Virgin Atlantic: launching Austin?, reopens arrivals lounge, extends rebooking policy

We’ve been swamped with Virgin Atlantic news in the last 48 hours. Here is a summary.

Is Virgin Atlantic about to launch flights to Austin?

There are rumours circulating online that Virgin Atlantic is about to announce flights to Austin in Texas.

If you track these rumours back to their sources, they are not what I would call ‘cast iron’. That said, one even quotes the flight numbers to be used (VS231 and VS232). It also appears that Virgin Atlantic staff are aware of the rumours, at least in the call centre.

The most obvious reason for this story to be true is that Austin is a very ‘Virgin Atlantic’ type of place. Whilst I see more and more comments saying that the city is now heading in the wrong direction due to high housing costs, homelessness and tech money crowding out everyone else, there is little doubt that Austin has been seen as the hippest place to live in the US for a number of years.

It has a strong IT industry, led by Apple (the biggest employer in the city) and Facebook with Google and Oracle also opening there. This has attracted a lot of young people and all the things that come with such a demographic, including the South by Southwest festival. It also has good access to outdoor recreational activities which appeals to the family market.

These are all factors which imply that Virgin Atlantic would fit in with the Austin ‘scene’. So far, however, these are just rumours, and it remains to be seen if the city can support flights from both British Airways and Virgin. It did, of course, have both Norwegian and BA flying from London at one point.

Virgin Atlantic to reopen its arrivals lounge at Heathrow

If you are flying into the UK on Virgin Atlantic or Delta from Monday, you will be able to use the Revivals Lounge in Heathrow Terminal 3.

Open to Virgin Atlantic Upper Class and Delta One pasengers and Flying Club Gold members, it is somewhere to grab a shower and have some breakfast. It certainly isn’t anything on the scale of the Clubhouse lounge in Heathrow Terminal 3 departures, but it does the job.

Our last review of the Virgin Atlantic Revivals lounge at Heathrow is here.

There is no word yet on when British Airways will reopen its arrivals lounge in Terminal 5, which is a far grander affair.

Both lounges had to close because, under the covid regulations in force until yesterday, arriving passenger had to isolate until they received the results of their ‘Day 2’ test. Visiting an arrivals lounge on the way was not allowed ….

You can find out more about the Revivals Lounge on the Virgin Atlantic website here.

Virgin Atlantic extends its flexible booking policy

Virgin Atlantic has announced an extension of its flexible booking policy, allowing you to book for 2022 with confidence.

For bookings made from 23rd December 2021 for travel completed in 2022, the following rules apply:

• you can make unlimited date changes

• you can make unlimited destination changes

• you can change the name on the ticket once

The key conditions are:

• all travel must be completed by 31st December 2023

• you must pay any fare difference when making a change

For Virgin Holidays bookings, changes must be made three weeks before departure. For flight only bookings, changes can be made at any point until departure.

You can find out more on the Virgin Atlantic website here.

Virgin Atlantic launches a new sale

Virgin Atlantic has also rebooted its January sale in response to the loosening of testing requirements on your return to the UK.

The headline offer for Upper Class is ‘up to £1,400’ off but the airline has not supplied us with any typical fares to back this up. There are also savings in Economy and Premium.

If you are interesting in locking in a deal to the US or Caribbean, take a look at the Virgin Atlantic sale website here.

Virgin Holidays has extra deals this weekend

You should also price up your itinerary via the Virgin Holidays website here, as there may be savings to be made by booking your flight and hotel together.

Until Monday evening, Virgin Holidays is offering additional savings of up to 10% on all 2022 bookings. The discount is based on the total holiday cost excluding Air Passenger Duty and other airline-added taxes and charges. You can learn more here.

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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.)