Keep in mind that Virgin Atlantic imposes
rather high fuel surcharges on its award flights, and you will also be subject to the high government and airport taxes when flying through the U.K.
Not exact matches
In addition, some programs impose such
high fuel surcharges on award tickets, in which case you may be better off using dollars
rather than miles (I'm looking at you, British Airways).
While Aeroplan has
higher fuel surcharges, United charges a whopping 110,000 miles for the same flight, so I'd
rather pay a couple hundred more in fees and spend nearly half the amount of miles.