A Story of Virgin Disa-Points-ment

So picture this, you’re my parents wanting to go to the Maldives next March in Premium Economy and you want to use Virgin Points!

You’ve got just over 200,000 points in your account, a Flying Club voucher earned with spending on the Virgin Atlantic Reward Plus credit card, and Silver status, this should be easy, right?

Flying into the Maldives on Virgin Atlantic

A Flying Club voucher for those who don’t know is a reward based on spending £10,000 a year on the Virgin Atlantic Reward Plus credit card, or £20,000 on the Virgin Atlantic Reward card. This voucher can be used towards a companion ticket for someone on the same booking, or to upgrade two people one way, or upgrade one person return. This voucher does have a maximum value attached though of 150,000 Virgin Points if you are Gold or Silver, and 75,000 Virgin Points if you are Red.

Ready? You go to book, and see the price of a Premium Economy ticket is 82,000 points each way, per person. You plan on using your voucher for a companion ticket for the 2nd traveller. Then you hit your first problem, you’ve actually lost your Silver status and you’re back down to Red. That voucher you have is now only worth 75,000 points instead of the 150,000 it's worth at Silver or Gold levels.

With the price of a return Premium Economy ticket being 164,000, that voucher with a value of 150,000 would have been invaluable. They knew that the voucher wouldn’t have covered the full amount for the 2nd traveller, but only being 14,000 short, they were prepared to take that hit. Adding this 14,000 to the 164,000, the original amount they were prepared for would have been 178,000 Virgin Points for two adults, return, flying in Premium Economy.

Now, when factoring the new value their voucher brings 75,000 Virgin Points, not the 150,000 as first thought, the total cost is 249,000. A big step up, and well out of budget in terms of points.

Time to pivot. The new plan is to pay for Economy tickets, and then utilise the voucher to upgrade into Premium Economy. So you go to the Virgin Holidays store, as you’re also booking the hotel through them, and get a quote for this plan. It’s £1,800 for two return in Economy, and then 114,000 points and “taxes” of £276 to upgrade. You take the evening to deliberate, and conclude that considering you’ve got 75,000 points worth of value, you only need 39,000 to make this plan work. And considering that Virgin Points don’t expire, you’ll just keep them for your next trip. This seems like a solid plan.

The next day you go into the Virgin Holidays store to book your holiday, get an update for the quote, and the price has gone up dynamically. It’s now 134,000 points, and £400 “taxes”. No biggie, you can afford that, let's book the flights using cash and continue with the plan. You want to upgrade the flights immediately but the tickets haven’t been issued yet, so the staff in the store can’t upgrade them as they do not technically exist. Come back tomorrow.

The next day rolls round, time to call Virgin to upgrade, and they’ve been royally and dynamically screwed over. The price is now a staggering 278,000 points, and £540 in “taxes”! Even factoring in the saving of 75,000 Virgin Points the voucher brings, this is an extortionate increase to the plan.

This isn’t the first time my parents have been on the receiving end of an unfortunate event with Virgin, but it’s the first time on the points front. Flying with Virgin this year they decided to fly Upper for the first time. Having not booked Business Class before they were excited, alas the Upper product was the old style on a Boeing 787 which was unfortunate. But, what my Mum suffered from in flight was a screen that fell apart and could only function after being taped to the seat shell, and the seat itself couldn't recline or be made into a bed! They were offered 40,000 Virgin Points in compensation, but this is just a disappointing trend in their Virgin Atlantic story.

Taped together screen

With the demise of the BA’s Club being welcoming to Middle Class travellers, Virgin should be doing all they can to retain this demographic. Dynamic pricing did come with some benefits, including every seat now being available to be bought with points. But they have dynamically priced out my parents, and are now going to get no increase in value to their ticket as they are not willing to be made hostage.

For reference, myself and Helena flew to the Maldives under the old pricing structure, Premium Economy return, both of us at the time of booking were Red members, and it cost 85,000 Virgin Points, a Flying Club voucher, and £592.41 in “taxes” total.

Virgin Atlantic's old pricing structure

They will not be the only ones affected by this pricing structure. My only hope is that Virgin’s algorithm is toned down in the future, and there will be fewer travellers put in the same position.