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Update: Virgin Atlantic has restored Air France and KLM award availability on its website effective August 19, 2024.
Unfortunately, you will not be able to redeem your Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Points for Air France or KLM awards until the beginning of August. The news has not come as a formal announcement. Instead, when you head over to the Virgin Atlantic KLM or Air France Partner page, you will find the following message at the top of the page:
“Due to a system issue, customers are currently unable to book Air France/KLM seats with Virgin Points on our website and through the Customer Centre. We’d like to sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused and our teams are working hard to fix this issue. We expect bookings to be available again at the start of August.”
Why and What is This Happening
Virgin has been tight-lipped about the cause of the issue. In fact, it is very difficult to find any information about the issue beyond the small note on the Virgin Atlantic website. However, we do note that this is not just a simple issue with the Virgin website. At the time of writing, you cannot book KLM or Air France Awards in any of the following ways:
- Directly through the Virgin website.
- Via the Virgin Atlantic call center.
When Will the Issue be Resolved?
Sadly, the information around this is very limited; all we know is what Virgin said, and bookings will be available again at the start of August. Whether this is August 1 or… August 10, we do not know.
This is hardly surprising since if this is a major IT issue, it is probably best not to be tied down to a fixed deadline. Leaving some space allows Virgin some wiggle room without disappointing its customers.
Alternative For Booking Air France KLM Flying Blue Awards
If you are set on booking with and Awarding with Air France KLM, you have a few options open to you. Fortunately, both airlines are members of the SkyTeam alliance, so you can book awards on their metal from any SkyTeam partner, although your mileage will vary in terms of the value of each award. You can book awards on KLM or Air France from any of the following programs:
Alternatively, you can also book awards directly through Flying Blue. What's more, it's incredibly easy to transfer flexible points to Flying Blue. The program is a transfer partner to all six of the major flexible points currencies around. This makes it an ideal program to consolidate small points balances for a premium award.
Related: Overlooking Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Can be Costly.
Our Take
These system glitches happen from time to time in the world of points and miles. In most cases, they are short-lived and typically resolve themselves within a few days/weeks. Hopefully, the issue will be resolved in the first week or two of August. Then we can return to redeeming Flying Club points for awards on KLM and Air France.
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