Well, this is a pleasant surprise – the best single premium redemption value out there has just become even more profitable.
Redeeming Virgin Atlantic miles at ANA is a great value
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is a fantastic niche frequent flyer program as there are some incredible redemption amounts. The best individual use of Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles is for travel on All Nippon Airways.
Here is the round-trip payout table on All Nippon Airways:
As you can see, a business class return ticket from the USA to Japan costs 90,000-95,000 miles, while a first class return ticket from the USA to Japan costs 110,000-120,000 miles.
The problem is that, historically, you can only redeem miles for roundtrip itineraries. This was inconvenient for a few reasons:
- Sometimes there was a prize available only in one direction and not in the other.
- Sometimes, you may want to fly one-way between the U.S. and Japan and then connect elsewhere before returning home
- If you wanted to fly business class in one direction and first class in the other, you would have to pay the highest cost for the entire itinerary
All Nippon Airways business classes
Unilateral awards are now possible at ANA
There is great news about this – You can now redeem Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles for one-way travel on All Nippon Airways for half the cost of a round trip.
The ANA partner page used to say:
One-way award travel at ANA is not available.
Now it says:
One-way travel is allowed with half the round-trip mileage shown below.
This is amazing!
In other words, you can now redeem:
- 45,000-47,500 Flying Club miles for an ANA business class ticket between the US and Japan
- 55,000-60,000 Flying Club miles for a first-class one-way ANA ticket between the U.S. and Japan
The new business class “The Room” and the first class “The Suite” by Nippon Airways are absolutely incredible, so this is a great opportunity.
All Nippon Airways first class
Should we suspect this?
Superficially, it is surprising to see the best prize redemption in the world become even more valuable. Therefore, we must assume that we are just waiting for the other shoe to fall, what would be an increase in award costs?
I have some thoughts on this:
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club recently changed the price of the Delta premium without notice and it was an overwhelming devaluation
- At the same time, Delta has a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic, and I have a distinct feeling that Delta has forced this change
- In the case of ANA, it may be that the premium reimbursement costs are simply not too high, and the program does not really have an incentive to “force” people to fly back and forth
So, could we possibly see a devaluation of this rescue opportunity eventually? Certainly, since it has been around for years. But must I necessarily interpret this change as meaning that such a change is imminent? No.
Needless to say, this change from now on is incredible news. Therefore, we will have to hope that this is not accompanied by a doubling of premium costs at some point. 😉
Hopefully, we don’t see an increase in ANA premium costs anytime soon
Result
What a pleasant surprise to see the best individual use of miles in the world get even better, as it is now possible to redeem Virgin Atlantic miles for one-way trips at ANA, at half the cost of a round trip.
What makes Virgin Atlantic Flying Club so amazing is the ease with which the points currency is earned, thanks to the fact that the program is a partner of Amex Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards and Citi ThankYou.
Now, if only we had a sense of when Japan will open its borders to visitors …
(Hat tip to David)