Virgin Atlantic reinvents Flying Club: just 6,000 miles and €60 fee for a JFK/LHR

In recent days Virgin Atlantic has implemented the changes announced in September and which many feared could be yet another devaluation, and instead the Flying Club has yes switched to dynamic pricing of award tickets, but there has not been the much-feared mauling.

Virgin Atlantic until before this change guaranteed A minimum number of award seats on each flight, now instead this certainty is no longer there because the very logic of award places changes.

How Virgin Atlantic's Flying Club has changed

If I had to explain the change made by VS I would summarize it like this, "From the fixed table and fixed availability model, to the same system used by Flying Blue with prices that vary according to fill rate."

Virtually every seat on every Virgin Atlantic flight is now bookable with Virgin points, you can basically spend even less than before or book (with points) even the last seat on board and shell out hundreds of thousands of Virgin Points. While some award places are now much cheaper, others are significantly more expensive

Saver seats and less taxes in low season

That the fees and surcharges for flying with Virgin (as with BA) were insane I have always written, the last ticket I redeemed in upper class had cost me over £620 plus points, a real drain. Now the tune is changing.

In the off-season, it is possible to fly from London to New York for only 29 thousand Flying Club points (practically the price you used to buy in sales), But spending about 150 pounds less.

Not to mention those who are content to travel in economy. Prices for a London/New York start at 6,000 miles plus tax. Without a doubt, it is the lowest price (in points) charged by any other loyalty program in the world. Taxes and surcharges are less than half that of business, but still high compared to Air France and KLM, which charge about half cash on the same route.

The tax factor, however, does not depend only on the company, the largest share of taxes in the UK is imposed by the government and the airport, as you can see in fact for those traveling in the opposite direction the cost in miles is the same, but the fees reduced to 1/4.

Of course, not all that glitters is gold.

The downside is that by disappearing the guaranteed seats, if you want to travel in the high season there will be no certainty of finding seats at the previous prices, but for us Italians it should not be a major detriment unless we want to fly at Christmas or Easter since school vacations and national holidays do not coincide with English holidays.

Dynamic pricing means that the same flight can cost as much as twice or three times as much as the same flight the next day.

Thanks to the calendar, it is also always possible to go in search of the lowest price within 30 days. In doing so, one can also perceive the difference with the previous situation where availability would not have been found, it can be found today, but at a price as much as 6 times the minimum.

In conclusion

For many, this news is a devaluation, For me, on the other hand, it is a remarkable improvement. Less taxes and cheaper tickets, the system is the same as Air France KLM and in my opinion it is the best on the market, of course there are also those who burn 1M points for a Paris/New York, but it means they have a lot of points and have no idea how to spend them, for me, on the other hand, the real cool thing is to fly from the U.S. to Europe with 6K miles and 70$ surcharges.

It's just too bad that in Italy accumulating Virgin Atlantic's program points is complicated even though you can always put this card When flying with ITA and accumulate Flying Club points.

• flying club