Saudia flight using Virgin Points – booking advice

[Ricardos-Alpert]

Hi All,
Just wondering if anyone had managed to book a Saudia flight redemption using virgin points? Seems like can only be booked over the phone and not online?

Was trying to redeem Manchester to Jeddah. As seems like no other points to get to jeddah, Emirates and etohad do fly there, but there loyalty schemes hard to accumulatile for me due to hard expiry

[memesweeper]

Royal Jordanian can (or will) route Manchester – Amman – Jeddah

[aq.1988]

Yes, you’ll need to call to book Saudia using Virgin points.

When you call, the agent needs to ‘request’ the seat from Saudia, and then come back to you within a couple mins to let you know if there is availability. They should take your full name and DOB before checking. If they don’t do that, and immediately tell you there’s no availability, they probably haven’t done the full check, and have probably just checked the availability showing on Middle East Airlines, so you need to insist they check with Saudia.

The points required for LON-JED is very reasonable, 16.5k each way in Y, or 40k in J.

[chachatipu]

aq.1988 wrote:

The points required for LON-JED is very reasonable, 16.5k each way in Y, or 40k in J.

I presume there are taxes on top

[aq.1988]

chachatipu wrote:

aq.1988 wrote:

The points required for LON-JED is very reasonable, 16.5k each way in Y, or 40k in J.

I presume there are taxes on top

I booked one way from JED to LHR in J, it was 40k points plus £25. It would have been 16.5k plus £25 in Y. Note, that was departing from Saudi, if from the UK, the taxes would be higher. I also had an internal flight, Riyadh to Madinah, which was 5.5k plus £8 in Y.

[tiberius]

Thanks very much for all the help with Saudi flights aq.1998. We have decided to go to Bahrain with BA 2 for 1 voucher and then drive with family across the causeway to Dammam and fly Dammam – Jeddah with Saudi using Virgin points at a quite reasonable 14k points and 18 dollars (return, per person). This will be my first Umrah trip – thanks again!!

[levantine93]

I booked in economy just a few weeks ago.
LHR to Jeddah is 15.5k points +£127 each way.

Manchetser is in a higher pricing band just and would’ve cost 20.5k points if memory serves me right

[levantine93]

tiberius wrote:

Thanks very much for all the help with Saudi flights aq.1998. We have decided to go to Bahrain with BA 2 for 1 voucher and then drive with family across the causeway to Dammam and fly Dammam – Jeddah with Saudi using Virgin points at a quite reasonable 14k points and 18 dollars (return, per person). This will be my first Umrah trip – thanks again!!

Seems like quite a long trip tbh… can you not find any LHR-JED availability? Or even with RJ through Amman? And then yo could save ur 241 voucher for something else…
Also remember you can get visa exmeption online for around £30 per person now valid for single entry for a year..(the multiple entry one is still around £110 for a year) and assuming you have UK passport