Virgin Atlantic has followed BA’s lead and launched a sale of their own offering up to 50% discount off Economy flights using Virgin miles.
Discounted flights…sometimes
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first.
Unlike the BA promotion that launched last week, not all of Virgin’s destinations are included in this sale. The discount isn’t always 50% off either and it’s only available on certain dates!
Confused?
Here’s what IS available:
Prices are for a return trip
30% discount
- London Gatwick to Antigua – WAS: 40,000 miles NOW: 28,000 miles
- London Gatwick to Barbados – WAS: 40,000 NOW: 28,000
- London Gatwick to Havana – WAS: 40,000 NOW: 28,000
- London Gatwick to Las Vegas – WAS: 50,000 miles NOW: 35,000 miles
- London Heathrow to Boston – WAS: 40,000 miles NOW: 28,000 miles
- Manchester to Las Vegas – WAS: 50,000 miles NOW: 35,000 miles
- Manchester to San Francisco – WAS: 50,000 miles NOW: 35,000 miles
50% discount
- Manchester to Boston – WAS: 40,000 miles NOW: 20,000 miles
Discounts ONLY available from July to September
Much like BA, Iberia and others, Virgin use off-peak/peak charts for reward flights.
This sale is only available between 1st July and 6th September 2018, which Virgin deems a peak period – limiting its usefulness considerably.
You can see a full list of Virgin’s off-peak and peak pricing on this page
Do I book with BA or Virgin?
Unless…
a) You have a strong preference for Virgin over BA,
b) There are only Virgin reward seats on your preferred travel dates
c) You need to travel between July and September
…it’s difficult to justify booking the Virgin sale rather than the BA version.
With Virgin essentially only offering a 30% discount and only making that discount available on peak dates, booking through BA will almost certainly require fewer miles.
Take (economy) flights to Las Vegas as an example:
Regular pricing
Virgin – 50,000 Virgin miles
BA – 50,000 Avios
Sale pricing
Virgin – 35,000 Virgin miles
BA – 25,000 Avios
How to book
The official sale page on the Virgin website can be found here.
- Offer valid for bookings made between 5 June 2018 and 19 June 2018, for flights departing in Peak season (see above) between 01 July 2018 and 06 September 2018.
- Date changes can be made (normal charges apply). Any difference in mileage will be applied if the date change moves the booking from Peak to Standard season, or vice versa
- Upgrades earned through the Virgin Atlantic credit card(s) can be applied to bookings.
- Normal cancellation fees apply.
Full terms and conditions are available at the bottom of this page.
Verdict
I’m quite underwhelmed by this sale.
All the indications suggest this sale is a reaction to the BA 50% off promotion that launched at the end of May. Yet, by restricting sale pricing to just six destinations and making it available for just a three-month travel window, I think Virgin have shot themselves in the foot here.
That said, if you do need to book flights to one of these destinations over the summer for example, and there isn’t any BA reward availability, this sale may well be useful to you.
The sale homepage is here
Header image credit: Steve Cordory / Shutterstock.com