Virgin Atlantic reverses its £200 increase in Upper Class reward seat surcharges

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• ChasP says:

  27 Mar27 March 09:49

  but why are all US routes the same surcharge ?
  a Virgin UC cash ticket to NY is around £2k while SFO is £3k
  Sire you pay extra points for SFO but its far better value and paying half the cash price in charges for a NY flight stings

• Ben says:

  27 Mar27 March 10:17

  Perhaps the next article could look at the complete rip off in fees when booking *from* the US (both BA and Virgin)…$1000 in fees for a one way upper class on Virgin.

  • Rob says:

    27 Mar27 March 10:21

    Fly Delta to mainland Europe then …. $5 of tax from the US, plus 50,000 Virgin Points in Business.

    • Mark says:

      27 Mar27 March 10:32

      What’s availability like in practice?

      • Rob says:

        27 Mar27 March 10:51

        Crap, obviously 🙂 To be fair, you are likely to find something on a particular day over the summer if you’re not bothered about where you land but with so many Delta routes and no easy way to bulk search, it could be a painful few hours.

        • IanT says:

          27 Mar27 March 11:22

          Air France to CDG availability is much better than Delta, and at just 1000 points more than Virgin metal and just £236 in fees it’s my go to alternative.

  • Mark says:

    27 Mar27 March 12:24

    Yes! $996 for a one way on Virgin. And only about $30 is tax. It needs the government to outlaw these ‘surcharges’. They are just all part of the base fare and shouldn’t be payable on a points redemption.

    • Mark says:

      27 Mar27 March 12:42

      But if that happened you can be sure the points requirement would increase massively to compensate.

• Wee paul says:

  27 Mar27 March 10:22

  The only thing that annoys me more than reward flight charges is the size increase in apd from economy. Why doesn’t it have its own appropriate band? As someone with 35 inch inside leg I can’t fit into an economy seat unless it’s an exit seat and that can vanish with aircraft change. The difference in premium Vs business or 1st is huge and the apd bands should reflect that.

  • Andrew says:

    27 Mar27 March 10:34

    Completely agree – the APD increase from Economy to Premium on international flights is too much – there is no difference if you are Premium or Upper yet the fare is VERY different even paying taxes on a reward flight… maybe one day a government will sort this out… UK TO USA adds £106pp in Premium.. yet the actual fare difference part of the price can often be less than £100 on Virgin…

  • Rob says:

    27 Mar27 March 10:53

    What is weird is that Premium would NOT have higher APD if Economy didn’t exist.

    The rules is that the lowest cabin gets reduced APD, as long as leg room is under 40 inches (which it is in PE).

    There’s an interesting business model here because someone could launch an ‘all Premium Economy’ service and get an immediate £150 per head cost advantage over BA, Virgin etc because they wouldn’t be charging higher level APD.

    • jjoohhnn says:

      27 Mar27 March 11:41

      Who is to stay BA or Virgin wouldn’t launch it?!

    • pigeon says:

      27 Mar27 March 12:10

      This. On a 321 LR. Two class service.

      Also note, it’s not legroom but seat pitch which matters for APD. You measure the distance between matching points of consecutive seats. So a business class with a smartly chosen herringbone will be under 40 inches. For APD it also needs to be the lowest class, so this needs an all business class layout. Which doesn’t really work.

    • aseftel says:

      27 Mar27 March 12:34

      Have QF announced their config for the Sunrise A350s? Conceivably they could ditch economy like the SQ ULRs.

      • Rhys says:

        27 Mar27 March 12:59

        Very much still offering economy. https://www.headforpoints.com/2023/06/17/qantas-ultra-longhaul-a350/

    • BBbetter says:

      27 Mar27 March 15:19

      Imagine if SQ flies it’s ULRs as a 5th freedom flight from UK to US.
      Cheap PY.

    • yonasl says:

      27 Mar27 March 16:21

      The economics of an airline are such that they know there will ALWAYS be some person willing to pay a lower fare. So there is an incentive to have a class where you offer the bare minimum even if quite uncomfortable etc.

  • Richie says:

    27 Mar27 March 11:33

    Virgin has economy delight and US airlines have economy extra legroom seats.

• RTS says:

  27 Mar27 March 11:05

  That Shanghai outlier…. for asia. Love it.

  • Ged says:

    27 Mar27 March 12:49

    Not on the coffin seat. It’s a good price but a 13 hour daytime flight in that, no thanks.

    • RTS says:

      27 Mar27 March 16:48

      perfectly fine imo. took it last year.

      • Bervios says:

        27 Mar27 March 21:04

        +1

• Fraser says:

  27 Mar27 March 11:37

  Out of interest I added the prices and the points (at 1p value) to then sort by cheapest fare, and while Tel Aviv at £914 / £1014 looks reasonable, Shanghai is £1731 off peak so it’s starting to look very pricey without an upgrade voucher.

  At the top end, San Francicso prices at £2346 / £2546 if you value your points at 1p, so my recent redemption there for £996.49 + 55k points eg £1546 is looking pretty reasonable, given the cash fare for the same flights is now £4801 (not that I’d pay that!).

  It seems the redemptions can no longer be considered “free” but are simply a way of buying a flexible, refundable business class flight for (hopefully) a lot cheaper than the cash fare might be.

  • Mark says:

    27 Mar27 March 11:48

    They’ve never been free of course, even though they airlines like you to think they are gifting you something 🙂

    Anyone of that mindset is inevitably disappointed.

  • Gavin454 says:

    27 Mar27 March 14:15

    That’s the way I’ve always seen redemptions. As someone that’s happy to fly ex-EU and mess around with weird routings, booking cash has almost always been cheaper than using points for me long-haul business class. I use points bookings for flexibility and I put some amount of value in the convenience of not having to fly ex-EU etc.

• Mark says:

  27 Mar27 March 11:45

  @Rob, just to flag my earlier comment again – St Lucia is £841 if you want to add that in.

  • Rob says:

    27 Mar27 March 11:49

    Thanks, updated.

• babyg_wc says:

  27 Mar27 March 12:00

  Great we have gone back to a poke in the eye (£1000) vs a punch in the face (£1200). Hardly a win as I wasn’t redeeming them at £1000 a pop anyway, would need at least another 20-30% before the value is there (ok maybe Tel Aviv is an outlier)..

• BJ says:

  27 Mar27 March 13:21

  So many dumb comments, both yesterday and today. The surcharges are NOT a rip-off, they are a BARGAIN for what are essentially fully flexible fares. Neither BA nor Virgin forces anybody to redeem their rewards, if people don’t lije them then they should go spend their £1-2k on a nonrefundable revenue ticket that allows little or no changes.

  To cater for those that are looking for better value the airlines should consider ‘value rewards’ for less miles and lower co-payments but bookable only in advance with no refunds or changes of miles or cash allowed allowed. Just imagine the HfP page views and comments should they do this 🙂

  • LittleNick says:

    27 Mar27 March 13:30

    I would actually welcome an additional option of removing flexibility for lower surcharges and points

    • Rob says:

      27 Mar27 March 13:50

      With guaranteed seat availability you may be wrong in thinking the airlines want this. BA is now giving up 14 seats per flight, even on flights where it could sell every seat 3 times over. If you book one and cancel it, it can be put back into general sale for cash.

      It would be slightly different if BA only gave up seat which it was 99% certain of not selling, but it doesn’t do that any longer.

      • BJ says:

        27 Mar27 March 15:39

        That can be managed by releasing prom rewards in specific numbers at specific times.

  • Alastair says:

    27 Mar27 March 13:37

    That would be fair enough if availability was unlimited but it’s not: there is currenly 1 UC seat from London to LA available in the whole month of September.

  • babyg_wc says:

    27 Mar27 March 14:27

    the issue is this “bargain” has steadily increased to the point where people (including myself) and no longer seeing the value, and there are much better “bargains” to be had using your points elsewhere. I think like a lot of people i have no interest in buying buisness class flights due to the money involved, id rather spend the money on something else, and if points+fees are too high its the same deal, id rather spend my points+fees on something else…

    • BJ says:

      27 Mar27 March 16:07

      We get too hung up on BAEC and VFC. It pays to cast our net wider, not just with other partner carriers within BAEC and VFC where there can be more value than with BA ir VS themselves, but with other carriers and schemes entirely. I think these high fees are disproportionately painful for those within the LHR catchment because they became ‘fat’ on direct flights and cheap rewards resulting in little incentive to be more canny with the FF game. By contraat in tge regions we were always resigned to flight with one or more stops and as such many of us have probably always loojed more seriously at alternatives to BA and VS. Thus, while the the increasing costs of BA and VS rewards is painful to us too, perhaps its just a little bit less so because we have by necessity had to become more familiar with alternatives. For me personally the shift has been dramatic. Before RFS went global my go to was BA exINV with a voucher. Now BA is no longer on my radar even with a voucher. I am now prioritising AY and QR exEDI, and exEurope departure. While not as great as preRFS exINV days, I still feel I’m getting great value when compared to current BA rewards and premium reward fares.

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