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Decent Virgin Atlantic Premium reward flight availability to Toronto in April / May

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HfP readers, and indeed HfP writers, have been generally scathing about the introduction of dynamic reward pricing at Virgin Atlantic.

It has, to all intents and purposes, killed off your chances of getting a return Upper Class reward flight unless you want to go to India. Even routes with decent Upper Class availability on day flights have very little on overnight legs.

The new Toronto route, however, has decent availability in Premium which may be worth a look.

Virgin Atlantic Toronto flights on points

Virgin Atlantic starts flights to Toronto at the end of March. At present, there is good Premium pricing for April and May.

There are also a lot of well priced Upper Class seats on the day flight out during April and May, with some as low as 29,000 Virgin Points. You are stuffed if you want a sensibly priced Upper Class seat on the overnight return flight though. You are also stuffed if you want an Upper Class outbound flight any later in the year.

Here is April outbound:

Virgin Points

…. and April inbound:

Virgin Points

May outbound:

Virgin Points

…. and May inbound:

Virgin Points

So, a quick summary:

  • Upper Class (day) out, Premium (overnight) back = good deals
  • Premium (day) out, Premium (overnight) back = good deals
  • Premium (day) out, Upper (overnight) back = bad deals
  • Upper (day) out, Upper (overnight) back = bad deals

Don’t forget that Virgin Atlantic now reduces its carrier surcharges when the number of points reduces.

A Premium redemption at 10,500 Virgin Points each way – which isn’t hard to find during April and May – will cost:

…. £442 in taxes and charges. If you can cope with the overnight return flight it’s not a bad deal compared to a cash price of £872 in this example.

In terms of timing, VS147 departs Heathrow at 17:10 and arrives in Toronto Pearson Airport at 20:30 the same day. VS148 departs Toronto at 22:20 and lands into Heathrow at 10:30 the following morning.

PS. Virgin Atlantic has a page on its website called ‘Reward Seat Deals’. This automatically shows the best deals that flyers have found over the last 24 hours.

This is what it displayed at 9pm last night for Upper Class ‘Reward Seat Deals’:

Virgin Atlantic Upper Class deals

If those are the best deals booked in the last 24 hours, Virgin Flying Club is in more trouble than we think.

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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

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

3,000 bonus points, no fee and 1 point for every £1 you spend Read our full review

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

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

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

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

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

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

Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (49)

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

  • Lumma says:
    19 Feb19 February 05:39

    I’d happily fly back in Premium with those flight times to be fair. It’s not like you’re going to head straight to the office after you land and you’re not exactly getting a full night’s sleep on a seven hour booked time

    • AL says:
      19 Feb19 February 05:58

      Au contraire – I do the JFK 2230 service, landing at 1030, and straight to the office. I take your point about not a full night’s sleep. I tend to get 95% of the flight asleep in Premium, and I’m usually fine the next day bar a daft 5am natural wake up.

  • Paul says:
    19 Feb19 February 06:32

    I have to say I totally disagree with the starting premise of this article. We got 3x one way LAX > LHR mid August in Upper for 140k and $700 in TOTAL.

    They have a lot of LAX capacity, to you see good deals during sales periods (rewards are connected to cash prices) and you even see it now around Christmas.

    US East Coast reward availability in Premium / Upper is actually fairly good as well.

    That being said they will probably make it worse over time, but for now I am focusing more on collecting Virgin points that Avios.

    • BahrainLad says:
      19 Feb19 February 06:55

      Agreed. With my annual travel pattern the scheme is working better for me in 2025 than 2024/2023 (although I upgrade Premium to UC rather than fully redeem).

    • Rob says:
      19 Feb19 February 08:17

      And you are getting back how?

      The old LAX rate wasn’t much higher than that, and the same during the regular sales – and with guaranteed availability.

      • Paul says:
        19 Feb19 February 10:06

        Using BA premium LHR > LAX in June – don’t mind as it was a day flight. Getting premium availability for a family of 3 is a win (there was Virgin availability on the route in August, but not when I needed it earlier than that and frankly I didn’t have many virgin points). There also generally would not have been much West Coast availability on miles in August when booking in January before.

        I have Aegean points for a potential back up upgrade option as United seems to release premium availability a week out to Aegean at 55k points and minimal taxes.

        Also, the other bit that I think was missed is how much lower the cash fees are. $700 in total for 3 people in Upper one way, whereas if I’m not mistaken it used to the same cost per person?

      • Paul says:
        19 Feb19 February 10:42

        Just booked LHR > LAX for 123k points and £1,500 in total for 3 people in June. Massive saver availability on Virgin.

        Thanks for spurring me to double check!

    • Jimmy6 says:
      19 Feb19 February 08:19

      Dunno what website you are looking at but the reward seat checker has virtually zero availability to LAX in Sept/Oct

  • Hertscanuck says:
    19 Feb19 February 06:52

    A few weeks ago I booked 2x LHR-YYZ-LHR in virgin upper class for 128k points each, and then that reduced due to voucher. These were over Christmas. I was surprised.. I thought it was a fairly decent deal. But the £taxes were higher than expected.

    • Iev441 says:
      19 Feb19 February 08:28

      There was for a period of time fixed pricing of 20k – economy, 33k premium and 64k upper on the Toronto route for most dates. Feel like they forgot to turn the dynamic pricing option on!

      • HertsCanuck says:
        19 Feb19 February 10:43

        I was thinking the same when I saw the points required before I booked them. Seemed too good to be true for the Christmas period. The flight times are better in December then April/May as well. 12:40-15:35 outbound, and 19:50-07:50 coming back.

  • Simon says:
    19 Feb19 February 07:10

    The new VS scheme is an utter abomination. West coast pricing in Upper (which is all I am interested in) is mad –
    Even on very quiet days in March (days when BA are offering 4+ seats on every flight to LAX), VS want 350k points each way. Just nuts.
    I have my last VS flight in 2 weeks, after 30+ years of travel. Am cancelling my VS Mastercard and going all-in on Avios for now.
    Sad times.

    • chris w says:
      19 Feb19 February 07:39

      I still wonder if Virgin will adjust this dynamic pricing over time. If people aren’t paying these prices in, say, March, will they stick with them?

  • tomtom135 says:
    19 Feb19 February 07:50

    Flown back from the US overnight with VS in PE a few times over the last year and found the experience horrific every time, even in the new aircraft. Would much, much rather go out in PE for a daytime flight and back in UC overnight. Managed to use my voucher to get a decent UC redemption in the summer but it was only doable as my status made the voucher 150k points instead of 75k points (this rule annoys me so much, why punish people who don’t have status, mayeb this is literally the only thing BA get right with their 241) – otherwise the new scheme is just horrendous and it’s almost impossible to get a decent redemption in UC now.

  • G says:
    19 Feb19 February 08:01

    Not really in trouble for VS; given it is likely only used by Delta customers who get points for inhaling oxygen.

    Definitely in trouble for us UK and Europoors though who generally lack the level of points earning the Yanks

    • ed_fly says:
      19 Feb19 February 08:35

      The article refers to trouble for ‘virgin flying club’ – if the only people who see value are those who transfer points in from other schemes or buy points when they calculate saver deals/ combined with points sales is a good deal, then the loyalty element is broken.

      • Rob says:
        19 Feb19 February 10:10

        The loyalty element may be broken but the commercial logic is great. If I transfer 21,000 Amex points to Virgin to book this PE Toronto deal then, assuming 0.8p per point from Amex, VS is getting £600 for the seat inc the taxes and charges. If this seat would otherwise be unsold it is a wortwhile deal.

  • Iev441 says:
    19 Feb19 February 08:19

    Booked earlier this week – I was kicking myself for not booking at 33,000 miles a month ago when they went up to 40,000.

    They then dropped to prices to that mentioned in the article and jumped on it!

    Shame about the price of upper on the return leg.. although as travelling with 2 year old, it was probably a better option than being in the coffin seats

  • John says:
    19 Feb19 February 08:25

    GBP 400 co-payment for a one-way to Toronto in premium eco? No, sir!

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

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