You can still save up to 500,000 miles / 83% with Amex points on Delta flights, through a secret backdoor
Gee, I’d love to be a fly on the wall at the Virgin Atlantic HQ. Right after the new year kicked off, they massively devalued their miles (up to 64%) by raising their redemption rates across the board, taking everyone by surprise. Here at FCF, we held a silent vigil in memory of the amazing, little-known opportunities that left the marketplace.
But that’s not the end of the story.
Seven days later, and just as inexplicably, they restored the redemption rates on European flights — including on their partner, Delta. Perhaps a few board members were keen to hop across the pond? Hard to say for sure what the reasoning was, but it happened nonetheless.
This is a good example of the problem with collecting miles instead of points. The value can be yanked out from under you like a rug without any prior warning. Unfortunately, it’s standard airline shenanigans.
So given this unprecedented deval-reval, what does it mean for you now?
It means good news and bad news. The bad news first.
As mentioned, all those non-European destinations are more expensive if you’re paying in miles. The chart below tells the sorry tale in all its unfortunate glory. You can clearly see the Virgin miles required for a trip before and after the new year. Look at the Atlanta-Tokyo route, for example, which shows a difference of +210,000 miles. Thanks again, Virgin Atlantic. And we were all looking forward to 2021.
Compare Virgin Old and New Award Costs
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THE good news:
THE Virgin 6-for-the-price-of-1 play still works on SOME ROUTES to Europe
You may recall FCF’s Delta/Virgin loophole here, and here, where you use Virgin Atlantic miles (that you get by transferring Amex points) rather than Delta SkyMiles to buy seats — on Delta flights. Sounds weird, but it’s because Delta only released a limited number of low-cost mileage award seats to its own SkyMiles members—a different number than it releases to its partner Virgin Atlantic. By using your Virgin Atlantic miles for the same Delta flights, you can open up low-cost award space that Delta doesn’t offer. For example…
Virgin Website Pricing at 50,000 Miles
(or Amex Points) Each Way for Delta Fights Now
bad news:
availability
It’s not great at the moment. We checked 29 Routes to Europe up to 330 days out and here’s what we found:
- Only one route, Detroit to Frankfurt, had a handful of days with award space in the month of May for four travelers, in both directions.
- There were only 10 routes with a seat here or there.
- There were 18 routes with NO award space.
What can we expect in the future?
We’re holding out hope that availability opens up much more. In the meantime, book around the above dates where you can get a 6-for-1.