Golden goose keeps on giving for long- and short-notice travel from big U.S. cities (and small ones, too).
It’s true, I often dog on Delta for not doing more for value-conscious premium air travelers—including its horrific SkyMiles program.
So when a hot Delta deal does come along, you can bet we’re going to squeeze every precious egg we can from this golden goose. This is number six in a series that details one of the best Delta deals you’ll ever hear about.
Drilling Deeper on Delta’s Virgin Atlantic SECRET
The trick is to use Virgin Atlantic Miles rather than Delta SkyMiles to buy seats on Delta flights, strange as it may seem.This is because Delta releases a very limited number of low-cost mileage award seats to its own SkyMiles members—a different number than it releases to its partner Virgin Atlantic. But using Virgin Atlantic miles for the same Delta flights can open up low-cost award space that Delta doesn’t offer.
Weird, I know. But the discounts can be ginormous, like this deal we covered recently.
My Bad. But Still Your Good.
With egg on my face I have to admit we made a mistake in our earlier (June) report about booking Delta flights with Virgin Atlantic miles. We originally thought (and told you) that a slight downside to using Virgin Atlantic miles to book on Delta was that you could only use them for Delta’s non-stop routes when purchased online, and that connecting flights to the non-stop route would require you to purchase an entire second mileage ticket if you booked on VirginAtlantic.com.
However, we know better now, so here’s the update: You do not have to book a completely separate ticket to add a connection to your non-stop route using Virgin miles on Delta. You can in fact just add your connecting flights to your non-stop ticket from most U.S. cities (depending on availability). You’ll have to spend more miles to add these connecting flights: a one-way domestic (non-transcontinental) connection will cost 22,500 more Virgin miles, and a one-way domestic transcontinental connection will cost you 45,000 more Virgin miles. However, anyone can easily grab these points with Amex and/or Chase point transfers.
The takeaway here is: no second ticket required!
If you need to add extra flights onto your non-stop Delta flight but don’t have the miles or points with Virgin or with Amex or Chase, just buy the points with Amex.
So even though the connections aren’t free, the deals are still 77%+ better using Virgin miles than using Delta SkyMiles. For more about free connecting flights, read our special report here, which shows how our handy connection widget works.
This Play in Action
Let’s apply this to an actual itinerary. Suppose you want to fly to Paris—but you live in Austin. The Atlanta-Paris flight costs as low as 50,000 Virgin miles one-way—while Delta often charges 320,000 miles each way. The Austin-to-Atlanta flight will cost 22,500 miles one-way for a total of 72,500 miles (Austin-Atlanta-Paris) one-way.
Changeups: Already booked your ticket? Just pay Virgin Atlantic the $50 change fee plus the difference in miles. Virgin spells it out here:
Sample of Connecting Non-stop Flights via Delta’s Hubs
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How to Add/Book Connecting Flights on Delta for New Bookings on VirginAtlantic.com
First, there’s no need to create a Virgin Atlantic mileage account just to check for space. However, if you are booking award space, then you’ll have to log in. Just go to “Book” and click “Advanced search.”
When booking a connecting flight we usually recommend that you first check each segment separately, starting with the most important over-the-water flight. For everything you need to know to search for non-stop Delta flights using Virgin Atlantic miles go here.
For example, say you are traveling Minneapolis to Dublin via New York in October. First check the intercontinental non-stop (New York to Dublin) and then Minneapolis to New York.
So, don’t let this goose get away until she’s delivered one of her Delta/Virgin Atlantic golden eggs to you.
Here are three FCF Sweet Redeem alerts with five great routes to book right now for 2019 and 2020 travel.
Business Class to Shanghai On Miles/Points Now 86% Off, 4+ Seats