Points Reckoning
Updated January 7th, 2020
The (somewhat) objective valuation of Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles is so low it appears to be a joke. Unfortunately, it’s not. This month, we’re placing a value of 0.27¢. In other words, 100,000 of them would be worth $270. While I personally believe they are worth more, I can’t simply adjust our valuation method on the fly to accommodate.
Whenever presenting low’ish valuations, I always like to remind readers what this number means. It’s a discounted average, not a hypothetical best-case. Exact calculation steps are documented on our valuation methodology page.
Although this number doesn’t sound good, and it isn’t, it does represent a significant improvement from last year, when we calculated an appalling 0.004¢!
| Current | Previous Period | $ Change | % Change | |
| US Domstic Value | 0.05¢ | 0.00¢ | +0.05¢ | n/a |
| International Value | 0.49¢ | 0.09¢ | +0.40¢ | +444% |
| Overall ACRV | 0.27¢ | 0.00¢ | +0.27¢ | +6649% |
| US Domestic Non-Zero Average | 1.20¢ | 0.00¢ | +1.20¢ | n/a |
| International Non-Zero Average | 2.74¢ | 1.24¢ | +1.50¢ | +121% |
| Non-Zero Average | 1.97¢ | 0.62¢ | +1.35¢ | +218% |
| Award Availability | 15% | 6% | n/a | +10% |
| Average Fees | $223.43 | $235.89 | -$12.46 | -5% |
Also worth mentioning, is that I consider Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club to be something of a hybrid US-domestic/European program. Due to Delta’s 49% stake in the company, intra-US award booking opportunities far exceed intra-European ones. As a result of this, I’ve come up with an ad-hoc basket of city-pairs that cover their combined route map.
As we’ve seen with some other European carriers, the value of a Virgin Atlantic Flying Club mile is absolutely eviscerated by a lack of award availability. This month, we found award availability on 15% of our hypothetical routes/fare classes. To be fair, this is actually an improvement over last year, which stood at just 6%. Quite often, one is presented with the following error when searching available award space.
Now, for Some Good News
Keeping everything above in mind, we did discover a small number truly great award booking opportunities. Our best redemption for the month came from an economy-class award seat. Virgin Atlantic was offering for just $149.50 in fees + 12,500 miles. The lowest priced cash-alternative was $864, providing a redemption value of 5.72¢.
| Redemption Count | ||
| Exceptional | >6¢ | 0 |
| Great | 4-5.99¢ | 4 |
| Good | 3-3.99¢ | 0 |
| Respectable | 2-2.99¢ | 1 |
| Acceptable | 1-1.99¢ | 3 |
| Terrible | <1¢ | 4 |
| No Availability | 0¢ | 66 |
| Award Availability | 15.38% | |
Compared to Geographical Peers
For more information about how we value airline/hotel and other award currencies, please visit our valuation method and changelog pages.
