A trick to book Virgin Atlantic Upper Class sale flights for as little as £615 return

Earlier today we wrote about Virgin Atlantic’s aggressive Black Friday offers, including 50% off redemptions. In this article, we wanted to take a closer look at the sale fares offered.

There are decent deals in all classes, although travel dates are only until the end of June 2021 – if you want a bargain further out, the redemption sale is until October.

Full details are on the Virgin Atlantic website here.

Upper Class deals from £999

There are some stonking Upper Class deals to be had, with £999 return fares on virtually every route Virgin Atlantic flies. From London, the following are all from £999, with similar pricing from other UK airports:

New York, Boston, Washington, Miami, Orlando, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, St Vincent, Barbados, Grenada, Tobago, Havana, Montego, Antigua, Delhi, Mumbai, Lahore, Islamabad, Tel Aviv, Johannesburg, Cape Town.

Only Atlanta, Shanghai, Lagos and Hong Kong are priced higher, between £1,299 and £1,499.

Clearly, some of these £999 options are better value than others. A flight to Tel Aviv, for example, is around 5 hours long. For the same cost, you could fly to Cape Town which is closer to 12.

Book Hawaii from £999 with Delta, Air France and KLM!

Although not advertised, you can also fly to Hawaii in Upper Class for £999, return.

This fare is easily available if you are flexible on your dates. The £999 fare is from London via Paris, partly on Air France, and has two connections. For an extra £5 you can narrow it down to just one in in LA.

This is an absurdly good offer and would normally be north of £2,000.

It gets better: Upper Class from £615 from Inverness

Inverness is often a good place to start long haul flights from thanks to its Air Passenger Duty exemption. It looks like you can get some astonishing Upper Class fares to the US West Coast with a bit of searching.

These all book onto Air France or KLM, as Virgin doesn’t operate flights from Inverness and won’t book you onto BA connections. The cheapest fares come with some lengthy stop overs.

Overall journey time is over 30 hours with an 18 hour stop in Amsterdam … but for £615 and the opportunity to spend the day in Amsterdam, who’s arguing?

These fares are few and far between, however – I had difficulty finding them, with most of the fares coming in closer to £1000.

For our London based readers, the snag here is that you can’t ‘hop off’ in London on the way back and drop the final leg, because you are connecting to Inverness via the Netherlands.

How should I pay for my tickets?

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.

You can book all these fares on the Virgin Atlantic website here.

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How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (March 2025)

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):

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with 50,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 50,000 Virgin Points.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

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

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 8th April 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Business Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to 120,000 points. You receive 80,000 points when you spend £12,000 within three months and a further 40,000 points if you spend on the card between Month 14 and Month 17. Points convert 1:1 into Avios and many other programmes. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 8th April 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Business Gold is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 60,000 points. You receive 40,000 points when you spend £6,000 within three months and a further 20,000 points if you spend on the card between Month 14 and Month 17. Points convert 1:1 into Avios and many other programmes. Click here to apply.

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