My travel agent just moved one of my upcoming reservations from Delta to Virgin Atlantic as a result of the recent announcement. The new reservations are two hundred dollars more because of different corporate discounts but her thinking was interesting, so I thought I'd walk folks through it.

The flights are W outbound, Z return, from SFO to LHR. The return date is fixed, but the outbound is a coin-flip between the current date and one 4 days later; the coin will flip on March 22nd. Prior to the changes, she recommended Delta because that flight would earn MQDs as well as miles and MQMs (and it was slightly cheaper). Post changes, she recommended shifting it, as the availability of W and Z on Virgin itself was more likely to be present if the coin flip resulted in a change.

I did the math and the change results in a very slightly larger number of MQDs, because the distance times 30% was just slightly higher than the original fare's resulting MQDs. But the difference is so slight that it pretty much matches a straight fare to MQD calculation with the new fare.

My take: if they are trying to make this carrier neutral they are doing a good job. If the travel agent thought that the availability were equal, it would have been a complete wash.

SF