Flying Club improvements coming soon

[mitchja]

Just noticed this press release on the VS website.

Virgin Atlantic has today announced that Flying Club members will be able to pay for any seat onboard with Virgin Points. This is in addition to the launch of new Saver reward seats and increased points earn rates in Premium and Upper Class.

From 30 October these enhancements will revolutionise the world of redemptions for Virgin Atlantic customers, continuing a long history of innovation in Flying Club, alongside our rewards club partner Virgin Red.

Flying Club members will be able to use Virgin Points to pay for any seat on the plane on any date, offering absolute choice and flexibility for our loyal customers. The price of seats will vary in line with demand, in a similar way to standard tickets.

To make flying with points even more accessible, Virgin Atlantic is launching new Saver reward seats at our lowest possible prices. Flying Club members will benefit from the best value we’ve ever offered, with Saver reward seats available across thousands of flights. And they will start from prices even lower than reward seats today, with flights to New York from as little as 6,000 Virgin Points.

We know that everyone loves an upgrade, and so members will be able to use their points to upgrade to any available Premium or Upper Class seat from standard or reward tickets. In addition, members will be able to use their Companion or Upgrade vouchers on any seat, removing constraints of availability from even more products within Flying Club.

And in a further boost to Flying Club members, the number of Virgin Points earned on Upper Class and Premium tickets will also be increased at the same time.

Quite a few improvements and changes coming to Flying Club by the looks of it.

Summary of main changes:

In 2022 Virgin Atlantic launched Guaranteed Availability making 12 seats available on every flight for Flying Club members. We are now going further.

From 30 October, every seat on a Virgin Atlantic operated flight will be made available for Flying Club members to purchase using their Virgin Points, including for upgrades.

A new Saver reward seat product will be launched for seats priced at or below today’s prices. These will include some of our lowest ever prices in points.

Saver reward seats will be available across thousands of flights, at the same price or lower than they are right now.

All vouchers issued today to credit card holders and to Gold tier members will be moving to a new Flying Club reward voucher.

The new voucher will remain redeemable for a Companion Seat or upgrade, and will be redeemable on any seat in any cabin for any customer.

The voucher will be valid up to a maximum of 75k points for Flying Club Red tier members, or 150k points for Flying Club Silver or Gold tier members based on status at the time of voucher redemption.

Above these maximum amounts, customers can use their Virgin Points balances to top up the amount required, giving even more flexibility.

Virgin Red members will continue to be able to spend their points on Virgin Atlantic by joining Flying Club and linking their account, just as today.

The amount of Virgin Points earned on Upper Class tickets will increase by up to 50% and Premium tickets will increase by up to 75%, allowing customers to earn even more on Virgin Atlantic.

Between now and launch, customers will be able to book reward seats without any changes to pricing or availability.

good initial review of press release from HFP here... a lot of unknowns..

https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/09/30/virgin-atlantic-flying-club-changes/

[mitchja]

If wonder if the annual Gold renewal companion voucher will change to this new reward voucher as well?

If so this a positive change as far as I'm concerned as I never get to use my annual current gold companion voucher and would much rather have an upgrade voucher instead.

My Gold FC account resets / renews tomorrow so I'll guess I'll find out!



Edit - Found more info about the new reward voucher on this page

Gold renewal does indeed earn one of the new rewards
2000 TP's earns you another 2 vouchers.

As well as the UK VS credit cards, these vouchers are also earned from the new US Virgin red credit card as well.

This reads like the death of the miles plus money option to me

Let's face it, changes like this are always a devaluation. The biggest clue in this case is the increase in points earnings on upper and premium tickets.

Predictions:
- No miles plus money => no way to fly without parting with at least some cash (roughly £1k in upper)
- Less "saver" seats available than rewards seats today
- Something like double the points required on avg compared to todays rates for the new demand driven redemptions

Hmm.

I’m skeptical. I think the dynamic pricing is really going to screw things over.

The beauty of the legacy scheme is a fixed amount of points regardless of if the cash price is £3,500 or £10,000…

That sounds like it will no longer be the case.

[mitchja]

Money+points fares will still be available and at the same rate. From this page:

If the reward seats have already been snapped up for the flight you want, you can still use your points as part-payment on a normal seat with Points Plus Money, from as little as 3000 points. You'll also earn tier points to help you get to Silver and Gold status. However it’s always worth checking back, as more reward seats can be released closer to the departure date.​

Money+points fares will still be available and at the same rate. From this page:

If the reward seats have already been snapped up for the flight you want, you can still use your points as part-payment on a normal seat with Points Plus Money, from as little as 3000 points. You'll also earn tier points to help you get to Silver and Gold status. However it’s always worth checking back, as more reward seats can be released closer to the departure date.​

I believe that page relates to the mechanisms available "now". If you follow the link to the description of the changes, miles plus money is not mentioned at all. If it does go, it will be interesting to see what happens with the integration with Virgin Holidays given you can earn TP and use miles plus money there as well.

Another thing gone that I just noticed is gold rewards seats which went for double the standard amounts. Time will tell whether the new demand based pricing is better or worse than this.

It's interesting! My read of the HFP review is that this is most likely not a good thing, particularly if you tend to book most if not all of your flights with points so rarely get out of Red!

Indications are that dynamic pricing = more points required in most cases, and I think this is born out of the indication that Red members now get 75,000 points value for the voucher. Looking at most if not all UC flights, 75,000 is more than half the points value which a Red member currently pays when using the voucher for a companion in UC. If they are effectively increasing the value of the voucher, this could suggest that it is because points required will also be increasing!

We can only wait and see but I don't feel quite as excited as I think I am meant to!

Having read the article and seen the website post.
I think this might be good thing if:

- if you book in advance when the flights are released (especially for Upper Class)
Whether or not UC seats will be a part of the “saver seats” discount (Economy S.S will be from 6,000 and not 10,000 points), that remains to be seen.

I think they will keep the point amount the same (I.e 47,500 UC) for the first lot of seats booked in UC.

Where I see things changing;

Last minute bookings.

For example; I had a cruise that was cancelled this year so I booked a trip to Boston/New Orleans/Washington DC.
Flew UC return , 2 adults, points sale 95,000 return.
But normal times would be 190,000 points.
This trip was booked 7 weeks before departure.

I can now see envision this costing 250,000+ points based on the fact that it’s nearer the departure date, seats booked etc…


So, if you’re like me, booking early (normally) when seats are released, shouldn’t be much of a change.

But booking last minute trip with points, can see it costing a fortune in points!

Putting this here as reference to check from 30th October:

Upper class off peak - North/South (FL, Atl) = 47,500 each way, 90,000 return UC.

Upper class off peak - West Coast = 67,500 each way , 135,000 return UC.

Upper class off peak, LHR-SFO, IAD-LHR = 115,000 return UC.

Come 30th October I’m going to do a cross - check on September 2025 dates, to see if the points are the same, or lower or if “saver seats” are offered.

Interesting to think about planning versus waiting. Normally we book as early as possible but were actually going to wait for our next trip to see if and when there was another points seat sale!

What's the thinking on whether they will still do the points sales once they move to dynamic pricing?

If points required do stay roughly the same then this is positive as you don't have to mess about waiting for them to release enough seats where there are more than 2 of you!

I don’t think they’ll do a point sale before this goes live. (25%, 50% discount in reward seats)

They might do a point sale as in up to 70% more points when you buy points. Could see them doing this as no-one knows how many points we will need… which is crappy of VS , only giving half baked press releases.

Good thing is; if you buy the seats early and then point sale does happen, you’ll be able to cancel and rebook or change dates.

[mitchja]

LOL, well my Flying Club account has just reset back to 0 tier points for another 12 months and the following transaction has been added:

Congratulations! You have qualified for a Gold Companion ticket

My vouchers show the same old gold companion voucher. Guess things have not updated yet!

We only have half banked information at the moment. But this is a clear move towards the way the US carriers work. I thought BA would get there before VS to be honest.

Overall I think its a pretty negative move. And it completely screws anyone who wants last minute upgrades.

This news has prompted me to finally make an account on here, instead of sleuthing like usual.

I’m only 140 points from silver, which I would need before January, but given that doubles the voucher value from the CC now it’s put a faint idea of doing a TP run to get the rest, which a business return with Singapore from MXP-BCN would comfortably push me into Silver.

That being said i’ll calculate the cost benefit once they actually release the new dynamic figures to see roughly how much Upper will be from now on (hopefully it sits around the same), to figure out if it’s worth it with the companion voucher.

Not sure if anyone has a better idea than the £550 it’d cost to do that run, minus getting to MXP to start with.

[buns]

I know there are plenty unanswered questions at the moment, I cannot help but think this is downward step.

My initial reaction is to consider myself lucky I burnt some points and a 2-4-1 voucher last week for a trip next May.

If there are perks, they haven’t jumped out at me just yet

Buns

I only signed up to the paid credit card at the start of September, are they now saying that I'll have to spend 20k pa on this card to get the voucher?

These terms apply to new Reward cardholders from the 30th September 2024 and existing Reward Cardholders from the 30th October 2024...


1. If you spend £20,000 or more on card purchases over 12 months, you’ll earn a Flying Club reward voucher. reward. You can only earn one voucher reward every 12 months. The 12 months resets on each anniversary of the date your Virgin Atlantic Reward Credit Card account was opened.

I only signed up to the paid credit card at the start of September, are they now saying that I'll have to spend 20k pa on this card to get the voucher?

These terms apply to new Reward cardholders from the 30th September 2024 and existing Reward Cardholders from the 30th October 2024...


1. If you spend £20,000 or more on card purchases over 12 months, you’ll earn a Flying Club reward voucher. reward. You can only earn one voucher reward every 12 months. The 12 months resets on each anniversary of the date your Virgin Atlantic Reward Credit Card account was opened.

Thats for the normal card, Not for the rewards+, you have to scroll down a fair way on the email to get to the T&Cs for the + card

[mitchja]

The credit card voucher trigger confusion seems to have come from text being duplicated for the Reward card updated T&C’s on this page on both the before October 30th and the after as well instead of having separate T&C’s for the Reward+ card. The main text still mentions £10K spend for the Reward+ card.

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I think these changes are going to be quite good for myself (selfishly) We are flying to MCO October Next year, and have enough Reward points and companion vouchers (even at their new value) to get the family in UC. Previously the availability for reward seats in UC on the EDI-MCO route was limited to 2 on release of the flight. This will allow us a better chance of the 4 of us travelling UC

According to this article
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/v ... ngNewsVerp

According to Virgin, more than half of its flights with economy reward seats availability will see prices that are the same price or lower than right now. Added to this, the airline says a "large" amount of reward seats available in Upper Class will be bookable at the same price or lower than right now. Whether or not this simply means that prices will be hiked during peak periods, with lower fares scattered across quieter travel periods remains to be seen.

As of yet Virgin has not revealed whether it will impose any caps on the maximum or minimum award fares.

I suspect we're just seeing an extension of the 'dynamic pricing' from cash to miles.

We all have seen how the best timed flights on the most desirable days cost more, often much more, than the ones at undesirable times, or those days later/early outside of the holiday period. Well, same thing is coming to reward flight redemptions. More miles for desirable days/ times. Less on the unwanted times/ days: Dynamic pricing.

I guess if you get in early enough, you'll be ok, but after that expect to pay a lot more miles, to unlock that ideal seat, just like you would in cash.

-------------
Edit: Just clicked the link above, which says the exact same thing - they've gone to dynamic pricing for miles. Cue the insanity of a 160,000 Economy Reward seat to get away for Xmas, "coming to screen near you shortly!"

I don’t think it’s going to +++ points. Simply because if the saver seats are going to be the same or if not cheaper … I can’t envisage people spending double the amount of points, for the same seat… I’m a gold FC and have never done the gold seat option. If that is the case I’ll just transfer all points to IHG/Marriott where I get 1:1.

I think they will sort of do it like now:

Guaranteed 12 saver seats per flight (the same or cheaper than what RS are now).

Then Progressively increase:

So let’s say the saver seat in UC is the same at 47,500, once saver seats gone, they might increase too much 57,500, then 70,000, then 80,000.

Whilst it’s not ideal, i think it’s better than the 12 guaranteed now… as many times I’ve missed out seats on the my preferred flight , only for more seats to become available close to departure .. where now I can freely choose,… ohh they have UC seat but it’s 70k points, do I pay this or do I just tweak my schedule and go for a flight which is at 47,500…
Ultimately, great for people who fly a lot and earn a lot of miles. Will hit the last minute upgrades.

It does give more flexibility in that sense.

If you look at some of the comments on HFP's, the pitchforks are getting sharpened, the torches lit and the world is about to end for all flying club members.

Until we see some actual figures, its pretty difficult to understand if this will be a great, good or a poor change to everyone's booking habits. I'm hoping its not gonna be too bad but yes, I am expecting horrendous figures for popular dates.

Time will tell.

David

I think it’s because it’s a pretty big change they are implementing and they have left quite a few details out… wish they would have announced with the full details! As then it wouldn’t create so much panic (especially for me whose currently planning 2025-2027 trips using points saved)..
Time will tell…