at Heathrow Terminal 3 is here.

Virgin Atlantic will be revealing its brand new A330 fleet to the world in the next few weeks ….

Redeeming on Virgin Atlantic partners

Virgin has a number of airline partners – ANA, Air New Zealand, Hawaiian Airlines, SAS (earning only), Singapore Airlines, South African Airways and Virgin Australia, plus of course Delta, Air France and KLM.

Spending your points on these partners is not easy.  I wrote an article on the subject here although the exceptional Air China deal discussed is no longer available.

Redeeming to Japan on ANA is, undoubtedly, the best option available from London.  This costs 95,000 Virgin Points return in Business and 120,000 points return in First Class – and you will get the fantastic new ANA seat which I covered here.  You will struggle to find more than one seat per flight in either class, however.

This HfP articles explains everything you need to know about redeeming Virgin Points on ANA.

I would also flag these ideas:

for New Zealand, using Air New Zealand to book redemptions from Asian capital cities to Auckland, which you could tag on to a Virgin Points or Avios redemption between the UK and Asia (Air New Zealand no longer flies from the UK)

using Singapore Airlines for regional flights in Asia (you will struggle to get redemptions from Europe to Singapore as most long-haul flights are blocked)

There are two issues to bear in mind:

some partners only allow redemptions via Virgin Atlantic on certain routes

availability, in general, is NOT the same as that airline offers to its own frequent flyer members or alliance partners

One improvement in recent years is the ability to book one-way redemptions with most partners.  Virgin Atlantic previously insisted on a return flight.

Redeeming Virgin Points on Air France and KLM

By far, the biggest change to Flying Club has been the recent addition of Air France and KLM as Virgin Atlantic Flying Club earning and spending partners.

Virgin, Delta and Air France / KLM have formed a joint venture to cover their combined transatlantic routes, sharing revenues and profits.

From a points point of view, this has some serious repercussions:

You can redeem Virgin Points on Air France and KLM. This opens up a huge new range of redemption possibilities.  Virgin Atlantic has become very USA-centric in the last few years but this new partnership will open up pretty much the entire world.  Choosing Virgin over BA is more attractive when you have such a wide choice of redemptions.

UK flyers who travel with Air France or KLM (which I know is a lot of HfP readers) can now credit their flights to Virgin Flying Club instead of Flying Blue and they will count towards earning Virgin Atlantic status.

We wrote a very detailed two part feature on how to redeem Virgin Points on Air France and KLM which is here and here.

Conclusion

These are a few of your options if you decide to take advantage of the current special credit card sign-up bonus to diversify away from Avios.

Remember that the Reward+ card offers a huge 30,000 Virgin Points (usually 15,000 points), subject to hitting spending targets.  Full details are on the Virgin Money website here.

The 30,000 bonus points offer will end on 6th June.

Disclaimer: Head for Points is a journalistic website. Nothing here should be construed as financial advice, and it is your own responsibility to ensure that any product is right for your circumstances. Recommendations are based primarily on the ability to earn miles and points. The site discusses products offered by lenders but is not a lender itself. Robert Burgess, trading as Head for Points, is regulated and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as an independent credit broker.