In one embodiment, a supervisory device in a network assigns different access points in the network to different access point groupings. Each of the different access point groupings uses a different network path to communicate with a given endpoint in the network. The supervisory device selects at least one of the access points in each of the different access point groupings for mapping to a virtual access point (VAP) for a node in the network as part of a VAP mapping. The supervisory device instructs the selected access points to form a VAP for the node. The node treats the access points in the VAP mapping as a single access point for purposes of communicating with the network.