I wanted to share something I just learned via our friend Nick at Frequent Miler that proves you can never really know every nuance of this game…
In this article
Award Redeposit Fees Vary By Airline – British Airways has a Generous Redeposit Policy
For a long time, it’s been no secret that with British Airways, the fee to cancel and redeposit an Avios award ticket is $55 – but you can pay less than that on a flight with low taxes and fees. Basically, you can simply opt to forfeit your taxes and fees and get your miles back. On a one-segment domestic ticket on AA booked with Avios that’s just $5.60. Well better than the $55 – especially if you have more than one person on the record.
Virgin Atlantic’s Award Redeposit Policy
What I didn’t know is that Virgin Atlantic has a nearly identical policy. Their redeposit fee is $50 for a flight originating the US or 30 pounds ex-UK.
But they also will allow you to simply forfeit the taxes and fees.
This is most crucial for those that use Virgin Atlantic miles to book domestic US flights on Delta (which is often a fantastic bargain compared to booking with actual Delta miles). For example, you could fly Delta One from LA to NYC for 22,500 Virgin miles vs at least 60,000 ++ Delta miles.
Now add to that the fact that Delta would charge you $150 to redeposit an award ticket (or, yes, $300 for two!) whilst Virgin would charge you only the $5.60 per person.
I’m never short of reasons to collect transferable points over one program’s frequent flyer miles…. but add this one to the list!
Thanks for sharing, Nick!
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