We made a pre-announcement about the changes in Virgin’s Flying Club last month, which remained somewhat vague – in line with how Virgin had communicated itself about the changes.

Now everything is life and the two main facts to retain are that 25% of all Virgin Atlantic flights don’t offer any Saver Awards anymore (and much more if you look solely at Business Class), but only apply a fully dynamic award pricing, often with corresponding astronomic prices in Business Class (capped at 350,000 miles one-way). On the flights with Saver Awards, prices are capped at previous levels and are hence rather reasonable.

Secondly, the class of service bonuses in Premium Economy and Business Class were increased, not only on Virgin Atlantic, but also on its core partners Delta, Air France and KLM. As such, one can earn up to 500% of miles flown in Business Class – and even up to 800% as Gold member.

So while you clearly lose out with the changes if you want to travel over Easter with a family of four to Orlando, you are actually better off if you travel in Business Class and are flexible to use your miles during off-peak periods since also Saver Awards are dynamically priced and can be much cheaper than the published maximum levels, starting at 28,500 miles one-way to/from the East Coast in Business Class. That is about the number of miles you earn on one paid flight as Gold member.

Alaska Airlines is overhauling its Mileage Plan.

If you are a frequent flyer on Alaska Airlines, you’d probably rather appreciate the changes as they make the program more valuable for you, such as an eased tier qualification.

However, if you used the program mainly because of the generous credits in premium cabins on its partner airlines, the party is over: These bonuses were harmonised – at a high level – cross all partners – but only continue to apply if you book these flights through Alaska Airlines. Technically, you can do this only for flights to/from North America. For any other booking channels, they were reduced dramatically and even Economy Class full fare tickets now only earn 50% of miles flown.

A harmonised award table across all partner airlines will be introduced as well. It has not yet been published, but it is for sure that the sweet spots of some of the individual tables will disappear.

Virgin Australia has left some time ago the role as sympathetic underdog and is now a true second force in the Australian market.

This reflects now also in the changes to its Velocity program: The tier qualification moves to a revenue basis on April 02, whereby 50% of the required points need to be collected with Virgin Australia. Its extensive partner network, including its new shareholder Qatar Airways, becomes somehow less relevant like that.

The earn rate of redeemable points on Virgin Australia flights will be reduced from 5 to 4 points per AUD spent on the same date – unless you hold a co-branded credit card of the program. In that case, the old earn rate applies, plus obviously the points you earn through the card itself.

Already on January 21, also award levels on partner airlines will be adjusted, although the price increases will mostly remain *- with exceptions – reasonable.

Air France KLM’s Flying Blue program has become the latest one to jump on the waggon to offer monthly mileage subscription plans, allowing you to purchase miles at a preferred rate.

Purchasing miles at the most common rate of 2 to 2.5 US/EUR cents per mile is, in general, not a good idea and really makes only sense if you are short of a few miles to claim that long-haul award flight in Business or First Class. Regular promotions to purchase miles may take that price down to around 1.5 cents, but don’t really change the reasoning.

If you are willing to commit to a monthly purchase plan, the price can be reduced further, in the case of Flying Blue to as low as 1.1 EUR cents per mile. This is still not a deal you should sign up with eyes closed, but if you do the maths (and also include the fees and taxes to be paid on award tickets), there can actually be some cases where such offer starts to make sense.

It is time for an update about what is going on at ITA’s Volare program.

The program has now partnerships in place with 12 of its SkyTeam partners, still excluding though most partners in Asia, except for Korean Air. However, all these partnerships are accrual partnerships only, applying “normal” accrual rates.

On ITA itself, a high revenue-based accrual rate of 10 points per EUR for base members is applied and redemption levels are adjusted to that high accrual rate, starting for instance, under the dynamic pricing model, at 145,000 points one-way on a long-haul Business Class.

As long as this is the only flight redemption option in the program, it makes hence certainly no sense to credit any partner airlines flights at their prevailing accrual rates to the program.

Unless you speculate that they might be transferred to Miles & More after the planned merger with Lufthansa, resulting most likely in Volare being absorbed by Miles & More.