Virgin Flying Club dynamic pricing in Upper Class: our analysis (Part 2)

It’s just over a week since Virgin Flying Club moved to dynamic pricing on Virgin Points redemptions.

Now that the transition has had time to bed in, we thought we’d take a closer look at how redemption pricing has changed on Virgin Atlantic flights.

Our primary analysis was published yesterday. We listed every Virgin Atlantic route and the number of outbound Saver seats available, month by month.

Our data was downloaded from Virgin Flying Club’s handy Reward Seat Checker. This lets you see pricing and availability for every route month-by-month, with Saver fares usually (but not always) marked with a red tag.

A quick refresh on the changes ….

On 30th October, Virgin Atlantic moved from fixed-price redemptions to dynamic pricing linked to demand for cash seats. At the same time, it ditched its reward seat guarantee.

These are two separate and distinct changes. Virgin Atlantic could have made either of the changes individually if it wished – offering dynamic pricing whilst retaining guaranteed lower priced seats on all flights, or ditching guaranteed seats without adding dynamic pricing.

Instead of the reward seat guarantee, it introduced what it calls ‘Saver seats’, which are priced at or lower than the previous fixed pricing scheme. Virgin Atlantic said that 75% of flights would feature Saver seats.

All other seats are now available at varying prices with every seat on the plane bookable for points.

Our methodology

All of the information below is based on redemption availability on Reward Seat Checker on 7th November for 8th November 2024 until 3rd October 2025.

We have only looked at outbound flights from London Heathrow. This is an important caveat because on routes with few Saver seats, your chances of getting BOTH outbound and inbound Saver seats on the dates you want will be slim.

We suspect that routes FROM North America will have fewer Saver seats because those flights are typically overnight and demand for Upper Class beds is higher.

How much does a Saver seat cost in Upper Class?

Virgin Atlantic continues to price Saver seats based on regional groupings. A Saver seat in Upper Class is a seat which priced at or below the following levels (one-way):

Region	Destinations	Economy	Premium	Upper Class
Caribbean	Antigua, Barbados, Grenada, Nassau, Jamaica, St Lucia, St Vincent, Turks & Caicos	20,000	27,500	67,500
Israel	Tel Aviv	11,000	20,000	33,000
India, UAE and Saudi Arabia	Bengaluru, Delhi, Dubai, Mumbai, Riyadh	20,000	27,500	47,500
Nigeria & Ghana	Accra, Lagos	22,500	32,500	67,500
South Africa & Indian Ocean	Cape Town, Johannesburg, Maldives	22,500	42,500	67,500
USA – Northeast	Boston, New York, Washington DC	20,000	27,500	57,500
USA – Midwest & South	Atlanta, Miami, Orlando, Tampa	22,500	32,500	57,500
USA – West	Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle	25,000	37,500	77,500

There is some seasonality, with the maximum Saver price during off-peak periods between 5,000 and 10,000 points cheaper. We have ignored this in our analysis. Any seat which is priced at or below the levels above was treated as Saver.

There is a glitch on the Reward Seat Checker site where not all fares equivalent to Saver pricing are marked by a red luggage tag. This did not impact our analysis because we used a download of all the pricing data and worked off the raw numbers.

Saver seating is offered per cabin, rather than per flight. Some flights feature Saver seats in all three cabins; others have it in just one or two. The bottom line is that Virgin Atlantic’s algorithm will price each cabin separately, so just because a flight is busy (and expensive) in Upper Class doesn’t mean it is the same in Premium or Economy

What is the most that a non-Saver seat can cost?

There is a price cap for redemptions on Virgin Atlantic. As you’ll see, this cap is hit many times across the routes we’ve profiled.

Here are the maximum prices Virgin Atlantic will charge you for a one-way redemption on its own flights:

• 350,000 points in Upper Class
• 250,000 points in Premium
• 150,000 points in Economy

Taxes and charges must be paid on top.

Under the previous system, the highest-priced redemptions were to the US West Coast: these were priced at 77,500 Virgin Points one-way during peak periods. That means that the new maximum caps are 4.5 times greater than they were previously. We feel that this is a fair comparison to make because under the old guarantee there were seats at these prices on all flights.

Frankly, unless you’re sitting on millions of Virgin Points, you’d be mad to redeem at the top level. The only time it might make sense is if cash prices are above £4,000 one-way, or the equivalent of 1p per point when factoring in taxes, and for some reason you were actually planning to pay.

However, we always knew that there would be some insane top-end pricing under the new dynamic system. After all, cash prices can also reach highs that most non-corporate travellers would not pay out of their own pocket.

It is wrong to focus too much on the 350,000 points level, because most of the time these seats would never have been available for redemption at all.

Q1: Which routes are charging 350,000 points one-way in Upper Class?

Here are the top 10 routes that hit the price cap in Upper Class most frequently, as a percentage of available flying days.

Not all routes are flown daily. A route flown once per week which has 10 flights in the year costing 350,000 points in Upper Class will show as (10/52) 19% in the second column.

Route	Days where Upper Class is 350,000 points one-way	% of flight days with this pricing
Male, Maldives	65	38%
Cape Town	58	34%
Antigua	19	16%
Montego Bay, Jamaica	35	15%
St Lucia	8	15%
Dubai	19	14%
Nassau	5	11%
Turks and Caicos	3	10%
Lagos	28	9%
San Francisco	24	7%

Q2: Which routes have the most Saver seats in Upper Class?

Because some of these routes are seasonal, I’ve ranked them based on percentage availability in Upper Class when flights are operating, as well as listing the number of days in total that you can find Upper Class Saver seats on these routes.

This is why Turks and Caicos ranks so highly: there are only 30 flights there in the next year, but nine of them feature Saver pricing.

Not all availability is created equal. Delhi availability is concentrated in August for example when you may not be too keen to go.

Route	Saver available?	% of flight days with Upper Saver seats
Accra	140 days	90%
New York	238 days	72%
Washington DC	222 days	69%
Boston	190 days	58%
Bangalore	177 days	55%
Mumbai	165 days	50%
Riyadh	92 days	49%
Atlanta	111 days	34%
Tel Aviv	62 days	33%
Lagos	108 days	33%
Tampa	101 days	31%
Turks and Caicos	9 days	30%
Seattle	87 days	27%
Delhi	83 days	25%
Orlando	72 days	22%

When dynamic pricing launched, Virgin Atlantic told us that 75% of flights would feature Saver pricing at some point. So why aren’t we seeing those numbers above?

It is presumably because Virgin Atlantic is applying the 75% figure across the entire aircraft, not by cabin.

If just a single Saver Seat needs to be available in Economy, Premium or Upper Class on a particular flight to count towards the 75%, this obviously doesn’t guarantee availability in each cabin on 75% of flights.

The promise also covers the entire year. Just one Economy seat at Saver level made available for one day would count towards the 75%.

Q3: Which routes are the most expensive?

I wanted to look at which routes were consistently expensive by looking at the average lowest Upper Class fare across the year.

Whilst day-to-day pricing might be lower or higher (including with Saver pricing), you can get a general sense of which routes will be disproportionately expensive to redeem on.

Remember that these are one-way fares. Double the number shown for the average return cost.

Destination	Average lowest Upper Class fare
Male, Maldives	280,657
Cape Town	274,139
Antigua	212,678
Grenada	195,364
St Lucia	188,361
Las Vegas	167,316
Nassau	165,111
Dubai	164,356
St Vincent & the Grenadines	164,267
Turks and Caicos	162,350
San Francisco	161,023
Montego Bay, Jamaica	160,237
Barbados	157,211
Los Angeles	150,668
Johannesburg	149,851

It should come as no surprise that Male, Cape Town and many Caribbean countries are amongst the priciest, indicating that they are some of Virgin’s most popular routes.

In the case of Male, the average Upper Class fare is now more than quadruple the previous peak rate of 67,500 points one-way.

Some flights are now cheaper than they were before

One thing that quickly becomes apparent is that, on some flights, you are now getting a better deal than you did under fixed pricing.

This is because Saver seats are now the same price or cheaper than the previous pricing. Take a look at these examples in Upper Class:

• Flights to Male are as low as 50,000 points one-way, down from 57,500
• Flights to Cape Town are now as low as 35,000 points one-way, down from 57,500
• Flights to Dubai are now as low as 23,000 points one-way, down from 37,500
• Flights to New York, Boston and Washington DC are now as low as 29,000 points one-way, down from 47,500

Of course, these prices are generally only available in the off-season – don’t expect to find rock-bottom Saver seats during peak school holiday dates.

They are also very rare:

• The Male fare was available on just one day out of the next 331 days

• The Cape Town fare was available on just one day out of the next 331 days

• The Dubai fare was available for nine days but all were near the end of the season in March, so you may not have been able to fly back on Virgin Atlantic

But, fair play, the 29,000 points one-way Upper Class tickets to New York ARE widely available in January, February, May and June 2025.

Taxes and fees are also (sometimes) lower

Virgin Atlantic told us that taxes and fees would also be dynamically priced under the new system.

However, the main beneficiaries of this are Americans. This is because taxes and charges on tickets originating in the US were far higher than for tickets originating in the UK. If you thought £1,000 of taxes and charges in Upper Class was high, it was NOTHING compared to what a US resident had to pay when flying US-UK-US.

Here are a few examples of the new pricing from the UK:

• London to New York in Upper Class return with the cheapest available Saver pricing (January 2025) is 58,000 points plus £673 of taxes and fees. An equivalent redemption under the previous system would have cost 95,000 points plus £994, so you are saving 39% of the points and 32% of the charges.

However, at the other end of the scale:

• London to New York in Upper Class return with the highest available pricing is 700,000 points plus £994 of taxes and fees. An equivalent redemption under the previous system would have cost 95,000 points plus £994, so you are paying 736% of the points you used to need and 100% of the previous charges.

Conclusion

As we predicted, the move to dynamic pricing has led to increased price polarisation.

Redemptions on peak dates are now more expensive (sometimes, prohibitively so) whilst those on Saver dates can occasionally be cheaper than they were. Remember, though, that Virgin Atlantic previously had regular ‘50% off’ redemption sales which reduced prices even lower than the lowest prices now seen.

The problem is that there are very few Saver dates on most routes.

Who wins and who loses?

It is clear who the winners and losers are. Teachers and families with kids, and those otherwise tied to school holidays or peak travel periods will see a sharp increase in pricing.

Those who can be flexible when they travel will be able to make the most of the new, lower Saver seat pricing – although this often means travelling when the weather will be against you.

The real issue is that Virgin Atlantic no longer guarantees that it will release seats at Saver pricing on every flight.

Whilst apparently 75% of flights will see SOME Saver availability in one of the cabins, this appears to be heavily concentrated on certain routes. You are going to struggle on key leisure routes, and this will sharply reduce the appeal of Flying Club.

Business travellers are also leisure travellers

Whether you mainly fly for business or leisure, redemption flights are disproportionately expensive on holiday routes. Your job might send you to Atlanta every month, but you will want to use the points you earn to treat your long-suffering spouse or family to a luxury getaway at a leisure destination. What happens when you can no longer do that easily?

The answer is now simple. Shift your flying to British Airways.

It’s also worth noting that the average Virgin Red member is 46, and I suspect the average 46-year old professional still has dependent children.

What’s the answer?

There is an easy solution to this. Virgin Atlantic should reinstate its commitment to guaranteed availability.

Prior to these changes, Virgin Atlantic guaranteed 12 seats on every flight for fixed-price redemption: two in Upper Class, two in Premium and eight in Economy.

By reinstating this guarantee with Saver seats, Virgin Atlantic would ensure that those who are able and willing to plan in advance would be able to fly at a decent price. The remaining seats could be offered at (potentially higher) dynamic pricing – it’s impossible to complain about this, because those seats were previously unavailable.

This way, there would be a level of certainty that you could redeem points to your favourite destination if you wanted to and were willing to book in advance. Under the current system, no such certainty exists.

Want to fly to Toronto next summer? Tough luck, because Virgin Atlantic has made no promises that it will release Saver seats, and there are currently NO dates between April and August with even one Upper Class seat ….

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

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 14th January 2025, the sign-up bonus on ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is increased to 30,000 Membership Rewards points. This converts into 30,000 Virgin Points. 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 14th January 2025, the sign-up bonus on The Platinum Card from American Express is increased to 80,000 Membership Rewards points. This converts into 80,000 Virgin Points! The spend requirement is changed to £10,000 in six months for this offer. Click here to apply.

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.)