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Flash sale: £995 Virgin Atlantic Upper Class return London to Chicago with free stopover

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For some reason, Virgin Atlantic is having a one-day-and-a-bit Flash Sale on seats in Upper Class from London to Chicago.

The fare is just £995 return.

Here is the best bit.  You are, in theory, allowed a free stopover in:

  • New York
  • Atlanta
  • Boston
  • Detroit
  • Minneapolis
  • San Francisco
  • Washington
  • Miami
  • Orlando
  • Las Vegas
  • Los Angeles
  • Seattle
  • Philadelphia

A second stopover can be added for £125.

The stopover rules mean that in theory you can use the £995 fare to get to any of those places, and not bother seeing much of Chicago at all!  For example, you could do London to Los Angeles (stopover) to Chicago (must spend a Saturday night in Chicago) to London.

If you choose not to fly directly to Chicago, you will either be doing the entire trip on Delta using Virgin codeshares or on a mix of Virgin Atlantic and Delta.

If you want to stopover at somewhere other than Chicago, you should use delta.com to book.  Under ‘Fare Class’ select ‘Business (Z or higher)’.  When you are shown flights, you MUST only select those marked ‘Business (Z)’ or ‘First (P)’ which will be the cheap ones.

You must book this flight before midnight on Friday 28th August.  You can travel at any point until the end of June 2016, as long as you can find seats.  Remember that you need ‘Z’ in Business Class.

I can’t find any official online information about this deal but it is definitely NOT an error fare.  If you want to learn more about Virgin Upper Class, take a look at their website here.  The Clubhouse lounge at Heathrow is regarded to be one of the top 3-4 airport lounges in the world.

Have a play around at virgin-atlantic.com and see what you can find ….


How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (April 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Virgin Points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

You can choose from two official Virgin Atlantic credit cards (apply here, the Reward+ card has a bonus of 18,000 Virgin Points and the free card has a bonus of 3,000 Virgin Points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

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You can also earn Virgin Points from various American Express cards – and these have sign-up bonuses too.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for a year and comes with 20,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 20,000 Virgin Points.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

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The Platinum Card from American Express comes with 50,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 50,000 Virgin Points.

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Small business owners should consider the two American Express Business cards. Points convert at 1:1 into Virgin Points.

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Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Virgin Points

Comments (60)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Daniel says:

    Trying to look at the options – tried the same dates as Rob for Chicago but the return flight runs via Detroit?

    More general question – how do you add in a stopover on the Virgin site?

  • Frank says:

    Have spend a bit of time on this but am unable to find a return to MIA/FLL in March next year. Not sure what I am doing wrong on the DL site. even included a overnight sat/sun stopover in ORD on the way back…

    Does the overnight stay have to be a Saturday night in ORD or can it be any night of the week?

  • John Aberdeen says:

    Likewise Rob, you must have some sort of special computer. Though i can get the £995 fares on both the Virgin & Delta sites, they are all through connecting US airports with long travel times. I have tried loads of dates but cannot find anything direct to Chicago. I must be doing something wrong?

    • tony says:

      Ultimately it’s going to be driven by availability of Z class on the nonstop service. If they’ve only loaded up a few seats, then you end up with going via an intermediate point. However I would have thought you try and force that stopover to work for you.

      FWIW I got a stopover in SEA to price at £1024 – the outbound base fare made the difference, but I’m not sure why!

      • John Aberdeen says:

        I am also struggling to with the delta website re stopovers / dates. Need an idiot guide for this one – none of previous posts help. Trying to get LHR-ORD-MCO-NYC-LHR and failing tried multi city and failing coming in at £many thousands

  • Ben says:

    LHR-BOS-ORD-LHR booked.

    Thanks for the heads up!

    • John Aberdeen says:

      That’s great news Ben can u explain was this via Delta site or Virgin etc as I have posted I am clearly the duty biff and failing miserably with this one.

      • Ben says:

        Multi-city on delta website, but you can price through google flights very easily.

        Make sure you stay the saturday in Chicago, but it doesn’t matter where you fly first.

        • John Aberdeen says:

          Nope still not working Ben I have even tried your route various dates. It must be the way I am doing it. In multi city I enter Lhr-bos. Then. Bos-ord. then ord. – lhr. Three flights. Ensuring sat night in ORD. All price at £3k

          • Ben says:

            Looks like it has been pulled

          • James says:

            Agreed I had it working no problem and for multiple routes, but it no longer prices at all.

            Seems like a mistake after all?

  • Pawel says:

    I trying google flights and its impossible to get stopover in sfo/lax/las ….dream route mia/ord/sfo over 2k

    • Daniel says:

      I am also continuing to have the same problem with trying to work a stopover

  • LondonFoodie says:

    Just booking flights to Chicago this week – but can’t stay Saturday 🙁

  • phil g says:

    Hope it helps but i’ve found it easiest to price through google flights first then put those dates into delta. BUT most of the time on delta.com the price shown for the first flight is a lot more than it should be, only changes to correct price when get to 2nd/3rd flight.
    Example LHR-MIA 28/3/16, MIA -ORD 8/4/16 and ORD – LHR 9/4/16 when put into delta.com the first sector price shows as £4751 but when you select the flight using the google flight times(12.35-1705) then next flight selection comes correct to £1036. Carry on from there.
    Note did not need overnight in ORD
    Also when searching in google flights try different outbound dates this seemed to be deciding factor on availability to me

  • tony says:

    Looks like this may indeed have been an error fare. I can’t see any availability now…

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