Virgin reduces Upper Class points cost to New York and Orlando; big increases elsewhere

Ever since Virgin Atlantic moved to ‘dynamic pricing’ for flight redemptions last year, the cost of Upper Class has been out of reach for most people.

I know that Virgin Atlantic is happy with the increase in people booking Economy redemptions, now priced from just 6,000 Virgin Points each way.

I also know that there is disquiet at the company about the removal of Upper Class as a realistic redemption option on most routes, especially the effect on those who are Upper Class cash flyers.

Over the last few weeks, however, some routes to the United States have come down sharply in price.

It’s not all good news – some non-US routes have seen INSANE price rises for Upper Class seats, if the cost wasn’t already high enough.

We can prove this by repeating the experiment I did at the end of May using an online tool, vseats.io. This tool scrapes the Reward Seat Checker page of the Virgin Atlantic website and lets you manipulate the data. It’s really rather clever.

The analysis we did in May is here and looked at a few different scenarios. To allow comparison, I am using vseats.io to look at one thing and one thing only:

“For a 7-day holiday over the next 11 months, how much is the 50th cheapest day to fly?”

I thought ’50th cheapest’ was an acceptable compromise. The very cheapest dates are usually when you don’t want to travel (eg New York in January) and taking the 50th lowest priced departure date weeds out a lot of that. It’s probably comparable to off-peak Avios pricing.

Of course, you still need flexibility when you travel to take advantage of this pricing. If you are tied to school holidays, or even tied to Saturday-to-Saturday holidays, you will pay more – often a LOT more.

Not all Virgin Atlantic routes operate 365 days per year. In such cases, the 50th cheapest date will be higher up the price range.

Let’s compare Upper Class pricing today with eight weeks ago

Let’s look at Upper Class return pricing from London Heathrow for a seven night stay, searching across the full 11 month booking window.

Because of the way the system works, we can only look for the price of one seat. Do not assume you can book a couple, and definitely not a family, at these rates.

The ‘WAS’ pricing is what was available exactly two months ago.

Here are the results from vseats.io. For routes not listed, there has not been a substantial price change in Upper Class.

Five routes with the biggest percentage price drop

Orlando

• WAS: 50th cheapest departure day – 271,000 Virgin Points + £1,043
• NOW: 50th cheapest departure day – 92,000 Virgin Points

There has been a HUGE cut in the cost of Upper Class redemptions to Orlando. I suspect this is because it is primarily a family route and at 250,000+ points per person, no families could afford to book. There are a surprisingly large number of dates when you can do a week for 58,000 points return.

New York JFK

• WAS: 50th cheapest departure day – 123,000 Virgin Points + £1,043
• NOW: 50th cheapest departure day – 76,500 Virgin Points

There has been a sharp fall in the cost of Upper Class redemptions to New York. I suspect this is down to the reduction in overall US travel demand.

Atlanta

• WAS: 50th cheapest departure day – 207,500 Virgin Points + £1,043
• NOW: 50th cheapest departure day – 138,000 Virgin Points

Another steep drop.

Washington DC

• WAS: 50th cheapest departure day – 134,000 Virgin Points + £868
• NOW: 50th cheapest departure day – 115,000 Virgin Points

Another drop, although not as steep as New York.

Boston

• WAS: 50th cheapest departure day – 165,000 Virgin Points + £1,043
• NOW: 50th cheapest departure day – 139,000 Virgin Points

Five routes with the biggest percentage price rise

Bengaluru

• WAS: 50th cheapest departure day – 64,000 Virgin Points + £568
• TODAY: 50th cheapest departure day – 290,000 Virgin Points

Something has gone weird here. Eight weeks ago Virgin Atlantic was acting like it couldn’t give away Upper Seats to Bengaluru. As of last night, the cheapest 7-night trip bookable over the next 11 months is 221,000 Virgin Points return.

Lagos

• WAS: 50th cheapest departure day – 81,000 Virgin Points + £694
• NOW: 50th cheapest departure day – 257,500 Virgin Points

It wasn’t on my bucket list, admittedly, but this is a shocking increase in Upper Class redemption pricing.

Dubai

• WAS: 50th cheapest departure day – 217,000 Virgin Points + £819
• NOW: 50th cheapest departure day – 535,000 Virgin Points

This is crazy talk. The absolute cheapest price for a 7-night Dubai flight in Upper Class is currently 289,000 Virgin Points – eight weeks ago there were 50 departure dates at 217,000 points or fewer (which, itself, is a mad price).

Delhi

• WAS: 50th cheapest departure day – 116,000 Virgin Points + £754
• NOW: 50th cheapest departure day – 209,000 Virgin Points

Mumbai

• WAS: 50th cheapest departure day – 77,500 Virgin Points + £813
• NOW: 50th cheapest departure day – 117,000 Virgin Points

Conclusion

When I was doing some digging last week and saw the fall in New York Upper Class flight costs, followed by an email from a reader flagging the big cuts in Orlando pricing, I thought that Virgin Atlantic had seen the light.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. The downward moves have been matched – in fact exceeded – by increases elsewhere. The fact that there is not a single day in the next 11 months where you can book a 7-night trip to Dubai in Upper Class for less than 289,000 Virgin Points per person is shameful.

If you had been thinking about New York, Orlando or Atlanta, however, now is a good time to book.