Mistake or madness? Virgin Flying Club adds £200+ to USA Upper Class flight surcharges

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Either something has gone wrong with the Virgin Atlantic pricing computer, or someone at Virgin Atlantic has been smoking something dodgy this week.

Whichever reason it is, pricing for Virgin Atlantic Upper Class redemptions to the US – and only the US, and only if you fly with Virgin Atlantic – has gone crazy.

The taxes and charges figure for ALL Virgin Atlantic Upper Class redemptions to the US from Heathrow is now showing as £764 return. From Gatwick it is £732.

Take a look, Heathrow to Atlanta (click to enlarge):

As you can see …. £764 of taxes and charges.

This could be a mistake of some sort …. hopefully. Here’s why.

This screenshot shows the same route, Heathrow to Atlanta, but flying with Virgin’s partner and main shareholder Delta:

With Delta, you pay just £464 in taxes and charges. It is exactly £300 cheaper, to the penny, reflecting the additional £300 of charges that Virgin is adding to its own flights for some reason.

This is only happening with Virgin Atlantic routes to the US.

Here is a screenshot to Shanghai:

The taxes and charges are the same as they always were – £557.

Johannesburg is unchanged at £573. Barbados is unchanged at £533. The same goes for all other non-US routes that I checked.

So …. what is happening here? Has a gremlin got into the Virgin Atlantic pricing computer? Does it really want you to stop redeeming for US routes in Upper Class? Does it really want you to start flying Delta on routes where the two airlines share the flights (Atlanta, Boston, New York etc)?

It is all very, very odd.

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(Want to earn more Virgin Points? Click here to see our recent articles on Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club and click here for our home page with the latest news on earning and spending other airline and hotel points.)

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Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Jon Arnold says:

14 Apr14 April 14:55

Way better value to buy an economy ticket and upgrade; LHR-JFK return, standard season, mid-September, Economy delight at £363 + 71,200 miles upgrade compared to a reward flight of £764 ‘taxes’ + 95,000 miles. Just as long as you know you can upgrade when you buy the ticket I suppose. Makes no sense to buy a reward ticket, unless I’m missing something? I do this frequently on Emirates.
- Lev441 says:
  
  14 Apr14 April 16:17
  
  Can all economy classes be upgraded?
  
  I guess you do have 24hrs to cancel if ticket booked on virginatlantic.com…
  
  Are there any additional taxes/fees/surcharges to pay on upgrades?
  - Lev441 says:
    
    14 Apr14 April 16:22
    
    Just found from the website..
    ‘Please note: Taxes, fees and carrier imposed surcharges from $273 apply to all upgrade Reward Flights.’
  - Alan says:
    
    14 Apr14 April 16:27
    
    Only Economy Classic and above (Light cannot be).
    
    Correct re free cancellation in 24h
    
    Unfortunately (having just tried this) there’s no saving to be had here as they charge the difference in YQ (as well as the APD difference), which wipes out the miles saving.
    
    Example – I was looking at MAN-MCO/BOS-MAN return – cost me 95,000 + £638 as straight UC redemption
    
    Then booked same flights in economy for £536.50. Was thinking great, only pay 71,200 miles and saving in cash would pretty much cover APD. HOWEVER – YQ component was only £200 on Economy Classic ticket – they up this to their new standard £500 UC level once you upgrade so comes to £394 extra to pay.
    
    So straight redemption (at 0.75ppm value) = £1,350.50
    Economy Classic + upgrade = £1,464.50
    
    So £114 *more* to upgrade due to YQ (slightly less once you take account of miles from underlying ticket, but that’s at most only about £35.
    
    What would have *really* annoyed lots of folk here was the way the call centre rep kept referring to the ‘tax difference’ and that it had been ‘imposed’ on them. I kept explaining there was a small APD difference, but otherwise it was all the VS-imposed YQ carrier surcharges that was the issue!
    - Lev441 says:
      
      14 Apr14 April 22:13
      
      Shame.
      
      Such a rip off but thanks for trying it out.
    - Lady London says:
      
      16 Apr16 April 17:38
      
      We almost need some mystery shoppers who can deliberately have and record such conversations with the airlines that are imposing these ridiculous YQ (Carrier Greed) charges and yet still trying to bamboozle the average punter into thinking it’s all government tax.
      
      It would be great if someone finally was able to get the regulators to look at this and stop the practice. Whatever the airlines say, they’re lying that they’re not trying to confuse us.
      - Alan says:
        
        16 Apr16 April 21:31
        
        After BA got slapped with a big fine and need to pay compensation in the USA for “fuel surcharges” I thought they’d all start to be a bit more honest about these spurious fees, but clearly not!
- Alan says:
  
  14 Apr14 April 16:29
  
  Yep, carrier-imposed charges – see my full costing below that I’ve just worked out 🙁
  - Jon Arnold says:
    
    15 Apr15 April 16:17
    
    Hmm, I thought I’d found a way round it! With Emirates it’s a whole lot more transparent – as you book you can see what flights have upgrades available and the miles it’ll cost you – and there’s no additional fees/taxes; typically it costs 39,000 miles to upgrade from economy-flex to business for a London-Dubai one way ticket. Have to say Virgin are a bit sneeky here and rather opaque. And basically these ‘fees/taxes’ are quite a rip-off. £760 for a 6 or 7 hour flight!! Maybe better to use up my 200k miles on ANA or a partner airline rather than Virgin? Anyone know the fees/taxes for a reward ticket for a business return to Tokyo on ANA (using Flyermiles – and how is availability?
    - Alan says:
      
      15 Apr15 April 16:56
      
      120k + £400 for return in ANA F from LHR to HND – way way way better value! (am flying that in a few months :D)
      
      I’d heard EK upgrades were a good deal, have a friend in Oz who makes a lot of use of them.
    - Jon Arnold says:
      
      15 Apr15 April 20:09
      
      ANA F to Tokyo for 120k +£400 round trip….12 + 12 hours of awesome luxury and amazing food on a 5 star airline. That is a good deal!
Martin Lewis says:

15 Apr15 April 09:50

I’ve also checked some flight options and previous posters are correct. VA has definitely targeted reward and Airmile flyers with their own surcharges to North America. This feels like a very cunning way of devaluing an airmile whilst also throttling back demand on their most lucrative North Amercian routes. I think VA have discovered that too many people are actually cashing in their miles and not leaving them unused.