Virgin Atlantic Points

Hi,

Both my wife and myself have been collecting VA points for a few years. We have been saving them to redeem them on UC tickets from the UK to Tokyo for our wedding anniversary.

I rang VA yesterday as I couldn’t find any flights on the website. It turns out they no longer fly to Tokyo (and neither do any of the partners).

I’ve looked into switching them to IHG points and then to Avios, but the conversion rate is terrible.

Does anyone know a way of converting them to ‘another’ airline where we could use them for a reward flight? I have around 130k points and my wife has around 50k.

Thank you

[mitchja]

Unfortunately, most of the frequent flyers programs are designed in such as way as to not let you do what you are trying to do (without loosing out via poor airline>hotel>airline conversions rates).

This is probably not what you want to hear, but the best option would be to find an alternative VS destination to spend the miles on.

There where rumours floating around (and I stress these where only rumours) that VS where possibly looking to start flying to Japan again but until that is 100% confirmed, I wouldn't rely on that.

Is ANA not available anymore?
Always used to be good availability.

You can still redeem Virgin Flying Club points on ANA to Tokyo.

This is spooky... I had exactly the same conversation with a colleague called Andy, who has a similar amount of flying club miles and wanted to do the same thing.

As the Tokyo route is no more (as to whether it returns is still speculation)... ANA is the only option.

This thread may (or may not) help with the ANA side of things https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/virgin- ... oints.html

maybe carry on saving & wait to see if virgin miles get merged into KLM/Air France scheme.

Thank you for all the replies.

I hadn’t realised ANA was still an option. The lady I spoke to yesterday said that none of the partners fly to Japan. This is something I’ll look into (although I’m guessing our points won’t go very far in ANA First class).

The wife is set on Japan, so other destinations aren’t an option....... at the moment.

Maybe we just need to keep saving the points. Perhaps we’ll finaly get enough points to go away for our 20th anniversary instead of the 10th.

Thank you for all the replies.

I hadn’t realised ANA was still an option. The lady I spoke to yesterday said that none of the partners fly to Japan. This is something I’ll look into (although I’m guessing our points won’t go very far in ANA First class).

The wife is set on Japan, so other destinations aren’t an option....... at the moment.

Maybe we just need to keep saving the points. Perhaps we’ll finaly get enough points to go away for our 20th anniversary instead of the 10th.

To be honest ANA redemptions are actually some of the best value you can get for FC miles. I redeemed (after quite a bit of patience I must add) 2 business seats LHR-HND for some friends, it cost me 190,000 and £550 or so in taxes (95k miles each). First class is not much more at 120,000 each.

This is the page you want: https://www.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/fl ... rways.html

I'm happy to share tips for searching if you are interested.

[Nottingham Nick]

If your wife is dead set on Japan, then why not do VS to Hong Kong and fly over from there?
HKG - Tokyo is a four hour flight and has multiple options from LCC's to the more luxurious legacy carriers like Cathay.

Nick

There where rumours floating around (and I stress these where only rumours) that VS where possibly looking to start flying to Japan again but until that is 100% confirmed, I wouldn't rely on that.

Wow, i hadn't heard that. I could see why they may because BA and JAL have been hiking prices quietly for the last year, and there's hardly ever an empty seat on the ANA flight

Pretty bad form for VS to say none of their partners fly to Hong Kong.

PS: the last VS flight to Tokyo was two year ago. Stay around Vflyer to keep up to date!