Yet redeeming loyalty points for Virgin Atlantic reward flights are less common than collecting and spending British Airways Avios. One of the reasons fewer people focus on saving on Virgin Atlantic points flights is that the airline doesn’t fly to as many destinations as its larger British rival.

As a long haul airline, Virgin Atlantic serves destinations in the US, Caribbean, Africa and Asia but doesn’t operate flights from the UK to Europe. Virgin coordinates schedules with easyJet on connecting routes to an extensive list of European cities. But you won’t earn any extra Virgin Points when you take an EasyJet flight and you can’t buy their tickets as reward flights either.

However, there is another way to earn and spend points with Virgin Atlantic when you fly within Europe and beyond.

Virgin Atlantic, Air France and KLM

In early 2020, Virgin Atlantic, Air France, KLM and Delta formalised a formal joint venture agreement, announcing that they would codeshare (sell each other's flights as their own) on a wider range of routes. It was significant news, with many benefits for customers of all four airlines, but the timing of the deal meant it was soon overshadowed by the looming pandemic. In fact, the new arrangement soon became practically irrelevant, for passengers from the UK, as Covid-19 related travel restrictions came into force.  

Now, as restrictions ease and international travel returns, the partnership is belatedly opening up a raft of new bargain travel opportunities for Virgin Points collectors.

The benefits of the joint venture include:

• Virgin Atlantic customers can now book a wider range of flights at virginatlantic.com using either cash or points.
• Customers booking through the codeshare agreement benefit from smoother connections, and a single booking reference. They can earn points or miles, and redeem them for reward flights, via their preferred airline loyalty scheme, regardless of which of the four partner airlines is operating their flight.
• The combined codeshare network serves 18 different UK airports*, including Aberdeen, Belfast, Belfast City, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Durham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Humberside, Inverness, Leeds-Bradford, London-City, London-Gatwick, London-Heathrow, Manchester, Newcastle and Norwich. This also opens up new routes across the Atlantic with Air France and KLM, such as Edinburgh to Toronto via Amsterdam.
• Air France and KLM customers can now access 24 new routes to North America on flights operated by Virgin Atlantic and Delta departing the UK including connections via London Heathrow or Manchester. These can also be booked as either Flying Blue or Virgin Points redemptions.
• Passengers can choose from more flights to destinations such as Miami from Amsterdam via London Heathrow alongside increased options to fly between Paris and New York via Manchester.
• Virgin Atlantic customers travelling between the UK and the US now have the choice to connect onto all of Delta’s flights via Amsterdam and Paris and earn or spend points too. Meanwhile, Air France and KLM customers have additional options to fly either nonstop or via the UK on all Delta services to the US.

* Some routes may be suspended until timetables are fully restored after the pandemic.

To stay up to date, with the latest reward flight news and availability, 

Join Reward Flight Finder (RFF) for free today! 

Delta owns around 49% of Virgin Atlantic, a stake it has held for around nine years. So the collaboration between the two airlines on transatlantic routes is well established. Air France is a well regarded, long-established airline with an extensive international network. But its main international base, at Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris, is unpopular as a transfer hub among British passengers.

A preferred option for Brits is KLM’s base at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. In fact, the Dutch airport is more convenient to use for flight transfers than London Heathrow for flights from many airports in the UK.

KLM acquired a British regional airline called Air UK back in 1998. The legacy of that deal is that KLM still flies regularly between Schiphol and destinations across the United Kingdom. Transferring flights at Schiphol is relatively easy, despite the size of the airport, with good signage and excellent facilities for transit passengers.

When you book a flight using points you still have to pay the taxes. It’s worth noting that air passenger duty is lower in the Netherlands than it is in France or the UK. So the codeshare arrangements with KLM greatly enhance the appeal of the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club and give its members access to some fantastic savings.

Join RFF frequent flyer community on Facebook

Things To Know

• Virgin Atlantic operates a loyalty programme called Flying Club, which is free to join. Flying Club members can now earn Virgin Points whenever they fly on Air France or KLM by linking their membership number to their reservation. 
• Members can also redeem Virgin Points, on the Virgin Atlantic website, for tickets on flights operated by Air France and KLM as well as those flown by Delta and of course by Virgin themselves. Air tickets bought entirely with points, instead of cash, are called reward flights. Most airlines, including Virgin Atlantic, limit the number of seats on each flight that can be bought in this way, so it's important to check availability.
• The number of Virgin Points required, to book a reward flight ticket on a KLM or Air France operated flight, differs from the amount needed to book a Virgin Atlantic operated flight, to the same destination.

Virgin Atlantic has now created a new points pricing chart for reward flights operated by its European partners.  In fact, there are two tariffs, one for short-haul flights (under 1,750 miles one way) and another for long haul. For long-distance routes, on flights operated by Air France and KLM, Virgin Atlantic has based its pricing on 10 regional zones.

The number of points you need for a ticket depends on the zone assigned to the city you are flying to…the logic applied is similar to the travel zones on London Transport.

Zone 1 (Western and Central Europe) includes:

UK, Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Denmark, Balearic Islands, Finland, Italy, Malta, Norway and Sweden.

Zone 2 (Eastern Europe and North Africa) includes:

Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Canary Islands, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Libya, Lithuania, Latvia, Macedonia, Madeira, Moldavia, Morocco, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, West Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Tunisia, Ukraine, Montenegro, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.

West Russia includes the following Federal Districts – Central Federal District, North-western Federal District, Volga Federal District, Southern Federal District and North Caucasian Federal District.

Zone 3 (Middle East and Russia) includes:

Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Central Russia, Egypt, UAE, Georgia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Syria, Qatar, Uzbekistan and Djibouti.

Central Russia to include the following Federal Districts – Urais Federal District and Siberian Federal District.

Zone 4 (Central Africa) includes:

Benin, Burkina, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Uganda, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Sudan, Republic of South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Chad, Zambia and Sierra Leone.

Zone 5 (Southern Africa, Indian Ocean and Indian Subcontinent) includes:

Angola, South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, Rodrigues, Reunion Island, Seychelles, Mayotte, Comoros, Madagascar, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Zone 6 (East Coast North America & Caribbean) includes:

East Coast USA, East Canada, Antigua, Barbados, Bahamas, Cuba, Bermuda, Dominican Republic, French Guyana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Martinique, Haiti, Porto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago and Saint Maarten.

Includes the following US states – Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Washington D.C., West Virginia, Virginia, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida

Includes the following Canadian provinces – Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island

Zone 7 (West & Central North America and Central America) includes:

Central & West USA, Hawaii, Central & West Canada, Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama and Nicaragua.

Includes the following US states – Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, California, Hawaii and Alaska.

Includes the following Canadian provinces – Nunavut, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Northwest Territories, British Colombia and Yukon.

Zone 8 (South America) includes:

Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Zone 9 (Far Eastern Asia and Eastern Russia) includes:

China, South Korea, Japan, Mongolia, East Russia (& Siberia), Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Laos, Macau, Myanmar, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

Eastern Russia to include the following Federal Districts – Far Eastern Federal District.

Zone 10 (Oceania) includes:

Australia, Fiji, Guam, Marianas Islands, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, New Zealand, Palau Islands, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia and French Polynesia.

Unlike with Avios, you don’t have to redeem points for each flight on your itinerary. E.g. Manchester-Paris-New York will cost the same in points as flying directly between Paris and New York. So short-haul connections are effectively free when it comes to the cost in points.

The catch is that you have to pay the taxes on reward flight tickets in cash. Because British air passenger duties are among the highest in Europe, it will cost you more in taxes if you book a long haul itinerary that starts at a UK airport, with a connection in Amsterdam, than if the journey on your ticket number starts in the Netherlands.

Taxes for a single connecting flight itinerary from the UK could be £180 per person for long-haul reward flight tickets in Business Class. So it might be cheaper to book a separate flight to your connecting airport. This could be on a different airline, such as easyJet, though in most cases KLM will through-check your bags to your final destination, even if your flights are booked on separate KLM tickets.

Conclusion

Like most airlines, Air France and KLM both charge more points for reward flights that depart during peak periods. These peak period dates mirror school holidays. But the start and end dates for school holidays differ across the UK, France and the Netherlands. Virgin Atlantic’s points pricing reflects the peak dates of its French and Dutch partners, for the flights they operate.

So, a bit of research can pay off. This is particularly true if you are deciding which airline to book a reward flight with to Europe. For example, there are some days that will fall into the peak booking period, for both Avios and Virgin operated flights, but which will be priced as off-peak dates for Virgin Atlantic reward flights, operated by Air France or KLM. Of course, the reverse will be true too.

The Virgin Atlantic joint venture with Air France and KLM increases the options for reward flight flyers looking for an alternative to BA when they fly from the UK. It also makes it easier to earn enough Virgin Points to earn a free flight. Now that travel restrictions are easing we thoroughly recommend checking out the possibilities opened up by these codeshare flights.

To stay up to date, with the latest reward flight news and availability, 

join RFF for free today!

Yet redeeming loyalty points for Virgin Atlantic reward flights are less common than collecting and spending British Airways Avios. One of the reasons fewer people focus on saving on Virgin Atlantic points flights is that the airline doesn’t fly to as many destinations as its larger British rival.

As a long haul airline, Virgin Atlantic serves destinations in the US, Caribbean, Africa and Asia but doesn’t operate flights from the UK to Europe. Virgin coordinates schedules with easyJet on connecting routes to an extensive list of European cities. But you won’t earn any extra Virgin Points when you take an EasyJet flight and you can’t buy their tickets as reward flights either.

However, there is another way to earn and spend points with Virgin Atlantic when you fly within Europe and beyond.

Virgin Atlantic, Air France and KLM

In early 2020, Virgin Atlantic, Air France, KLM and Delta formalised a formal joint venture agreement, announcing that they would codeshare (sell each other's flights as their own) on a wider range of routes. It was significant news, with many benefits for customers of all four airlines, but the timing of the deal meant it was soon overshadowed by the looming pandemic. In fact, the new arrangement soon became practically irrelevant, for passengers from the UK, as Covid-19 related travel restrictions came into force.  

Now, as restrictions ease and international travel returns, the partnership is belatedly opening up a raft of new bargain travel opportunities for Virgin Points collectors.

The benefits of the joint venture include:

• Virgin Atlantic customers can now book a wider range of flights at virginatlantic.com using either cash or points.
• Customers booking through the codeshare agreement benefit from smoother connections, and a single booking reference. They can earn points or miles, and redeem them for reward flights, via their preferred airline loyalty scheme, regardless of which of the four partner airlines is operating their flight.
• The combined codeshare network serves 18 different UK airports*, including Aberdeen, Belfast, Belfast City, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Durham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Humberside, Inverness, Leeds-Bradford, London-City, London-Gatwick, London-Heathrow, Manchester, Newcastle and Norwich. This also opens up new routes across the Atlantic with Air France and KLM, such as Edinburgh to Toronto via Amsterdam.
• Air France and KLM customers can now access 24 new routes to North America on flights operated by Virgin Atlantic and Delta departing the UK including connections via London Heathrow or Manchester. These can also be booked as either Flying Blue or Virgin Points redemptions.
• Passengers can choose from more flights to destinations such as Miami from Amsterdam via London Heathrow alongside increased options to fly between Paris and New York via Manchester.
• Virgin Atlantic customers travelling between the UK and the US now have the choice to connect onto all of Delta’s flights via Amsterdam and Paris and earn or spend points too. Meanwhile, Air France and KLM customers have additional options to fly either nonstop or via the UK on all Delta services to the US.

* Some routes may be suspended until timetables are fully restored after the pandemic.

To stay up to date, with the latest reward flight news and availability, 

Join Reward Flight Finder (RFF) for free today! 

Delta owns around 49% of Virgin Atlantic, a stake it has held for around nine years. So the collaboration between the two airlines on transatlantic routes is well established. Air France is a well regarded, long-established airline with an extensive international network. But its main international base, at Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris, is unpopular as a transfer hub among British passengers.

A preferred option for Brits is KLM’s base at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. In fact, the Dutch airport is more convenient to use for flight transfers than London Heathrow for flights from many airports in the UK.

KLM acquired a British regional airline called Air UK back in 1998. The legacy of that deal is that KLM still flies regularly between Schiphol and destinations across the United Kingdom. Transferring flights at Schiphol is relatively easy, despite the size of the airport, with good signage and excellent facilities for transit passengers.

When you book a flight using points you still have to pay the taxes. It’s worth noting that air passenger duty is lower in the Netherlands than it is in France or the UK. So the codeshare arrangements with KLM greatly enhance the appeal of the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club and give its members access to some fantastic savings.

Join RFF frequent flyer community on Facebook

Things To Know

• Virgin Atlantic operates a loyalty programme called Flying Club, which is free to join. Flying Club members can now earn Virgin Points whenever they fly on Air France or KLM by linking their membership number to their reservation. 
• Members can also redeem Virgin Points, on the Virgin Atlantic website, for tickets on flights operated by Air France and KLM as well as those flown by Delta and of course by Virgin themselves. Air tickets bought entirely with points, instead of cash, are called reward flights. Most airlines, including Virgin Atlantic, limit the number of seats on each flight that can be bought in this way, so it's important to check availability.
• The number of Virgin Points required, to book a reward flight ticket on a KLM or Air France operated flight, differs from the amount needed to book a Virgin Atlantic operated flight, to the same destination.

Virgin Atlantic has now created a new points pricing chart for reward flights operated by its European partners.  In fact, there are two tariffs, one for short-haul flights (under 1,750 miles one way) and another for long haul. For long-distance routes, on flights operated by Air France and KLM, Virgin Atlantic has based its pricing on 10 regional zones.

The number of points you need for a ticket depends on the zone assigned to the city you are flying to…the logic applied is similar to the travel zones on London Transport.

Zone 1 (Western and Central Europe) includes:

UK, Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Denmark, Balearic Islands, Finland, Italy, Malta, Norway and Sweden.

Zone 2 (Eastern Europe and North Africa) includes:

Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Canary Islands, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Libya, Lithuania, Latvia, Macedonia, Madeira, Moldavia, Morocco, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, West Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Tunisia, Ukraine, Montenegro, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.

West Russia includes the following Federal Districts – Central Federal District, North-western Federal District, Volga Federal District, Southern Federal District and North Caucasian Federal District.

Zone 3 (Middle East and Russia) includes:

Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Central Russia, Egypt, UAE, Georgia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Syria, Qatar, Uzbekistan and Djibouti.

Central Russia to include the following Federal Districts – Urais Federal District and Siberian Federal District.

Zone 4 (Central Africa) includes:

Benin, Burkina, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Uganda, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Sudan, Republic of South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Chad, Zambia and Sierra Leone.

Zone 5 (Southern Africa, Indian Ocean and Indian Subcontinent) includes:

Angola, South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, Rodrigues, Reunion Island, Seychelles, Mayotte, Comoros, Madagascar, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Zone 6 (East Coast North America & Caribbean) includes:

East Coast USA, East Canada, Antigua, Barbados, Bahamas, Cuba, Bermuda, Dominican Republic, French Guyana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Martinique, Haiti, Porto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago and Saint Maarten.

Includes the following US states – Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Washington D.C., West Virginia, Virginia, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida

Includes the following Canadian provinces – Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island

Zone 7 (West & Central North America and Central America) includes:

Central & West USA, Hawaii, Central & West Canada, Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama and Nicaragua.

Includes the following US states – Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, California, Hawaii and Alaska.

Includes the following Canadian provinces – Nunavut, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Northwest Territories, British Colombia and Yukon.

Zone 8 (South America) includes:

Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Zone 9 (Far Eastern Asia and Eastern Russia) includes:

China, South Korea, Japan, Mongolia, East Russia (& Siberia), Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Laos, Macau, Myanmar, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

Eastern Russia to include the following Federal Districts – Far Eastern Federal District.

Zone 10 (Oceania) includes:

Australia, Fiji, Guam, Marianas Islands, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, New Zealand, Palau Islands, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia and French Polynesia.

Unlike with Avios, you don’t have to redeem points for each flight on your itinerary. E.g. Manchester-Paris-New York will cost the same in points as flying directly between Paris and New York. So short-haul connections are effectively free when it comes to the cost in points.

The catch is that you have to pay the taxes on reward flight tickets in cash. Because British air passenger duties are among the highest in Europe, it will cost you more in taxes if you book a long haul itinerary that starts at a UK airport, with a connection in Amsterdam, than if the journey on your ticket number starts in the Netherlands.

Taxes for a single connecting flight itinerary from the UK could be £180 per person for long-haul reward flight tickets in Business Class. So it might be cheaper to book a separate flight to your connecting airport. This could be on a different airline, such as easyJet, though in most cases KLM will through-check your bags to your final destination, even if your flights are booked on separate KLM tickets.

Conclusion

Like most airlines, Air France and KLM both charge more points for reward flights that depart during peak periods. These peak period dates mirror school holidays. But the start and end dates for school holidays differ across the UK, France and the Netherlands. Virgin Atlantic’s points pricing reflects the peak dates of its French and Dutch partners, for the flights they operate.

So, a bit of research can pay off. This is particularly true if you are deciding which airline to book a reward flight with to Europe. For example, there are some days that will fall into the peak booking period, for both Avios and Virgin operated flights, but which will be priced as off-peak dates for Virgin Atlantic reward flights, operated by Air France or KLM. Of course, the reverse will be true too.

The Virgin Atlantic joint venture with Air France and KLM increases the options for reward flight flyers looking for an alternative to BA when they fly from the UK. It also makes it easier to earn enough Virgin Points to earn a free flight. Now that travel restrictions are easing we thoroughly recommend checking out the possibilities opened up by these codeshare flights.

To stay up to date, with the latest reward flight news and availability, 

join RFF for free today!