Virgin Atlantic’s latest shake-up to its Flying Club frequent flyer programme comes at a time when the airline’s product offering is far from impressive. With aging Boeing 787 and A330 aircraft still flying across the Atlantic, particularly in business class, loyal customers are left facing both a product and service that no longer match up to expectations. In fact, we recently decided to ditch our Virgin credit card and cancel an upcoming flight due to these very issues.
The promised changes, rolling out on 30th October, will allow you to redeem points on any seat, but there’s a significant catch: pricing will now be dynamic, varying based on demand. This raises real concerns about value, especially for Virgin’s loyal transatlantic flyers. The old guaranteed reward seats are gone, and Saver Seat availability will depend on how busy the flight is – on popular routes, expect sky-high points prices. This means that the dream of scoring a good deal on busy routes, particularly in Upper Class, could become just that: a distant dream.
One of the biggest issues that has pushed us to re-evaluate our loyalty with Virgin Atlantic is the state of its business class product. The 787 and A330 fleet cabins are among the most outdated flying transatlantic today, especially when compared to competitors like British Airways or even newcomers like JetBlue’s Mint. Seat comfort, privacy, and cabin freshness are all lacking, which only amplifies the disappointment when paired with the enormous taxes and fees that Virgin continues to charge on reward bookings – often close to £1,000 for a New York flight.
Though we always appreciate the friendliness of Virgin Atlantic’s crew and the excellent Heathrow Clubhouse, sitting in a filthy seat, eating a cold dinner off a tray on your lap because the tray table is broken, while the crew trip over your feet isn’t just uncompetitive – it’s downright unpleasant. When you’re paying £1,000 in taxes and fees on top of the points, you expect more than just a smile and a swanky lounge. The hard product needs to match, and it simply doesn’t.
We had a Virgin credit card for years, enticed by the allure of companion vouchers and Upper Class upgrades, but the value has steadily diminished. With these new changes, the limitations are even clearer: Red-tier members are capped at using vouchers on redemptions up to 75,000 points, while Silver and Gold members fare slightly better with a limit of 150,000 points. Yet, the dynamic pricing means you’ll likely still need to fork out additional points, and with the poor quality of the long-haul experience, it hardly seems worth it anymore. Delta Airlines is a major shareholder in Virgin Atlantic and it’s likely it had some sway in this change. While Delta’s business suite product is arguably better than Virgin’s, a glance at the cost of their transatlantic redemptions could mean Upper Class seats spike as high as 500,000 points in the future.
In the end, the combination of an aging product, the overhaul of the points system, and rising taxes/charges left us with little choice but to walk away from the Virgin credit card and rethink our loyalty to the airline. While Virgin claims these changes will offer more flexibility and value, the devil is in the detail, and for frequent flyers, the question remains: are these changes truly rewarding, or are we just being asked to pay more for less? For now, our answer seems to be the latter.
As Virgin enters a new era with its reward seat shake-up, many of us will be reconsidering where we place our hard-earned points and loyalty. After all, flying in premium classes is meant to be a rewarding pleasure, not an overpriced chore.
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