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Virgin: “25% of flights will not have any Saver seats available”

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By now, the roll out of Virgin Atlantic’s new reward pricing should be complete.

As Rhys and I are both away there is no-one around to analyse what has appeared.

I’m sure our readers have been discussing it in our forum and I suspect the comments to this article will be interesting. The highest price we’ve spotted so far is 690,000 Virgin Points return to Los Angeles in Upper Class, plus £995 of taxes and charges.

We do have some details on ‘Saver’ pricing.

We already knew that ‘Saver’ seat pricing caps would be the same as the old peak season reward pricing. This means we can map out a pricing range based on the minimum points pricing that Virgin has provided.

Here is Saver pricing for some key routes:

London to New York (one way)

  • Economy – 6,000 to 20,000 points
  • Premium – 10,500 to 27,500 points
  • Upper – 28,500 to 57,500 points

London to Miami / Manchester to Orlando (one way)

  • Economy – 7,500 to 22,500 points
  • Premium – 13,500 to 32,500 points
  • Upper – 28,500 to 57,500 points

London to Los Angeles (one way)

  • Economy – 9,000 to 25,500 points
  • Premium – 16,500 to 37,500 points
  • Upper – 40,500 to 77,500 points

Whilst, in theory, this looks like points pricing has come down, you need to remember that the airline has been running 25%, 30% and 50% ‘redemption sales’ on a very regular basis in recent years.

The lowest prices above are roughly what you would have paid in a ‘50% off redemption sale’ off-peak.

How many seats will be available at Saver pricing?

On any particular day, not many. It may look different today because a lot will have been loaded in advance for the open schedule but don’t expect those seats to be replaced.

25% of flights will have NO Saver seats at all at any point over the 11 month booking period. Full credit to Virgin Atlantic for admitting this up front.

Obviously we don’t know where we will find these 25% of flights, but you can take a guess. I suspect we will see a few routes or time periods with effectively zero Saver availability.

The airline expects that the remaining 75% of flights will – at some point during the 11 month booking window – have at least one Saver seat bookable for at least one day.

When will Saver seats open up?

We don’t know. Because Saver availability is triggered by low cash prices, I doubt that you will see them 11 months in advance. Cash prices bottom out 3-4 months before travel so I suspect this is when you will need to book.

What is happening to cancellation fees?

Because dynamic pricing means that flight pricing will change daily, it makes sense to rebook your flight every time that the price drops.

To get around this, Virgin Atlantic has increased change fees to £70 per person. This means that, realistically, it’s not worth rebooking unless your flight drops by 10,000 points.

What about taxes and charges?

We are told that taxes and charges will become variable. We don’t have much in the way of detail but in some cases they will be lower than previously.

What happens to seats which were previously available for redemption?

This is an interesting one. It’s not clear if Virgin Atlantic intended to remove existing reward inventory last night (generated under the old ‘guaranteed seats’ rule) or let it remain there and simply not add any more.

What we DO know is that 40% of seats which were bookable as reward seats yesterday were due to go up in price today. Again, we should give the airline some credit for coming clean on this.

What happens if I change an existing booking?

Don’t do it, if at all possible, unless you will save points. Any change to an existing booking will result in it repricing at the new levels which is likely to mean a substantial increase.

You can, however, still change existing bookings for the old change fee of £30 per person. I suspect subsequent changes may be charged at £70.

What does dynamic pricing look like?

We’ll let you know when we’ve had time to take a look.

However, as I have stressed in other articles this week, dynamic pricing is a smokescreen to hide the scrapping of the 12 guaranteed reward seats per flight.

You don’t need to waste time thinking about the dynamically priced seats. They are only there to satisfy the US credit card market. Yesterday there were lots of Virgin Atlantic flights without reward seats. Today the same flights have reward seats but at points prices which you will never be able to afford. Nothing has changed in terms of your ability to get on those flights.

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How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (April 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):

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.

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.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

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.

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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. 

Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (374)

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

  • KeithS says:
    31 Oct31 October 17:02

    On the web version there is a ‘slider’ for the maximum number of points you want to use -if you reduce it it then takes out the expensive seats

  • John Allen says:
    31 Oct31 October 18:56

    Looking for a return flight from Heathrow to Barbados 2025
    Upper class points used to be 135,000 new points now 700,000
    Charges the same over £840

  • Karl says:
    31 Oct31 October 20:50

    This thread is filled with school holidayers which were always high redemptions anyway.

    The freedom for people without school-age kids, happy to travel outside of those periods, is the real sweet spot.

    Virgin doesn’t want peak flights eaten up by redemptions, and that makes sense.

    • Rob says:
      31 Oct31 October 20:58

      Here’s the bad news. The average age of a Flying Club member is 46. The average 46 year old has a couple of kids.

      Here’s the even worse news. The people who have the authority to fly Upper Class on business travel will also be 40-50 in general, will have kids, and will happily move their flying elsewhere.

      Do you think Virgin really wants the business of students or pensioners? Even those who pay for Upper are only buying it in deeply discounted sales.

      • pigeon says:
        31 Oct31 October 21:10

        They want the business of the US market…

        Although I fear they’ll fix the issue you raise by moving to revenue-based earning. Give someone 75k or 100k Virgin points for a full-fare transatlantic J, and suddenly the 400k redemptions don’t look so bad.

      • Karl says:
        31 Oct31 October 21:48

        There are many, many demographics outside of the student/pensioner sector.

        • Rob says:
          31 Oct31 October 21:56

          There are – but they aren’t buying full fare Upper Class tickets.

          • pigeon says:
            31 Oct31 October 22:58

            @Filip the thing is booking a last-minute, fully flexible upper class ticket to MIA costs £10k, not £2k.

            There are probably relatively few of these customers, as most of the big banks / consultancies / corporates will have a deal with BA that charges them less, but they are certainly out there and are obviously extremely commercially important.

          • pigeon says:
            31 Oct31 October 23:00

            Or rather, a deal with VS/DL! Also note some of these corporate deals come with reduced rewards earning on DL (earning mileage based instead of spend based).

      • Throwawayname says:
        31 Oct31 October 22:02

        I don’t think they would mind attracting US pensioners, particularly in July/August when there’s not much business travel.
        Everything in the States has gotten pretty expensive and that’s why American chain hotels in most of Europe are often priced well above the rest of the market; rates at a Marriott(AC)/Hilton(or HGI)/Hyatt property in Milan or Barcelona can be double what you’d have to pay for similar quality local hotels belonging to NH or Accor.

      • Robin says:
        31 Oct31 October 22:26

        There are plenty of 46 year olds whose kids have left school and are not restricted to school holidays

        • TGLoyalty says:
          1 Nov1 November 00:04

          Always makes me laugh when people do this.

          Rob has told you what the majority are doing and someone says there’s still lots.

          The problem is those lots ARE not the majority so your pool of potential users is ever decreasing.

          If the majority of business travellers are mid 40’s with two kids then that’s business virgin should want because they have a larger accessible segment.

          Targeting 36 year old that travel to Miami every 4 years in upper class isn’t a target target market even if there are 500k of them it makes no difference that there are “lots” because it’s 500k of 2bn which is frankly f all.

          • Throwawayname says:
            1 Nov1 November 01:04

            But Virgin aren’t DL or LH, they are a niche airline. It makes sense to aim for specific bits of the market as opposed to trying to be all things to all people.

            Whether they will be successful in their quest to go after the particular niche(s) they have chosen is an entirely different matter. I personally think they’ll fail- not necessarily because of chasing the wrong niche(s), but because, let’s face it, they are not the best-managed airline out there.

          • Super Secret Stuff says:
            1 Nov1 November 09:50

            @flip you are entirely forgetting the core goal of these schemes. To generate loyalty and money. Second one this does.

            As a business traveler, who has choice and control, why would you ever pick the least rewarding option. You wouldn’t. Virgin are now that least rewarding option. You suggest ways around it but why bother with tricks and expert hacks, just move airlines is what most people will be thinking.

      • Russell G says:
        31 Oct31 October 23:46

        As a maths grad, I’d say you’re playing a bit fast and loose with statistics here, average doesn’t mean “all” or even “most”. Anyway, glossing over that, isn’t it part of the plan that Virgin don’t want Mr Family man with 1million points taking his wife and two kids to MCO in Upper using points in peak season when they could sell those seat for decent amounts of cash?

        As for “happily move their flying elsewhere”, my guess is they’re with Virgin only because they were so annoyed with the offering “elsewhere” in the first place.

        Finally, there must be someone out there paying decent amounts for Upper otherwise they wouldn’t be charging prices like upwards of £15k for a round trip to SFO.

        • Super Secret Stuff says:
          1 Nov1 November 09:53

          The gap between virgin and BA has been shrinking over the years. Or it could’ve been their loyalty programme that drew them over. Or the club lounge at LHR which has also changed over the years. Too many factors to make an educated guess

    • HampshireHog says:
      31 Oct31 October 21:10

      Mmm route dependant, yet to see a sensible upper fare to/from SA

    • Filip says:
      31 Oct31 October 22:35

      Exactly so.
      Everyone hating the new dynamic pricing is either because they have kids or work in a profession where you are tied for when you can take holidays.
      Well, sorry to say, but that’s your choice. Just like it’s mine and many other people’s choices not to have kids or to work in a profession where I am able to go on vacation during off peak moments.

      I see many flights off peak (Jan-May, even June with JFK) at save rate of 29k in Upper Class.

      And yes, Virgin did sales with reward seats during the year (not so many this year) and I snagged that this year as my cruise got cancelled, 95,000 return for 2 in UC.

      But to be able to buy UC return for 116,000 and between £300-£700 less fees is great.

      This is what I don’t understand ..
      Air France and KLM are literally championed over media when they have Business flights at 50k points, and I even was tempted to join flying blue, but every time I searched the return, it was all 309-600k!!

      So why, all this uproar with Virgin? Because during heavily demanded times they don’t want peak seats to be eaten up by redemptions like Karl pointed out. Even if they did only guarantee 12 seats per flight, they did generally release more, but you’d have to be lucky and search and search and search… unless it was off off peak…

      • Camille55 says:
        1 Nov1 November 08:11

        Let me give you an example of “why all this uproar with Virgin”: am in the demographic described by Rob and have kids so bound by school holiday dates, collect in multiple schemes, loyal VS Gold for many years, don’t mind travelling in Y and above all look for max value as buying for 5 or 6 pax.

        I also have choices: UK Centrion with capacity to generate lots of points in MR every month (recently had ~1m odd VS). We travel 5 or 6 times a year during school hols. So upto 36 rtn tickets a year, at least 72 sectors.

        I burned a lot of points pre-30 Oct using VS’s Gold Reward seats (double miles), which I figured would still be better value than waiting till after these changes. Turns out that was sensible.

        I reckon I’m a customer that VS would want to keep? Post-changes, VS won’t even be the 3rd scheme I look at when considering a redemption AND there is no way they will get my ££ for cash tickets either (why earn on those when redemptions are soooo unpredictable?). Result : VS will lose my points business AND my cash business….partly because these changes don’t psychologically feel good (even if on odd dates they might be). I would rather transfer those MR’s to other schemes (despite a 30% enticement from VS). I would rather earn Avios via Barclays and CoT to do short haul RFS with BA/IB rather than even bother considering long haul with VS.

        My choices will lead me away from VS…

    • sean mclanaghan says:
      2 Nov2 November 11:43

      No option for anyone who works in education though even though our kids are all up and out the school system. I see some of the prices available outside the school holidays and weep.

  • Super Secret Stuff says:
    31 Oct31 October 21:11

    Just checked several random Fridays in May for MAN – MCO and MCO – MAN as one way journeys. One many dates it’s showing…

    Economy 150,000 + $86 tax one way
    Premium 250,000 + $183 tax one way
    Upper Class 350,000 + $482 tax one way

    What is even the point in trying with virgin anymore. May is still school term dates!

  • Doowral says:
    31 Oct31 October 22:23

    It’s been interesting to see how this has all unfolded. I had an old 241 voucher and gambled on waiting for the changes as I wanted to use the Riyadh route with the neo flight.

    The amounts below take into account the deductions for the voucher.

    Yesterday: Needed 127500 pts + £1778 tax
    This morning when I booked: 85000 pts + £1389 tax
    Now: 103000 pts + £1515 tax

    I felt I might have to use less points, but surprised how much saved on the cash contribution.

    • HampshireHog says:
      31 Oct31 October 23:54

      Umm Riyadh well yes

    • Azzam says:
      1 Nov1 November 00:11

      I just booked LHR to Riyadh on virgin for next April and it was a bargain…29k + £430 outbound and £3k points + £200 on return…previously it would have been 75k points returns…

  • Russell G says:
    31 Oct31 October 23:48

    Just seen this note appear on the flight search results page…

    “We’re making some changes to our new reward seat fares
    Come back later today to take a look.”

    They rethinking things already?

    • Super Secret Stuff says:
      1 Nov1 November 09:40

      I saw this, just assumed it was a hangover from the 30th

  • Dave says:
    1 Nov1 November 08:07

    I’m with Rob here. There’s no doubt that for those that can travel in non school holiday periods there’s a lot of value in the new scheme, but I’m an example of the kind of passenger that Virgin will now lose. I travel 16 times a year to the US on business spending on average £5k per flight. I have the choice to travel on a variety of airlines but I focus only on BA and Virgin as it gives me the ability to use my miles/avios earned to take my family on holiday during the school hols. With the crazy redemption rates for the school holidays now in place, all of my £80k will now go to BA where I can use the Avios for sensible redemptions.

    • Alastair says:
      1 Nov1 November 09:11

      Does BA routinely have availability to holiday destinations available for Avios, other than at the 364 day out mark or whatever it is?

      • Littlefish says:
        1 Nov1 November 12:59

        Yes! BA have the seat guarantee, plus BA Gold members have access to double avios priced seats (which is still way better than Virgin post these changes), plus BA Gold members have ‘V’ bucket economy. In addition the Amex 2f1 still opens extra CW rewards.
        So, at least on the routes I use (and bearing in mind we are just 3 days in to Virgin’s changes) … its almost as if Virgin have designed these changes to push me (and anyone able to get BA Gold) over to Oneworld.

  • JRich says:
    1 Nov1 November 09:05

    Seems like the cheap seats are Tuesday-Thursday. Can’t find any weekends with saver pricing, which I guess is the point…. The US to UK saver seats are very cheap in my opinion, with reasonable surcharges. A welcome use for otherwise useless Virgin points.

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