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Virgin Atlantic launches good US Upper Class flight sale

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Virgin Atlantic has launched a good sale on many of its US routes.

This seems to be in response to the current British Airways sale, which is exceptionally cheap – see our article here – but which requires two people to travel.

Virgin USA sale

The Virgin Atlantic deal does NOT require two people to travel.  Solo travellers who were annoyed by the British Airways sale can jump in now.  (If there ARE two of you travelling, you might find the British Airways prices to be better so check those too.)

Here are the rules:

you must book seven days in advance of travel – so the earliest you can book, given this was published on Saturday 17th, is on Saturday 24th

you must travel outbound by 30th September

you must return by 10th October

you must stay away for a Saturday night

Virgin Atlantic US sale

How good are the prices?

Here are a sample of Upper Class deals:

Boston £1,486

Washington £1,486

New York £1,486 (this includes the new A350 service which launches on 10th September on the 13.30 Heathrow service, excluding Thursdays)

Las Vegas £1,503

Atlanta £1,798

Los Angeles £1,798 (limited availability)

Seattle £1,803 (limited availability)

Chicago £1,865

Miami £1,999

I couldn’t find anything to San Francisco or Orlando.

Virgin Atlantic upper class suite sale

If you are considering booking the new A350 with the new Upper Class Suite, our review is here.

You can also book onto Delta services for the same price where available if you want to give them a try.  Here is our review of Delta ONE on an A330-200.

Either way, you can get into the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse in Terminal 3 which we reviewed here and which is definitely something you should try once.

As we said with the British Airways sale article, if you are travelling before the end of September you may want to think about cancelling any ticket booked using Avios or Virgin Flying Club miles and buying a cash ticket instead. 

It is slightly less clear cut with these Virgin Atlantic deals – with the BA sale, it is virtually a no-brainer to cancel and rebook unless you need the flexibility to cancel – but you should do the maths.  You may also be able to get a better timed flight by swapping to cash.

You can book on the Virgin Atlantic website here.

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.

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 18,000 Virgin Points and the free card has a bonus of 3,000 Virgin Points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

3,000 bonus points, no fee and 1 point for every £1 you spend 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.)

Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (34)

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

  • BSI1978 says:
    17 Aug17 August 05:46

    Morning Rob, all.

    Do we consider it likely that these will be the extent of Virgin & BA’s sales or is there likely to be further and wider sales later in the summer/autumn?

    • AJA says:
      17 Aug17 August 08:12

      I’d like to know this too. Both these sales are useless to me as i am already travelling in Sept and couldn’t find any flights for my itinerary worth cancelling my reward flight for. I am also looking for dates in late Nov or Feb/Mar 2020 to Singapore and on to Thailand. Cheapest I’ve found so far is via Qatar or Finnair but starting in Oslo but both much more than I was expecting.

    • Rob says:
      17 Aug17 August 09:17

      Depends how weak bookings get in light of pilot strikes and no-deal Brexits ….

  • Benylin says:
    17 Aug17 August 06:05

    OT: What number can I call Avios on now to book a redemption flight (2-4-1). Tried the US number 1 800 452 1201 but they are closed. Want to make sure I don’t miss the opening.

    • Benylin says:
      17 Aug17 August 06:20

      Ok got through to someone in Saudi.
      Being charged £35 per person to adjust a date, plus £15 per person service charge. So £100 total…
      Is that correct?
      I thought it was just £35 total regardless of pax?

      • AJA says:
        17 Aug17 August 07:59

        Hi Benylin I have never done a phone booking for a 2 4 1 ticket but I understood that charge was waived if you were adding a return to a booking to make it 2 4 1 or doing open jaw booking as that is something you can’t do online. Otherwise if possible to do online and you phone up you’re charged.

        Glad you got your booking. Where are you going? Enjoy it

      • Jonathan says:
        17 Aug17 August 08:31

        It’s definitely £35 per person. The phone service fee is less cut & dry, if you can’t complete online what you’re requesting over the phone it shouldn’t be charged but often have to query it. Equally if you get the right agent you can sometimes get it waived when it should be charged.

      • Lady London says:
        17 Aug17 August 14:49

        You should not pay the phone fée if it was something you could not have done yourself online – it should be waived.

        • callum says:
          17 Aug17 August 14:55

          The £35 fee absolutely should be charged in this case – it’s only meant to be waived if it’s something you can normally do online but it isn’t working.

          Some people manage to get it waived anyway, but it shouldn’t be so don’t rely on it (I’ve never been able to get it waived for my Alaska redemptions, but I’m sure a few people here have).

          • Lady London says:
            17 Aug17 August 21:26

            I have ALWAYS got it waived for Alaska redemptions, usually without even asking.
            I usually open with “is it possible to book Alaskan redemptions online” and they say no it’s not and then do my booking.

            Perhaps jogging the agent’s memory in this way that you’re only calling because it’s something you would do online, but online facility is not provided to you to do it, is what is working.

  • Aceman says:
    17 Aug17 August 08:49

    Can’t say that looks compelling from my limited sample. Even in the ba sale for similar dates one person to Vegas was £1400. Fortunately I persuaded a friend and am going for £955 now…

    • Doug M says:
      17 Aug17 August 10:14

      I never find Virgin to be as cheap as Oneworld when heading west. I would very much like to try their A350, but it can wait. Don’t want to go in September anyway, too many other things in play. Will keep an eye on ex-Dublin VS prices and hope for a Amex travel offer to sweeten the price.

  • Stu N says:
    17 Aug17 August 10:29

    OT – does the BAPP Amex “Spend £100, get 1,000 Avios” work when paying off a BA Holidays balance?

    • Alex says:
      17 Aug17 August 11:27

      It does – Exactly what i did and the offer has been removed from my saved offers tab now.

    • Harry T says:
      17 Aug17 August 11:28

      Worked on my girlfriend’s free BA Card. Ironically hasn’t worked yet on my BAPP. We are paying the same BA holidays booking balance, for clarity. I’d already paid the deposit, so we are chipping away at the balance for cash flow purposes. We’ve both put 101£ on our BA cards.

      • Stu N says:
        17 Aug17 August 17:25

        Thanks Harry T. If it doesn’t credit I’d raise with Amex via Chat

  • Adam says:
    17 Aug17 August 11:34

    slightly off topic…
    I have an Air New Zealand flight booked using my flying club miles. I need to cancel and know the fees for doing so….Can anyone advise as to how they do this in practise? My original fees were about £30. Do I pay the cancellation penalty and they refund my original payment or do they operate the same as BA in that the penalty is UP to £35..? Many thanks

  • Chuk says:
    17 Aug17 August 14:15

    OT – Green to plat upgrade. Spent the £4K and no points appeared however this morning the counter for spending £4K and receiving the 20k points is showing on the app with £0 spent. Maybe it will refresh overnight? Anyone else had this?

    • Mark2 says:
      17 Aug17 August 17:19

      Thanks for the tip. I now have the counter but it shows £0 spent when I have spent more than £4,000. Perhaps tomorrow it will show the amount.

  • Spaghetti Town says:
    17 Aug17 August 15:42

    I really wish Virgin would let you use the credit cards 241 for Upper Class.

    • Peter K says:
      17 Aug17 August 17:48

      Or even expanding the options and letting you upgrade from premium to upper one way for one person for no extra Virgin miles would be something.

      • Spaghetti Town says:
        17 Aug17 August 22:22

        +1

        The economy > premium upgrade voucher is a joke in itself. £400 in fee’s for a return to New York + the miles of a economy seat.

    • Mark2 says:
      17 Aug17 August 18:38

      I wish that we could use Virgin miles to book on Flybe; one day perhaps.

  • ChrisC says:
    17 Aug17 August 16:19

    Both BA and VS are £1499 for solo flyer LHR-NYC for my provisional dates in September.

    Includes the VS A350 flights as well

    Advantage of BA is I can use some of my avios to reduce the fare.

    Advantage of VS is the CH and the A350

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