Introduction
If you’re considering Delta Airlines as your choice for award flights on your upcoming trip, I’ve got a little-known trick up my sleeve that can help you make the most of your points while planning your journey.
You can take advantage of Virgin Atlantic’s award calendar, which allows you to see Delta flights by selecting your departure and destination cities.
It also lets you view a whole month’s worth of award flight options at once.
But before we dive into the how-to, let’s chat about why knowing this feature is essential for you.
3 Reasons Why You Should Avoid Booking Your Next Delta Flight — Without Using Virgin Atlantic's Award Calendar
- First and foremost, Delta Airlines does not provide a comprehensive display of award seat costs for all cabin classes in its calendar view. Instead, it only lets you access the cost breakdown for various cabins when you click into each date individually.
- Secondly, it’s always a good idea to shop around and compare ticket prices on different partner airline websites. You might be pleasantly surprised to find that booking through Virgin Atlantic’s website can often be a lot more budget-friendly than going through Delta Airlines’ site.
- Thirdly, your options for transferring points to Delta’s frequent flyer program vary. While only AmEx Membership Rewards points can be transferred to your Delta SkyMiles account, Virgin Atlantic offers a broader range of choices. You can transfer points from Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou Points, and even AmEx Membership Rewards.
Now that we’ve highlighted the usefulness of Virgin Atlantic’s calendar search for locating Delta partner award availability, let’s dive into how you can actually find your flights with this tool.
Cross-Comparing Delta Flights across Delta and Virgin Atlantic Websites
Follow these steps to find the best award seats on Delta airlines.
- Head to flightconnections.com and punch in your ‘From’ and ‘To’ locations. This quick pitstop ensures that Delta Airlines actually serves your desired destination.
- Next, hop on over to our dear friend, Google.com and type in ‘Reward Seat Checker.’ Give that trusty first link a tap, and you’ll find yourself at Virgin Atlantic’s reward seats search tool. But wait, there’s a twist.
- You can’t actually enter your own ‘From’ and ‘To’ choices into the seat checker; it comes with its preset options. But don’t fret – there’s a solution for this quirk.
In this example, I’ve gone with some random choices, selecting LHR and DTW.
- Once you hit enter, a calendar page will pop up. Here’s how you can customize it for your preferred locations.
- The URL based on my input selection appears as follows:
“https://travelplus.virginatlantic.com/reward-flight-finder/results/month origin=LHR&destination=DTW&airline=DL&month=10&year=2023″ - Now, all you need to do is replace the origin and destination airport codes in the URL.
- For instance, I’m using JFK and FCO here, as shown below:
“https://travelplus.virginatlantic.com/reward-flight-finder/results/month?origin=JFK&destination=FCO&airline=DL&month=10&year=2023″
Don’t forget to use ALL CAPS for the airport codes. Press enter, and let the results load once more. - You should then see a calendar view displaying all available award flights for October 2023. Since there were no available seats for October, I decided to go with November 2023.
- Take a look at how the Virgin Atlantic calendar displays award seats across all cabin classes.
I figured November 11, 2023, seemed like a good date to check out, so I went ahead and compared the prices for that day on both Virgin Atlantic and Delta’s websites.
Here’s what I discovered:
The same ticket costs two times more on the Delta website than on the Virgin Atlantic website!
Final Thoughts
I know this is a tedious process, but one that is worth the returns if you want to save points. Also, it’s important to note that Virgin Atlantic’s website doesn’t always guarantee lower prices; it’s more like a helpful tool to compare.
Search wisely and travel for much less!
And if you need help booking an award flight for your next trip, you know where to find us!
If you enjoyed this post, you would enjoy The Hub ‘N Wifi Newsletter — a Friday newsletter, aimed at making you a 1% smarter traveler.
