Increase in points for rewards redemptions

Just managed to sneak in before next week's upgrade devaluation:

It's my 40th in December so I've managed to get a trip to New York for four of us using Q class economy tickets upgraded to Gs in Upper. We're flying LHR-JFK out then JFK-ATL (on delta) before ATL-MAN to get home. This way we get to use the clubhouse on the way out but get back in to MAN after our transatlantic leg so can be in bed within 45 minutes of landing - I HATE the drag back up to Manchester after landing at LHR On a night flight, would much rather do a connection BEFORE the TATL leg. Plus, in a strange way, I prefer the idea of a longer UC flight from ATL as I might get a bit of sleep.

Because we're in the middle ground between the two rule changes its been possible to get these tickets with the cheaper economy fares (Q in this case was the cheapest we could get) but still at the old rate of 40,000 miles return to upgrade. Including the DL flight down to ATL this trip is costing us £903 per person + 40k miles which I think is a bit of a bargain

If you've got the miles it might be worth jumping in now before they devalue next week.

Just got enough miles for me and my wife to upgrade economy to upper on a flight to Hong Kong only to find we both now need 30,000 more miles. That is an increase of 50% which is totally unacceptable. How can Virgin justify a 50% increase? I have contacted Virgin and basically, tough!!!
Maybe this is the last time I collect Virgin Miles and change to Avios. All I need to do now is decide what to with 120,000 miles.
From a very angry and disappointed Virgin customer.

I feel your pain but there isn't an airline or hotel loyalty scheme that hasn't devalued at some point. BA did it last year on a much bigger scale and to be honest the only surprise is that VS waited so long.

Have to say I am very disappointing with this... From 20,000 miles to 35,000 is a 75% increase in points needed to go EC to UC per leg on the NYC route.

I appreciate that other airlines have done this however this is really beside the point. FC miles are VS currency so to revalue these should in theory have no bearing on what other airlines do - it would be like the UK devaluing the pound because Japan has devalued the Yen.

From a customer base this seems to be a little off kilter too... A reward schemes only purpose is to reward customers, yet this level of change rewards no one.

Honestly dont understand why they have decided to do this. Really poor move by VS, really poor....

From a customer base this seems to be a little off kilter too... A reward schemes only purpose is to reward customers, yet this level of change rewards no one.

How true is that though when you can accrue miles without actually being a regular, paying, flying customer? I assume that somewhere a liability is being accrued on the VS balance sheet which was in effect making promises to fly people for an a price that was deemed unsustainable. They could choke off the supply by further reducing the number of reward seats available, but that would still leave the liability on the balance sheet, which wouldn't be a good thing with a reduced capacity over the network.

While Flying Club may have started as a way of rewarding customers it's migrated into just another revenue stream for VS. Those millions of Clubcard and Amex MR points being converted each month and co-branded credit cards must be a nice little earner for little to no effort on their part.

Quite. They are a business whose sole motivation is to make a profit. They will charge what the market will bear.

Anyone who thinks an airline/hotel/car rental/supermarket/coffee shop/whatever loyalty scheme exists simply to reward customers is, sadly, misguided.

They hook you in to collecting with an attractive goal to aspire to, then once they've hooked you in they can move the goalposts safe in the knowledge that most customers will stick with them regardless. It's good business sense.

Has last year's devaluation hurt BA? Not one bit judging by their profits, despite all the FFs on Flyertalk proclaiming they'd had it with BA. I bet 90%+ are still flying with them because the prospect of no longer having that shiny bit of gold plastic doesn't bear thinking about.

Have to say I am very disappointing with this... From 20,000 miles to 35,000 is a 75% increase in points needed to go EC to UC per leg on the NYC route.

I understand your frustrations, but as I pointed out earlier the same Y-J upgrade on this route would have cost you 40,000 miles 3/4 years ago.

They dropped the miles required to match the market those few years back and now they are upping it to match the market trends of today. That is just good business sense, but even still you are requiring less miles to upgrade now than you did when I first started religiously flying with VS.

It is unfortunate that it now costs a bit more to upgrade into UC granted, but at 35K miles for the NYC route I think it is still worth it.

Quite. They are a business whose sole motivation is to make a profit. They will charge what the market will bear.

Anyone who thinks an airline/hotel/car rental/supermarket/coffee shop/whatever loyalty scheme exists simply to reward customers is, sadly, misguided.

They hook you in to collecting with an attractive goal to aspire to, then once they've hooked you in they can move the goalposts safe in the knowledge that most customers will stick with them regardless. It's good business sense.

Has last year's devaluation hurt BA? Not one bit judging by their profits, despite all the FFs on Flyertalk proclaiming they'd had it with BA. I bet 90%+ are still flying with them because the prospect of no longer having that shiny bit of gold plastic doesn't bear thinking about.

Wow gumshoe, a touch cynical, but for the most part true. As a point of order, I wouldn't say that people who believe loyalty schemes exist to reward customer loyalty are misguided. A bit of an inflammatory thing to say, especially considering this debate is occurring on a forum founded around the reward of repeat flying with an airline .. ahh the irony.

A further argument I would like to add to this is that with all of these loyalty schemes mixing and matching each other there is an increasing focus on customer service these days. It is not just about rewarding those frequent travellers who, let's face it, likely hold multiple shiny bits of gold plastic as you call them; it is also about keeping those travellers happy and enticing new members. A bit of an obvious statement perhaps, but let us not forget that the reason most of us keep flying with VS is the pride with which most of their crew serve and the fantastic service that is usually delivered as a result. I am happy to be 'suckered in' on that principle.

I'm not too sure about the FT BA zealots though, they have always been fanatical in their devotions to the BA gospel I am certain that any heretics who speak of leaving the holy fold, will promptly be relegated to being treated like any new members who have not done the courtesy of reading the site cover to cover

The interesting thing about the "Frequent Flyer" programmes is that many members (like me) are not frequent flyers at all. We fly 3/4 trips a year and have done so for years but almost all my flights are rewards/ upgrades via the "frequent flyer" programmes of BA and Virgin. And in premium cabins to boot. Yet in all honesty I am a customer only because of the rewards scheme. I would most likely be flying other airlines were I paying full revenue prices.

Do I feel I get vfm? Yes. I do not buy my airmiles (apart from a recent Virgin Miles Boost with the bonus and the annual credit card fees on our BA Amex's). Almost all our airmiles come from our usual expenditure, only I buy almost everything on credit cards (and pay them off monthly). An example of why I carry on collecting: yesterday I got x2 reward tickets LGW-TPA with BA in Club for £445 each. The revenue price for these seats is currently £14. 316.84 for the dates we are flying. You of course one can get the seats cheaper than that via third party sources, in a sale, ex-EU...but my reward feels to me like a real bargain. And that is what keeps me collecting.

The recent Virgin FC changes, as with the BAEC changes last year, are disappointing and I am quite annoyed the points I had all lined up for a Hong Kong reward are now suddenly 60,000 short, just a week after Miles Boosting. This reinforces my usual rule- do not buy airmiles! I shall just have to save a little longer. Which brings me to my second rule- "save and burn". You never know when the next devaluation may be!!

I admit I save a lot of points from everything and my award wallet can attest to that. I have been using points it's forever and cannot remember the last time I actually paid for a full price flight.

My use of my miles is mainly for my winter hols and usually over Christmas where prices are just stupid. So for me redemption miles are key here as rather than £1200 I paid £250 and at most 45000 miles or like me get them in the redemption sales .

Hello all, first post so please be kind!

Did anyone receive any email or correspondence from Virgin before the increase? I'm slightly miffed, went to book an Eco>UC reward upgrade to SFO on March 2nd, to be informed of the monumental hike. Had I known, I could easily have booked it a couple of days earlier.

Did anyone receive any email or correspondence from Virgin before the increase? I'm slightly miffed, went to book an Eco>UC reward upgrade to SFO on March 2nd, to be informed of the monumental hike. Had I known, I could easily have booked it a couple of days earlier.

Not that I can see, no. I learned about it through this thread and Head For Points.

Hello all, first post so please be kind!

Did anyone receive any email or correspondence from Virgin before the increase? I'm slightly miffed, went to book an Eco>UC reward upgrade to SFO on March 2nd, to be informed of the monumental hike. Had I known, I could easily have booked it a couple of days earlier.

When I contacted Virgin to complain about the increase they informed me that I SHOULD have received an email on the 19th February. I believe that when there is a significant change to terms and conditions then a letter would be more appropriate. I, like you, was unaware of the increase and now I find myself needing an additional 60,000 points for the same flights for me and my wife. Totally unacceptable.

I feel your pain but there isn't an airline or hotel loyalty scheme that hasn't devalued at some point. BA did it last year on a much bigger scale and to be honest the only surprise is that VS waited so long.

At least give their members the chance to use the miles they have accumulated. I was totally unaware of this unbelievable increase. Given the chance I would have used them rather than have to decided what to do with 120,000 points as I now need an additional 60,000 for the same flights. Not happy with the communications from Virgin.

VS will not send individual letters out. It would cost a fortune and many would be 'return to sender' (or dumped in the bin) as people don't update their addresses.

Even with emails people stop using an address but don't update their accounts, also many go into spam or even get blocked by their ISP or (like me) don't subscribe to any emails other than related to a flight I'm taking.

The 'but VS should write / email me ' comes up on a regular basis as well when they delete miles due to 3 years inactivity.

It is simply something they aren't going to start to do again now everyone with an FC account has an email address

The 'but VS should write / email me ' comes up on a regular basis as well when they delete miles due to 3 years inactivity.

I'm not sure whether you're advocating the practise or not. (Blame that I have leave for LHR in 6 hours, and nothing is packed )

I would say that miles are known to be deleted after 3 years, if they changed it to 2 I would expect to be informed. These miles haven't been wasted, they have gone into a cheap reward return to SFO on VS41 tomorrow morning. This has however left a sour taste in my mouth. It appears I may never get to sample the Clubhouse!

The 'but VS should write / email me ' comes up on a regular basis as well when they delete miles due to 3 years inactivity.

I'm not sure whether you're advocating the practise or not. (Blame that I have leave for LHR in 6 hours, and nothing is packed )

I would say that miles are known to be deleted after 3 years, if they changed it to 2 I would expect to be informed. These miles haven't been wasted, they have gone into a cheap reward return to SFO on VS41 tomorrow morning. This has however left a sour taste in my mouth. It appears I may never get to sample the Clubhouse!

My whole post is advocating for email and not the post which would cost VS a small fortune and even then no guarantee the intended recipient would even get them if they have moved and not updated their address. Less of a problem with email though.

If they did change it to 2 years or whatever then they would email FC members as well as put it on the website and it would get picked up by various blogs (e.g. Head for Points. The Points Guy and here and flyer talk plus all the other ones out there). They would not send physical letters. Which is exactly what they have done with the redemption changes.

VS might claim they have actually emailed everyone with the changes. I received an email on 19 Feb titled "Discover a South by Southwest getaway." In it there is no obvious mention of the miles increase but there is a rather cryptic intro paragraph that says,

Dear Stuart, welcome to your Well Red newsletter. It’s your personal gateway to all of our latest news, offers and tips. Plus, you’ll find some great ideas for your next adventures. Take a look now.

Visit your Flying Club page.

My Flying Club page? Whatever could that be.

If you follow that link it takes you to a new page that has an article half way down the page:

News
Changes to upgrade rewards and companion tickets
Find out more

The text of which reads

We’ve made some exciting new changes - you can now use your miles for upgrade rewards and companion reward tickets across three additional booking classes when purchasing a full adult published, corporate or net fare for Economy to Premium Economy and Economy to Upper Class. Booking classes now include: Y,B,R,L,U,M,E,Q and X*

If however, your preference is to upgrade from Premium Economy to our Upper Class cabin, or you’d like to save a seat for a friend or family member when using your miles to spend on a companion ticket, you’ll be glad to know that you can now use your miles across the following booking classes: W, S and H.

Increasing mileage
Alongside this, we’re also making some changes to the mileage levels you’ll need for upgrade rewards from 1st March 2016.

We will be increasing our mileage levels as follows:
Increase of 5,000 miles, Economy to Premium, one way
Increase of 10,000 miles, Premium to Upper, one way
Increase of 15,000 miles, Economy to Upper, one way

You can still upgrade at the current mileage level until 29 February 2016, to find out more click here

*Group bookings are excluded.

I suspect that is enough to qualify as VS "informing" you even if the information is 3 links deep in an email that doesn't actually have any hint of this bombshell on the first page.

Not cool Virgin, not cool.

Not cool Virgin, not cool.

I agree. British Airways did announce their changes last year in advance and they were widely publicised.

Are we expecting increases to the miles requirements for full reward flights or is it the case that, if that was coming, it probably would have been introduced at the same time?

Are we expecting increases to the miles requirements for full reward flights or is it the case that, if that was coming, it probably would have been introduced at the same time?

Interesting point as the EC->UC upgrade is now only 10000 miles short of a full UC reward for a return flight to the east coast of the US.

Apologies for rejuvenating an older thread but has anyone recently flown on an X fare? Just wondering if the TPs were 2 or 3.

I have checked the website but unsure if it can be trusted... By unsure I mean I'm hoping it's not!

Yes, it is 2 (after the usual phone call to claim them).

Just made the phone call and she has credited 6 for an X return. I didn't question it.