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Hi all,
I am looking to fly to Mecca via Jeddah in October of next year and have been looking into flight prices. I noticed a new ITA route from Rome FCO to Jeddah which is very competitively priced and also features their latest Airbus planes. I could book these using Virgin Points but it creates the risk of an unprotected stoppover when I transit between LON-FCO.
If I was to book another, separate, Virgin points redemption with ITA from LON to FCO could I ask Virgin/ITA to combine these bookings after the fact to create a protected stoppover and checked through luggage but without the taxes involved in a UK departure? The simplest answer would of course be to fly a day earlier and book a hotel but that is quite difficult with annual leave allowances and it also erodes the economics of flying ITA substantially.
Apologies if this is an obvious question as I have no experience with Virgin or ITA redemptions. Any guidance gratefully received.
No you can’t book this as two separate flights then have the bookings merged into one.
Even if that was possible the long haul APD rates would then apply to the entire trip.
You can have the benefits of a single booking (I.e booking LHR-FCO-JED together) with protections or have two separate bookings and save on (some of) the APD but you can’t have both.
Have you considered booking using Virgin points on Saudia? I recently booked a one way from JED to LHR for 40k plus £25 in taxes in Business. It was 16.5k points in economy. I can’t remember what the taxes were if flying from UK, as I ended flying on BA to Riyadh (using upgrade vouchers), and then internal flight to Madinah on Saudia using Virgin points (with a 4 hour unprotected connection).
Thank you both for your responses, much appreciated.
Aq.1998 – that is a very good point and I hadnt considered trying to book Saudia with Virgin. I had looked on KLM which does show Saudia availability online and the economy redemption price for a one way JED-LON with Saudia is 42.5k miles+182.29 EUR (!) so I had discounted Saudia but Virgin may have a slightly better rate. Did you have to phone Virgin for this booking?
I am similarly considering using a voucher + BA flight to get to Abu Dhabi / Riyadh and then hop across using Saudia, Etihad miles or even FlyNas if needs be but trying to make it as direct and simple as possible – just such a shame BA ended their direct Jeddah flights!
Yes, you’ll need to call to book Saudia using Virgin points. KLM uses dynamic pricing, which is why the points required was so high, on Virgin it should be the same points I mentioned above, although higher taxes departing ex-UK.
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.
If you do end up using BA vouchers to Riyadh, the internal flight on Saudia using points is very reasonable, it was only 5.5k points plus around £8 for economy from Riyadh to Madinah, with very generous baggage allowance. After a few nights there, we then took the bullet train to Makkah, and returned from Jeddah.
Update: BA flights starting to Jeddah on 4 November according to Twitter/X. Nice!
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