Redeeming Virgin Atlantic Points in Europe: An Incredible Sweetspot

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club has taken some hits over the years. They’ve devalued redemptions on their own metal and stacked on fuel surcharges to the point of absurdity. It almost feels like a shame to collect their points.

While some canny travelers point out this is a program currency one can stack to fly the most aspirational products, I want to share with you a little secret: the Flying Blue and KLM partner award charts have stayed quietly excellent. In fact, these might be some of the best ways to zip around Europe in style for pennies on the dollar.

We’re talking capped prices, solid availability, and business class fares regularly available for 8,000 points one-way. If you’re planning a European trip and want to hop between cities on the cheap, this is one of the best plays in the game right now.

Why is Redeeming Virgin Atlantic Points So Good in Europe?

Despite the many devaluations for using Virgin Atlantic Flying Club on Virgin Atlantic, the program maintains a dedicated award chart specifically for Air France and KLM. 

This is separate from the general SkyTeam partner chart and, crucially, is a great way to side-step Flying Blue’s dynamic pricing. For short-haul flights under 1,750 miles, the chart is distance-based with three fixed bands and off-peak/peak pricing.

It should be noted that the above pictures say “Air France,” but the KLM redemption values are identical.

The number to focus on is that first band: 0-600 miles, 8,000 Virgin points in business class off-peak. Through Flying Blue, a one-way business class flight from Amsterdam to London costs 20,000 miles at standard pricing. On Virgin Atlantic, that’s fewer than half the points for the exact same seat (and, thankfully, seats are often released into award availability). 

And look at the economy side – 4,000 points off-peak for any flight under 600 miles. Even during peak times, it’s just 4,500 miles. That’s practically nothing.

The value story changes once you cross 600 miles, though. Business class jumps from 8,000 to 25,000 off-peak – a massive leap that makes it a much harder sell. Economy, on the other hand, stays very reasonable across all three bands, ranging between 4,500 and 9,000 points. 

That means business is a great play up to that 600-mile mark (good for most of Western/Central Europe) or 1,750 for economy (good to get from Paris or Amsterdam all the way to Istanbul, formerly known as Constantinople).

In short:

Let’s take note of a few things. First, the distance is measured origin-to-destination, not by routing. Thus, if you’re connecting through CDG or AMS, you’re charged based on the straight-line distance between your departure and arrival cities, even if the actual flight path is longer. You can check distances using Great Circle Mapper.

The only out-of-pocket cost beyond the points is taxes and fuel surcharges, which tend to be pretty reasonable on intra-European routes.

Second, this is a great way to save some Euros when in Europe. European domestic business class will blow nobody’s mind, but it will get you two checked priority pieces of luggage, which can be worth their weight in gold if you have a family or are traveling with sports equipment like skis.

For availability, you could search directly on virginatlantic.com, but why not be a Chad and use third-party tools like seats.aero and Awardtool? If you want to level up your game, we recently talked all about how to get the most out of flight award search tools on the Miles Ahead podcast.

European Redemptions You Can Brag About When Redeeming Virgin Flying Club Points

Note: all cash fares we’re going to be talking about were found via Google Flights. There might be variation when logged in, but Google Flights gives us enough of a decent idea.

For one example of this, my editor Josh recently flew from Oslo to Amsterdam on KLM business class for only 9,000 Virgin points and $38 CAD in taxes and fees per person. The list price was north of 500 euros a head!

Let’s look at an example: I am personally a huge fan of Czechia, also known as Bohemia, the home of Pilsner Urquell and Jan Hus and the Good Soldier Svejk. They’re known as the jokers of Europe.

You know what the real joke would be?

Yeah, paying $701 CAD for a 100-minute business class flight from Paris to Prague is not something I’m gonna be doing.

But wait, is there availability on Awardtool?

Not bad! 8,000 availability – it should be noted that those taxes and fees are denoted in USD, so that’s a bit closer to $104 CAD. Still, that means $701-$104= $597 of fare… divided by 8,000 points, that’s 7.46 cents per point. Not bad, huh?

Just to compare, here’s what you’d be paying for the same days on Flying Blue:

What this tells me is that nobody really wants to buy at those cash prices of ~450 euros, nor do they want to book at 25,000+ Flying Blue miles. Therefore, the seats sit there waiting to be plucked by those fortunate to have loaded up on Virgin Atlantic.

Next up, we have another, perhaps niche, example, but one that shows the ability to save when taking economy fares.

Amsterdam (AMS) to Budapest (BUD) is in the second distance band, so subject to slightly higher prices. But just by using Virgin Atlantic, you can save 2,500 points – which is a small absolute number, but an enormous 25% savings off Flying Blue.

In cash terms, this fare is sitting at $299 CAD:

Those taxes and fees are in USD, and thus closer to about $138 CAD at the time of writing. Thus, you’d get 1.61 cpp on Flying Blue, but a whopping 2.15 cpp on Virgin Atlantic.

This adds up quickly when you’re traveling with multiple players: 2,500 points per person in a four-person family adds up to 10,000 points per direction, meaning a card with a 60,000-point welcome bonus can then be stretched to accommodate every family member. Just some math to keep in mind when frugal flying!

But now that I’ve mentioned how to earn points, what shall we do about solving that issue?

How to Earn Virgin Atlantic Points as a Canadian

Here’s the catch. Virgin Atlantic isn’t a direct transfer partner of any Canadian loyalty program, so earning these points takes a bit more work than the Aeroplan transfers for which I am now growing increasingly infamous for advocating.

The primary path is through US credit cards. American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Capital One Miles, and Citi ThankYou Rewards all transfer to Virgin Atlantic at a 1:1 ratio. If you’re already in the US credit card game, you likely have access to at least one of these currencies, and in even better news, Virgin Atlantic is a frequent target for transfer bonuses of ~25-40%.

If US cards aren’t in your toolkit, Marriott Bonvoy points transfer to Virgin Atlantic at a 3:1 ratio, with a 5,000-point bonus when you transfer 60,000 Bonvoy points at a time (so 60,000 Bonvoy becomes 25,000 Virgin). This is not Chad-coded. Don’t do it unless you are flush with Bonvoy points and have a great redemption in mind.

Finally, those transfer bonuses and the tantalizing prospect of ANA premium cabins often make people deep into the miles and points game speculatively transfer points before they have a redemption in mind. In such a case, a good use could be asking them to book a flight for you – I know that’s how I wound up owing Josh a couple of dry ciders for his willingness to help me out.

Conclusion

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club’s utility on its own aircraft is kaput. The king is dead. Long live the king: hopping around all of Europe on Air France and KLM in royal style, all at easy-to-understand and reasonable fixed prices. 

The 8,000-point business class is a big winner because at some of the cash prices we just saw, those premium cabin seats don’t move but languish in award inventory. And when they can’t be moved at ridiculous FlyingBlue dynamic prices, you, the savvy traveler, can swoop in and use your Virgin Atlantic points more wisely. And frankly, economy class (at the prices Virgin’s charging) is not a bad value, either.

Until next time, keep your points moving and your surcharges low.