Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Virgin Atlantic launches flights to The Bahamas

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

Virgin Atlantic has announced a new route to The Bahamas. This will apparently give you the chance to see swimming pigs ….

The airline has also announced a large increase in services to Barbados.

Virgin Atlantic to launch Bahamas flights

The service to The Bahamas will operate twice per week from London Heathrow from 20th November.

The Cove Atlantis Bahamas

Tickets are not on sale yet but will be available from 11th August.

Flights will use a Boeing 787-9 so you will not get the new Upper Class Suite. These aircraft have 31 Upper Class, 35 Premium and 192 Economy seats.

As Virgin Atlantic says:

“With 16 major islands surrounded by the world’s clearest waters, The Bahamas is an unrivalled destination boasting beautiful white sand beaches, sailing adventures, fishing and diving as well Exuma’s world-famous swimming pigs!” 

What will it cost in Virgin Points?

The Virgin Points flight redemption chart is here.

All of the Caribbean routes have the same pricing. You will pay, plus taxes and charges:

  • Economy: 40,000 points peak / 20,000 points off-peak
  • Premium: 55,000 points peak / 35,000 points off-peak
  • Upper Class: 135,000 points peak / 115,000 points off-peak

The peak dates for 2021/2 are:

  • 14 July – 5 September 2021
  • 15 – 26 October 2021
  • 11 – 31 December 2021
  • 1 January – 6 March 2022
  • 7 – 26 April 2022
  • 30 May – 5 June 2022
  • 16 June – 4 September 2022

Remember that the Virgin Atlantic credit cards come with a 2-4-1 voucher if you hit an annual spend target. Unlike the British Airways American Express cards, the Virgin credit card voucher can be used for a 2-4-1 or upgrade on cash or points tickets – see here.

Additional Barbados services now bookable

Virgin Atlantic has also announced a 60% increase in its flights to Barbados.

Manchester to Barbados will increase to five flights per week, whilst London Heathrow to Barbados will increase to 11 flights per week.

The frequency increase will take effect from the launch of the new Winter timetable on 31st October.

Where else does Virgin Atlantic fly in the Caribbean?

Flights are currently operating to Barbados, Antigua, Jamaica and Grenada.

Tobago and Havana are due to restart in the next few months.

St Vincent and the Grenadines is still scheduled to launch in October 2021. This will be the first flight from any European airport to St Vincent.


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.)

Comments (41)

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

  • Oh! Matron! says:

    As an aside, Delta, AF / KLM / Virgin in Delta One (or equiv) have some VERY attractive fares from MAD to the US next year. Around the ¢1100 price (couldn’t find the euro symbol)

    https://loyaltylobby.com/2021/08/03/airfare-of-the-day-delta-one-delta-madrid-to-washington-dc-from-1088e/

    • Bagoly says:

      Often CTRL-ALT-4 or CTRL-ALT-5

      Although EUR is universal 🙂

      • RussellH says:

        I thought keyboards had always had € symbol on them for at least the last 20 years.
        Its the Alt Gr key (right of the space bar) + 4 (or whatever other key is marked with €, though it has always been 4 on any keyboard I have had).
        Unless you use Risc OS, in which case it is Alt-E.

        • Bagoly says:

          Your experience may only cover keyboards in Europe …

        • Mark says:

          One might say RISC OS is a bit of an edge case these days, though nice to hear that not everyone has forgotten it!

      • Alex Sm says:

        Normally it’s (e) – will auto convert as you type

    • Doug M says:

      Oneworld have prices from around £1000 from CDG and AMS to good number of US destination, easily earn Silver from it too.
      I do wonder whether booking these is just a loan to airlines.

  • FatherOfFour says:

    Slightly related… Sandals just announced a new resort in Curacao. Not served by Virgin or BA at present- you’d have to use KLM from AMS, or fly BA/AA via MIA. I wonder if this would stimulate enough demand for a new route for either / both of BA/VS?

  • Paul says:

    It’s The Bahamas, not the Bahamas.

  • David Jones says:

    Has anyone seen information about which days of the week the VS flights to NAS will be?

  • LS says:

    Can anyone please tell me why there is a pig in the sea??

    • Scott says:

      There’s an island (Pig Island?) about 89 miles from Nassau where wild pigs live. They swim around and tourists like to visit.

  • Will says:

    How the heck are you supposed to book using Virgin credit card upgrade vouchers when you can’t get through on telephone, WhatsApp, SMS, etc etc in 2-3 hours of trying each…. Covid is no longer an excuse if BA can do it. Any information on whether expiry is on hold for vouchers, and until when??

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      We are in the same boat…

    • Mark says:

      I guess it must vary… ‘only’ took me 56 minutes to get through on Monday morning and amend an existing redemption booking (with 2x upgrade vouchers for upper class) to snap up limited Antigua availability for November (that I’d previously been forced to book for Miami when our previous Antigua flights were cancelled in April). I had the filled in the online form the night before, but its just as well I called them as the fact we want to amend two separate bookings isn’t catered for on the form and just confused them.

      Once I got through on the phone though it was all quite efficient.

    • Degsy says:

      I think generally late evenings are better times to contact them – historically that always seems to have been the case, at least

  • 1ATL says:

    According to a contact who works for Virgin, the aircraft rotation will operate LHR-NAS-MBJ-NAS-LHR. So from a crew perspective Heathrow to Nassau then a shuttle operated by a different crew Nassau – Montego Bay – Nassau and finally another crew will take over at Nassau for the flight back to Heathrow.

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

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.