An extensive partnership with Virgin Australia, including earning and redeeming Velocity points, means United Airlines is extremely useful to Australians looking to travel to and within the USA. As a member of the Star Alliance, you can also use United Mileage Plus points to travel on all Star Alliance airlines. See below for articles exploring United Airlines and MileagePlus.
Australians can no longer redeem Velocity Points for United Business Class reward seats to the USA, because United hasn't released a single one for more than two months. Singapore Airlines has also stopped releasing Business reward seats to Velocity members from Sydney, Melbourne and Perth to Singapore.
With the 2025 United MileagePlus Premier Status Match Challenge, you can get the benefits of United Airlines status for 120 days - as well as a shortcut to Star Alliance Gold.
In a pleasant surprise for South Australians, United Airlines will launch 3x weekly seasonal Adelaide-San Francisco flights in December 2025.
Virgin Australia has fixed a bug that resulted in many non-stop United Airlines flights being unavailable to book with Velocity Points.
Virgin Australia flyers can redeem Velocity Frequent Flyer points on United Airlines, but there's no reward seat availability on any non-stop trans-Atlantic route.
Despite a lack of award charts, United MileagePlus still has pockets of value such as intra-Europe Economy redemptions on partner airlines.
United Airlines has just dropped a lot of Business Class award availability on its routes from Australia and New Zealand to the United States. These Polaris Business seats are available to book as reward seats using Velocity points.
United Airlines is massively increasing service to Australia and NZ with increased frequencies and three new routes starting from October 2023, including Brisbane-Los Angeles.
At the start of 2020, Qantas was selling around 34,000 weekly seats between Australia and five destinations in the continental United States. It’s now operating just over 13,000 weekly seats in this market, with services to Los Angeles and Dallas only. Virgin Australia, meanwhile, has stopped flying to the United States altogether. Virgin used to … Continued
If you’ve tried to use Qantas points or redeem Velocity points for Business Class seats to the United States lately, you’ve probably noticed that there isn’t much reward seat availability right now! Occasionally you might get lucky and find a direct Qantas flight to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas/Fort Worth or Vancouver (just across the … Continued
Buying United miles during a promotion can be a clever way to save money on future Star Alliance Business and First class flights, as the cost of the miles is often lower than the cost of an equivalent airfare. United MileagePlus miles can be redeemed for premium cabin award flights across the entire Star Alliance … Continued
United Airlines will fly from Brisbane to San Francisco from October, becoming the first airline to add new service between Australia and the United States since the pandemic. From 28 October 2022, United will fly three times per week between Brisbane and San Francisco using Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners. This is the schedule: Tickets are already … Continued