Air France launches Abu Dhabi flights – a new Virgin Points route to the Middle East

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• yorkieflyer says:

  21 Jul21 July 03:19

  Can we please hear about flights to somewhere other than the UAE?

  • Martin says:

    21 Jul21 July 04:14

    Where would you prefer ??

    • Born2sKydive says:

      21 Jul21 July 07:31

      Beuruit for one on MEA with virgin points

      • Mr. AC says:

        21 Jul21 July 07:56

        That seems very niche. You don’t see me requesting a guide on how to use Amex MR to book flights to Moscow.

      • Jay says:

        21 Jul21 July 10:00

        How about Cayman islands using Emirates skyward points?

      • Ant says:

        21 Jul21 July 11:05

        Didn’t use points but I travelled to Beirut on MEA over Christmas. Fascinating city and learned so much! Baalbek was incredible too.

• Andrew J says:

  21 Jul21 July 06:19

  I did manage to book AF flights using Virgin points in the Virgin app at the weekend without a problem – so maybe the issue is fixed.

  • Rob says:

    21 Jul21 July 07:31

    Not fixed on desktop. May try the app next time!

  • Jon Arnold says:

    21 Jul21 July 17:34

    I had problems 2 weeks ago on both the app and the desktop trying to buy reward tickets on KLM. You go through to payment and only then does it say the seats are no longer available. So annoying. Ended up booking by phone and the wait time was thankfully only a few minutes.

• drdan says:

  21 Jul21 July 06:20

  Far East!!

  • Born2sKydive says:

    21 Jul21 July 07:33

    Yep would also love to see a review of business on Vietnam Airlines to Hanoi or something, with Virgin points

    • Rhys says:

      21 Jul21 July 07:46

      Did it in 2019: https://www.headforpoints.com/2019/10/27/vietnam-airlines-business-class-review/

      • Rob says:

        21 Jul21 July 08:25

        …. however, in general, it is harder for us to get review flights off niche alliance members because they don’t really focus on UK marketing and often don’t even have teams here.

        Asia trips are also massively disruptive for HfP as a business, since it requires losing someone for at least a week. A US or Middle East trip can be done in 72 hours or less – Rhys is doing a 48 hour trip to Abu Dhabi next week. Flies out on Tuesday and we’ve got him in meetings back in London on Thursday.

        • Nick says:

          21 Jul21 July 09:32

          Please tell me he’s going to Abu Dhabi on Wizzair?!

        • Rhys says:

          21 Jul21 July 09:41

          Even I would put my foot down there!

          Although I do have some friends who, having bought the Wizz Air package that gets you free bag etc for a year, are doing London to Tel Aviv via multiple European cities on Wizz Air, spending a few days in each.

        • ADS says:

          21 Jul21 July 10:56

          just noticed that you can get Wizzair flights from Abu Dhabi to either Luton or Gatwick (via Athens) for around £100 in October !

      • Jon Arnold says:

        21 Jul21 July 17:35

        Were you able to book those online or did you need to call them?

  • NicktheGreek says:

    21 Jul21 July 07:43

    It’s be nice, but you’ve also gotta look at the numbers. By my count there’s 26 direct flights a day to the UAE with 3 airlines from 6 UK airports. There’s 26 flights a day to in total to Japan, Korea, HK, Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan from 2 airports.

    You gotta report on where the people wanna go!

    • No longer Entitled says:

      21 Jul21 July 07:55

      UAE is a hub. A lot of those flights will be carrying people onwards to the East.

      • Londonsteve says:

        21 Jul21 July 21:38

        Indeed. Having visited Dubai before, I’d go again but only if it was cheap for the novelty of heat in the middle of the European winter, but it’s certainly not cheap. I’m clearly not their target customer because that spiky tower with a viewing platform and the dancing fountains left me stone cold. I preferred exploring the ‘ethnic’ areas around the creek in the balmy evening temperatures, something seemingly that few others tourists to Dubai were interested in doing. The synthetic glitz of Madinat Jumeirah, the Burj Al Arab and umpteen shopping malls with valet parking are apparently much more appealing.

• TimM says:

  21 Jul21 July 07:54

  Will Virgin ever start a short/medium haul network?

  • AJA says:

    21 Jul21 July 08:20

    They tried and failed at doing that. Remember Virgin Atlantic Little Red?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Atlantic_Little_Red?wprov=sfla1

  • Rob says:

    21 Jul21 July 08:22

    Little Red?

    Only if it somehow got a pile of slots and had to wait a few years to get long haul aircraft to utilise them properly.

    • Panda Mick says:

      21 Jul21 July 10:09

      Little Red failed because of how VS/DL wanted to use it as a feeder for long haul flights from LHR.

      If they’d have run it independently, and have invested in some decent marketing against BA, it may have been more successful.

      • Rob says:

        21 Jul21 July 10:40

        Going into T2 with the long-hauls from T3 didn’t help.

  • Andrew. says:

    21 Jul21 July 08:42

    Virgin Cross Country (lost franchise)
    Virgin Trains East Coast (handed back franchise)
    Virgin Trains West Coast (lost franchise)
    Virgin Trains USA (litigation continues)

    Then there was Little Red. A few tired AerLingus jets on a wet lease, with a light refresh and the Little Red logo.

    I liked their prices, you could pretty much guarantee a row to yourself in economy, but that’s no way to run an airline.

• AlisonV says:

  21 Jul21 July 09:58

  I would not recommend to ever fly Air France unless you want to spend months hunting for your bags and getting no customer service help or compensation.
  I found out the hard way after a long haul business trip, that there are no less than 3 dedicated FB groups to AF lost luggage each with >1k current members, a record matched by no other airline that I can see.
  So if you must then go short haul, hand luggage only folks!

• lumma says:

  21 Jul21 July 10:01

  Seems a waste of virgin points imo. Taxes plus transport to Paris costing around the same as economy flights from London on Emirates or Etihad

  • babyg says:

    21 Jul21 July 11:45

    the AirFrance option isnt bad when you look at how much the fees+taxes are flying with virgin to DXB (assuming you can get a reward flight). Cheap/reward flight to CDG are easy to find…

    • Rob says:

      21 Jul21 July 13:37

      The way we saw it was that we saved £1k on APD and other charges by starting in Paris, and reinvesting a bit of that in 3 Eurostar tickets and a sightseeing day in Paris (with an overnight too) was both good value and interesting for the kids.

  • AspirationalFlyer says:

    21 Jul21 July 19:32

    I tend to agree, especially where you have status. It’s not a long flight too.
    I’m taking a daytime flight to Doha and have no issue with being down the back.
    But maybe that’s just me. I love flying and travel in all classes!
    And that being said, I’d love to travel Air France First Class!

• ADS says:

  21 Jul21 July 10:53

  currently there’s just a single daily Etihad flight from AUH to Paris

  whereas Etihad have four daily flights from AUH to Heathrow

  does that say more about Heathrow or about CDG ?!

  • Rob says:

    21 Jul21 July 11:06

    May say more about the willingness of the French to give them slots ….

    • The real Swiss Tony says:

      21 Jul21 July 14:24

      London’s connectivity to the UAE is abnormal. I was supposed to fly BHX-FRA-DXB last month. The BHX-FRA flight ended up running so late I would miss my connection. I figured given the frequency of flights out of London, there would be plenty of options from Frankfurt, into either DXB or AUH. But then I looked at the timetable. I would have been stranded in FRA overnight (I was booked on a 2pm departure) or left to go via Turkey and land at 5am.

      Thankfully someone saw the light and rebooked me on the nonstop EK flight from B’ham.

      • Londonsteve says:

        21 Jul21 July 21:43

        You mean to say that Lufty willingly booked you onto an Emirates flight? That’s impressive customer service in this day and age.

        • Rob says:

          21 Jul21 July 21:45

          Lufty once booked me onto an Emirates flight, when fog at Heathrow meant LH cancelled my connection to Frankfurt to Dubai.

        • tony says:

          22 Jul22 July 10:48

          I think it was the fact I managed to speak to the handling agents at bhx as their local phone number was helpfully on the bhx website that was the winning call. And I was HBO so it was easy.

          Once it was confirmed that the connection wouldn’t work it was very slick. I just got an email with my new ticket, did olci, walked straight into the Emirates lounge and the ladies there then took care of the other bits. Once the Lufthansa flight closed, I then got a call from the handling agent just to check all was ok! Swissport get a lot of stick but they really impressed me.

          When I spoke to Lufthansa on the phone, they wanted me to go to Frankfurt and sort it there.

        • tony says:

          22 Jul22 July 10:55

          Oh and to make the deal even sweeter, it was an award booking AND the EK booking let me reserve a limo on arrival in Dubai!

• David says:

  21 Jul21 July 11:53

  Handy for us with a big operation at CDG and one in the new AUH Midfield Terminal starting in November. Will give it a go. 😉

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