Virgin Atlantic increases miles needed for upgrades but makes them easier to achieve

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Apologies for the delay in covering this announcement (well, it isn’t an announcement as Virgin has not actually notified people about it) due to my holiday last week.

I had a few emails pointing out that Virgin Flying Club was increasing the cost of upgrades.

However ….. Virgin is also allowing cheaper ticket classes to be upgraded. In a bad bit of PR, Virgin didn’t tell anyone about this second change.

Virgin Atlantic 747

Some of the people who emailed me were unhappy. I am more realistic. What would you rather have? Cheap upgrades from expensive ticket types you were never likely to buy, or more expensive upgrades which can at least be applied to the cheap ticket you bought?

Let’s go back a step.

On 15th February, Virgin Atlantic changed the Economy fare classes that can be upgraded using miles.

You might think that an Economy ticket is an Economy ticket. Not true. There are different types of ticket at different prices, reflecting different terms for refunds and changes.

The Virgin economy fare classes are Y B R L U M E Q V X N and O.

Until 15th February, the cheapest upgradable Economy class was ‘M’. In reality, this was often more expensive than buying an inflexible Premium Economy ticket and so there was no point in upgrading. It only benefited business travellers who were forced to travel Economy due to company policy but ended up with semi-flexible tickets because they booked late or had uncertain plans.

The changes brought in E, Q and X to the ticket classes that can be upgraded.

This is a major improvement. For the first time, it is likely that the average leisure traveller in Economy may have a ticket class they can upgrade.

Similarly, booking class H in Premium Economy can also now be upgraded using miles.

But what is happening to upgrade prices?

Virgin giveth, and Virgin taketh away …..

Take a look at this page on the Virgin website and click on ‘Upgrades Table’. It says:

PLEASE NOTE FROM 01 MARCH 2016, THE MILEAGE LEVELS FOR UPGRADE REWARDS WILL INCREASE BY THE FOLLOWING AMOUNTS

Economy to Premium – increase of 5,000 miles per sector

Premium to Upper – increase of 10,000 miles per sector

Economy to Upper – increase of 15,000 miles per sector

These are, without doubt, chunky increases. Using New York as an example:

Economy to Premium Economy jumps from 10,000 to 15,000 miles, one way

Premium Economy to Upper Class jumps from 10,000 to 20,000 miles, one way

Economy to Upper Class jumps from 20,000 to 35,000 miles, one way

However, as I said at the top of the page, you need to see these in context. It is unlikely that you would have previously had an Economy ticket that could be upgraded so the cost was immaterial.

Virgin is now allowing cheap Economy and Premium Economy tickets to be upgraded and, to my mind, the new costs reflect that.

If you want to know how to book the cheapest ‘X’ class Economy and ‘H’ Premium Economy tickets, I strongly recommend reading this article on Flyertalk. It will tell you everything you need to know.

Does this mean full redemptions will increase in price?

Possibly, possibly not.

Let’s put it this way. Upgrading an Economy ticket to Upper Class now costs 70,000 miles return.

Booking an Upper Class redemption from scratch costs just 80,000 miles return.

That doesn’t make a huge amount of sense, until you remember that Virgin has BA-style fuel surcharges on Upper Class redemptions (£500+ return). When you factor that in, the two scenarios above are not so far apart in terms of costs and value.

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Virgin Points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

You can choose from two official Virgin Atlantic credit cards (apply here, one has a bonus of 15,000 points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

The UK’s most generous free Visa or Mastercard at 0.75 points / £1 Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 points bonus and the most generous non-Amex for day to day spending Read our full review

You can also earn Virgin Points from various American Express cards – and these have sign-up bonuses too.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for a year and comes with 20,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 20,000 Virgin Points: