Velocity reward seat shenanigans: is Virgin TRYING to annoy me?

[Human]

My daughter and her husband received a last-minute invitation to an event in Sydney during the first week of the December school holidays, and they asked me if I could use my Velocity points for reward flights given that flights at that time of the year are expensive.

So I did a search for reward seats for 2 people for flights between MEL and SYD and there was nothing. Not a single reward seat for any flight for any of the 10 or so days before Christmas that I searched.

Then, on a hunch, I did a search for reward seats for 1 person. There was an absolute glut of availability. Yes, they’re mainly (not all) at the more expensive reward flight tier (9,900 points) but there are heaps — the website even let me know that there were multiple seats available on almost all of the flights.

So I had to do two separate bookings: one for my daughter, and one for her husband. At least I managed to sit them next to each other!

Whoever at Virgin thought it would be a good idea to limit reward availability during the school holidays to one person at a time?

 

[serfty]

Whoever at Virgin thought it would be a good idea to limit reward availability during the school holidays to one person at a time?

An accountant?

Good to read you found a way to circumvent such apparent shenanigans.