Originally Posted by
pinniped
To me, the lure to fly Virgin America is the eventual ability to fly Upper Deck to Europe. If they tie too closely to revenue on the redemption side (which they'll have to if they are serious about no capacity controls), that award will be out of reach.
Have they announced that this will definitely happen?
If not, I wouldn't count on it.
Virgin Express in Europe never tied its FF program to Virgin Atlantic's. (It now longer exists, since it merged with SN Brussels and they've now combined into Brussels Airlines and have just one FF program. Still nothing to do with Virigin Atlantic of course.)
The much easier way to eventually fly Upper Deck on Virgin to Europe is through partner activity with some partners who give way more to Virgin than to most any US airlne. Like Avis giving you a flat 1000 Virgin (Atlantic) miles per rental, when for US-based airlines it (and other rental companies) only give a platry 50 miles a day. There are equivalents in some hotel programs too.