Delta Airlines recently changed over to the new 2015 SkyMiles program, and with that change over came the new ability to book one-way award flights on Delta and their partners. Since Delta is in a special partnership with Virgin Atlantic, we’ve received some questions as to whether or not Delta SkyMiles members can book one-way award flights on their partner Virgin Atlantic.
Delta One-Way Award On Virgin Atlantic
In short, the answer is yes. The good news is that you can in fact book one-way awards with Delta SkyMiles on their partner airline Virgin Atlantic.
Booking Delta One-Way Award On Virgin Atlantic
The other good news with the 2015 SkyMiles program is that the award chart appears to have been fixed. The ability to search for flights by 5 weeks at a time and show true award availability seems to work.
For this example, we chose the Atlanta to London Heathrow route operated by Virgin Atlantic. The results were decent availability for 2 people traveling together in Business Cabin (Upper Class on Virgin Atlantic) and even better availability for 1 person traveling in Business Cabin (Upper Class on Virgin Atlantic).
You can see below there is plenty of availability for 2 people traveling together in Business Class.
When you search for 1 person in the Business Cabin a few more days open up with availability on Virgin Atlantic.
What is most interesting is that the Virgin Atlantic flight from Atlanta is pricing out much cheaper than the Delta flights themselves. The non-stop operated by Virgin Atlantic from Atlanta to London is only 62,500 miles one-way in Upper Class compared to Delta’s 147,500 miles required for Business Elite on the same route.
I don’t know about you but I’ll take the lower mile flight any day of the week. I mean, I do appreciate Delta’s relatively new flat-bed seating in their 767 Business Elite Cabin.
But the Virgin Atlantic Upper Class isn’t all that bad.
Bottom Line
Delta allows SkyMiles members to book one-way award tickets on their partner airline Virgin Atlantic at half of the round-trip price. Booking with Virgin Atlantic award seats are pricing out cheaper in some markets, so be sure to check routes of Virgin Atlantic for award availability.
How long do you think this award availability on Virgin Atlantic will last?
Related Posts
- Benefits Of Delta’s Stake In Virgin Atlantic
- Delta Launches One-Way Awards for 2015
- New Delta Award Redemption Charts Released
- Delta Refreshes and Redefines Cabins For 2015 With Comfort+ and Delta One
- Delta And Virgin Join Up – What Does It Mean To Delta Flyers
About The Weekly Flyer
The Weekly Flyer writes about travel from a business traveler perspective. He travels the world every week accumulating points and miles along the way.
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Any idea why First won’t price out using Delta for SFO-LHR?
I want to ride a 747, and I was looking at Virgin flights in December and getting results. Now it only shows me coach, and attempts to look at First error out.
@Vicente, well for starters… Delta and Virgin Atlantic don’t have First Class.
I think it will last. I believe DL members have access to the same award availability as VS flyers.
Doesn’t Virgin have a first-class product, @Jimmy? I thought they did. I like the privacy of the Delta business-elite (or whatever it’s called now) better than Virgin. With that said, the 5:30pm Virgin flight at least allows you to eat at a normal time. It’s just a question of whether you can get more than four or five hours sleep. I think if I wanted the full experience, I’d rather use my miles to fly from somewhere in the western U.S. as the 8-hour (often much quicker!) flights from the East Coast to London are extremely short. And those later Delta departures also make it impossible to eat and sleep. You either sacrifice sleep to take in the full experience or you sleep and don’t eat. I’m also curious if there’s a Virgin club in Atlanta. I’m pretty sure you can get a meal at regular Virgin clubs. I suspect in Atlanta, you’re relegated to the Delta salad bar.