Virgin Atlantic launches flights to The Bahamas

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Virgin Atlantic has announced a new route to The Bahamas. This will apparently give you the chance to see swimming pigs ….

The airline has also announced a large increase in services to Barbados.

Virgin Atlantic launches flights to the Bahamas

Virgin Atlantic to launch Bahamas flights

The service to The Bahamas will operate twice per week from London Heathrow from 20th November. (EDIT: not 20th October as originally published.)

Tickets are not on sale yet but will be available from 11th August.

Flights will use a Boeing 787-9 so you will not get the new Upper Class Suite. These aircraft have 31 Upper Class, 35 Premium and 192 Economy seats.

As Virgin Atlantic says:

“With 16 major islands surrounded by the world’s clearest waters, The Bahamas is an unrivalled destination boasting beautiful white sand beaches, sailing adventures, fishing and diving as well Exuma’s world-famous swimming pigs!”

What will it cost in Virgin Points?

The Virgin Points flight redemption chart is here.

All of the Caribbean routes have the same pricing. You will pay, plus taxes and charges:

Economy: 40,000 points peak / 20,000 points off-peak

Premium: 55,000 points peak / 35,000 points off-peak

Upper Class: 135,000 points peak / 115,000 points off-peak

The peak dates for 2021/2 are:

14 July – 5 September 2021
15 – 26 October 2021
11 – 31 December 2021
1 January – 6 March 2022
7 – 26 April 2022
30 May – 5 June 2022
16 June – 4 September 2022

Remember that the Virgin Atlantic credit cards come with a 2-4-1 voucher if you hit an annual spend target. Unlike the British Airways American Express cards, the Virgin credit card voucher can be used for a 2-4-1 or upgrade on cash or points tickets – see here.

Additional Barbados services now bookable

Virgin Atlantic has also announced a 60% increase in its flights to Barbados.

Manchester to Barbados will increase to five flights per week, whilst London Heathrow to Barbados will increase to 11 flights per week.

The frequency increase will take effect from the launch of the new Winter timetable on 31st October.

Where else does Virgin Atlantic fly in the Caribbean?

Flights are currently operating to Barbados, Antigua, Jamaica and Grenada.

Tobago and Havana are due to restart in the next few months.

St Vincent and the Grenadines is still scheduled to launch in October 2021. This will be the first flight from any European airport to St Vincent.

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:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with 30,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 30,000 Virgin Points:

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Virgin Points.

(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.)

Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

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

Oh! Matron! says:

5 Aug5 August 08:48

As an aside, Delta, AF / KLM / Virgin in Delta One (or equiv) have some VERY attractive fares from MAD to the US next year. Around the ¢1100 price (couldn’t find the euro symbol)

https://loyaltylobby.com/2021/08/03/airfare-of-the-day-delta-one-delta-madrid-to-washington-dc-from-1088e/
- Bagoly says:
  
  5 Aug5 August 10:00
  
  Often CTRL-ALT-4 or CTRL-ALT-5
  
  Although EUR is universal 🙂
  - RussellH says:
    
    5 Aug5 August 11:25
    
    I thought keyboards had always had € symbol on them for at least the last 20 years.
    Its the Alt Gr key (right of the space bar) + 4 (or whatever other key is marked with €, though it has always been 4 on any keyboard I have had).
    Unless you use Risc OS, in which case it is Alt-E.
    - Bagoly says:
      
      5 Aug5 August 12:40
      
      Your experience may only cover keyboards in Europe …
    - Mark says:
      
      5 Aug5 August 19:53
      
      One might say RISC OS is a bit of an edge case these days, though nice to hear that not everyone has forgotten it!
  - Alex Sm says:
    
    5 Aug5 August 22:26
    
    Normally it’s (e) – will auto convert as you type
- Doug M says:
  
  5 Aug5 August 10:07
  
  Oneworld have prices from around £1000 from CDG and AMS to good number of US destination, easily earn Silver from it too.
  I do wonder whether booking these is just a loan to airlines.
FatherOfFour says:

5 Aug5 August 11:00

Slightly related… Sandals just announced a new resort in Curacao. Not served by Virgin or BA at present- you’d have to use KLM from AMS, or fly BA/AA via MIA. I wonder if this would stimulate enough demand for a new route for either / both of BA/VS?
Paul says:

5 Aug5 August 11:29

It’s The Bahamas, not the Bahamas.
- Alex Sm says:
  
  5 Aug5 August 22:27
  
  You are absolutely right, are You not? 😉
David Jones says:

5 Aug5 August 11:51

Has anyone seen information about which days of the week the VS flights to NAS will be?
- Rob says:
  
  5 Aug5 August 11:55
  
  It wasn’t in the press release we were sent annoyingly.
LS says:

5 Aug5 August 14:17

Can anyone please tell me why there is a pig in the sea??
- Scott says:
  
  5 Aug5 August 15:17
  
  There’s an island (Pig Island?) about 89 miles from Nassau where wild pigs live. They swim around and tourists like to visit.
  - Dubious says:
    
    5 Aug5 August 16:05
    
    It’s all hogwash if you ask me!
    - Will says:
      
      5 Aug5 August 16:47
      
      Bay of Pigs is in Cuba???
Will says:

5 Aug5 August 16:52

How the heck are you supposed to book using Virgin credit card upgrade vouchers when you can’t get through on telephone, WhatsApp, SMS, etc etc in 2-3 hours of trying each…. Covid is no longer an excuse if BA can do it. Any information on whether expiry is on hold for vouchers, and until when??
- Chrisasaurus says:
  
  5 Aug5 August 17:51
  
  We are in the same boat…
- Mark says:
  
  5 Aug5 August 20:00
  
  I guess it must vary… ‘only’ took me 56 minutes to get through on Monday morning and amend an existing redemption booking (with 2x upgrade vouchers for upper class) to snap up limited Antigua availability for November (that I’d previously been forced to book for Miami when our previous Antigua flights were cancelled in April). I had the filled in the online form the night before, but its just as well I called them as the fact we want to amend two separate bookings isn’t catered for on the form and just confused them.
  
  Once I got through on the phone though it was all quite efficient.
- Degsy says:
  
  5 Aug5 August 22:24
  
  I think generally late evenings are better times to contact them – historically that always seems to have been the case, at least
1ATL says:

6 Aug6 August 04:20

According to a contact who works for Virgin, the aircraft rotation will operate LHR-NAS-MBJ-NAS-LHR. So from a crew perspective Heathrow to Nassau then a shuttle operated by a different crew Nassau – Montego Bay – Nassau and finally another crew will take over at Nassau for the flight back to Heathrow.