15 July 2024

Without any advance notice, Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club has not only adjusted award levels for Delta flights – not in a very dramatic manner -, but also added the same horrendous surcharges on award flights with Delta as on its own flights.

For a roundtrip Transatlantic flight in Business Class, one now pays easily some 1,000 USD. It is clear that this and other recent devaluations in the program are the result of the influence of Virgin’s main stakeholder Delta.

On the other side of the pond, Delta is known for being the best airline with the worst loyalty program. Replicating that same loyalty strategy to its partner Virgin, which remains a distant underdog in its homemarket to the dominant carrier starting with “B”, might though not be the smartest thing to do…