Save Big on Short Delta Flights: Book With Virgin Atlantic Instead!

Sick of seeing sky-high SkyMiles rates to fly Delta? There could be a better way: Using points from partner airline Virgin Atlantic to book that exact same Delta flight instead. 

We’ve written quite a bit about our affinity for booking Delta flights through Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. Sadly, many of those best workarounds to fly Delta for less have taken big hits after Virgin raised award rates: Roundtrip flights to Hawaii for 30,000 points are no more, 12,500-point one-ways to Mexico City (MEX) are gone, and even the holy grail – Delta One Suites to Europe for just 50,000 points – is a thing of the past.

Do you know what else didn’t change with these big increases? Booking short Delta flights – 1,000 miles in distance or less – through Virgin Atlantic instead of using Delta SkyMiles can still save you a ton of points! 

A flight from Fargo (FAR) to Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) or Detroit (DTW) to Chicago-O’Hare (ORD) might not be at the top of everyone’s travel bucket list. But these short flights serve a purpose – and are often quite expensive when paying cash.

Better yet, Virgin points are even easier to earn than Delta miles. While you cannot transfer Delta SkyMiles to Virgin, you can transfer points to Virgin from all the major banks, whether you have a *chase sapphire preferred*, *amex gold*, *venture x*, or others. And with a record-setting 40% transfer bonus from Amex to Virgin Atlantic, you’ll need fewer points than ever.

Let’s take a closer look at this sweet spot and see just how much you can save.

Using Virgin Atlantic for Delta Flights: An Overview

Let’s start with a little background on the two airlines.

Virgin Atlantic is the chic airline that flies across the Atlantic Ocean, is now part of the SkyTeam alliance, and an incredibly close partner with Delta Air Lines. Its frequent flyer program, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, is arguably among the best in the world … and got even better recently.

Using Virgin Atlantic Flying Club to book Delta flights has long been a sweet spot. And even after some award rate hikes over the last few years, it remains one of the best ways to fly with Delta for fewer points and miles.

There’s a simple reason why: Delta and Virgin price their award flights in drastically different ways. 

Ever since Delta made the move to dynamic award pricing several years ago, there’s no telling how many SkyMiles they’ll want for a given route. It can vary wildly based upon the cash price of that same flight. 

That’s not the vase with Virgin – even when you’re using Flying Club points to book with Virgin.

Virgin has a few different award charts – cheat sheets that airlines use to determine how much to charge for an award ticket – for pricing Delta flights. There’s an award chart specifically for flights to and from the U.K. and one that determines how much you’ll pay to get anywhere else in Europe. Then there’s this distance-based award chart for everything else, which is especially beneficial for scoring a deal on domestic Delta flights and shorter international routes.

If the distance you’re traveling is under 1,001 miles, it’ll only cost you 11,000 Virgin points (or less) for a one-way award ticket. While this won’t always beat the price that Delta is charging for those same awards, it’s safe to say that nine times out of ten, it will be the better deal.

Thrifty Tip: Not sure how long your flight is? Plug it into GCmap.com.

Short Domestic Flights

If Delta has a short nonstop flight, Virgin has you covered.

Thanks to Virgin’s distance-based award chart, flights under 500 miles in distance are only 7,500 points one-way. Going a little further? it’s only 11,000 points one-way for flights between 501 – 1,000 miles. This will oftentimes be a much better deal than using SkyMiles if you’re just looking for a quick flight to or from a major Delta hub – especially considering you’ll always be booking a main cabin ticket on Delta when using Virgin points. That means you’ll be able to make changes and choose a seat for free.

Those rates get even better if you have Amex points from a card like *amex platinum* or the *amex gold*. With a 40% transfer bonus available as of publication, you could book:

• Those 7,500-point redemptions after transferring just 6,000 Amex points
• 11,000-point redemptions for just 8,000 Amex points
• Even longer flights that would normally cost 16,500 Virgin points could be a bargain by transferring 12,000 Amex points

Here’s a real-world example of the kind of value you can get by booking these short domestic flights through Virgin. Flying from Fargo (FAR) to Minneapolis (MSP), Delta is charging 18,500 SkyMiles for a one-way ticket.

But if you booked that same exact flight with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, it would only cost you 7,500 points. That’s a savings of 11,000 miles! In fact, you could book roundtrip with Virgin Atlantic for less than what Delta is charging for the one-way flight.

Wondering what it would cost to just pay cash for this flight instead? Delta is charging $209 for this short one-hour flight.

And this isn’t just a cherry-picked example either. Award flights are available at this low rate nearly every day of the month – and that includes the busy (and expensive) Easter holiday weekend. Compare that to what Delta is charging in either SkyMiles or cash, it’s a real bargain.

Finding these rock-bottom prices with Virgin Atlantic isn’t always this simple. And it became even harder a few years ago when Virgin removed its handy price calendar from plain view. But don’t worry … there’s a trick to getting Virgin’s price calendar to pull up and make your search easier.

With a little trial and error (and flexibility!) you shouldn’t have too much trouble saving big on these short domestic trips by using Virgin points instead of your Delta SkyMiles.

Short International Flights

It’s not just short domestic flights – you can find these rates for short international flights, too. Let’s take a look at how to save big on a destination that might stir a little more excitement.

After all, who doesn’t want to escape to the (relatively) brisk Georgia winters for a beach in Mexico? Since Delta has several nonstop flights from its hub in Atlanta (ATL) to Cancun (CUN), there’s no shortage of options for getting down south. If you search for flights on Delta’s website, you’ll see a one-way main cabin ticket costs $318. 

While $318 isn’t horrible, it’s also not a great deal. Maybe it would be better to use a stash of SkyMiles instead.

For 25,000 SkyMiles and $41 in taxes, it’s debatable whether you’d be better off paying cash or using SkyMiles – neither option is particularly exciting. Now let’s see what you get searching for this same Delta flight with Virgin Atlantic.

In doing so, I see that I can get on the same exact flight for just 11,000 Virgin points and the same $41 in taxes and fees. That’s less than half of what Delta is charging for a main cabin ticket! 

These bargains aren’t limited just to flights to Mexico – the same rates will show up for similar-length flights from the U.S. to the Caribbean or Canada as well.

The key to using this sweet spot, whether it’s wholly domestic or even international, is to find the routes that Delta flies direct – no stops. Virgin prices its award flights on a per-segment basis, so any flights with a connection would often cost double the points, regardless of the total distance you’re traveling.

If you need help identifying the nonstop Delta flights from your home airport or closest Delta hub, start your search with Wikipedia – yes, seriously! There are also sites like flightconnections.com that will let you search all the available routes from a given airport and you can even filter by airline.

How to Get Virgin Atlantic Points

Despite all their shortcomings, Delta SkyMiles are valuable in part because they’re so easy to earn. With four co-branded credit cards and the ability to transfer American Express points to your SkyMiles account, there are plenty of options.

But Virgin Points are even easier to pile up. Unfortunately, you can’t transfer Delta SkyMiles to a Virgin Atlantic account. Yet Virgin points are some of the easiest to earn since you can instantly transfer points to Virgin at a 1:1 ratio from all major transferrable points programs.

If you’re earning American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Capital One Venture Miles, Citi ThankYou points, or Wells Fargo Rewards, those can be transferred to Virgin. And if you’re earning points on rent, you can also transfer Bilt Rewards. Just beware that with both Bilt and Capital One, you’ll actually transfer points to your Virgin Red account – check out our walkthrough of how to do it!

Thrifty Tip: If you’re transferring credit card points to Virgin (or any other airline), it’s best to confirm award availability first (more on that below) as not every date or every flight is bookable with points. These transfers are a one-way street, so once you’ve sent the points to Virgin, you can’t get them back in your account. 

How to Find & Book Delta Flights with Virgin Points

Because you’re using Virgin points, you need to use Virgin’s website: VirginAtlantic.com. That’s your first stop, every time.

Virgin’s website can be a bit wonky and tricky to use. But don’t worry: We’ll walk you through some of the quirks when booking flights with Virgin points.

First things first, you’ll need to you’ll need to sign up for a free Virgin Atlantic Flying Club account. You’ll want to do this ASAP because it can take 24 to 72 hours for Virgin to verify your account, which is required before you can book a flight with Virgin points. 

To search for Delta flights you can book with Virgin points, head to Virgin’s homepage and toggle on “Search for Reward Flights.” 

It will be easiest to search one-way flights separately rather than your usual roundtrip – and it’s often better to book one-ways separately when redeeming miles on any airline, too. Anyway, just enter your departure airport and destination and desired travel dates. You’ll be prompted to login to your account to complete the search.

Note that you won’t be able to search with flexible dates from Virgin’s new website, which means if the date you want is unavailable to book with points, you’ll get an error message and will have to try another date. If you want to see a full month’s view of flights, you’ll need to use this new workaround to pull up Virgin’s old price calendar. 

Once you’ve confirmed the flights you want are available, click through to complete your booking. 

Read our full guide to booking flights with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points!

Bottom Line

We love flying Delta and wish that the SkyMiles program was more consistently rewarding for its members. Thankfully, there’s an easy way to save big on (relatively short) Delta flights with Virgin Atlantic.

So whether you’re positioning to your nearest international gateway for a long-haul flight or looking to book a cheap weekend getaway, turn to Virgin Atlantic instead of Delta for your next short nonstop flight.