Virgin Australia flights to Doha

[jase05]

My main trouble with QR has been them trying to make my wife and I sit next to each other by changing our pre-selected sears.!

Same
I always choose A/K and Mrs Jase B/J but they often try to put us in the middle pairings

 

[Darkpulsar]

Flew wet lease VA2 in Y Flex for the first time, points upgrade unsuccessful. I was surprised to have personal greeting and meal reorder from an FA and CSM as VA Silver. Reading online seems like it's relatively common from QR Silver, though didn't get a greeting on any of the other QR operated flights but got fast track security, priority bags, and contract lounge access at ARN.

Journey should have got me to VA Gold but I sadly missed that had 25 SCs expire a week ago so will need a status run to hit Gold...

 

[AIRwin]

Journey should have got me to VA Gold but I sadly missed that had 25 SCs expire a week ago so will need a status run to hit Gold...

VA has a sale on now

 

[MooTime]

VA has a sale on now

A VA sale only rewards you with less SC's than otherwise.

If had xx amount to spend on a 'status run' you'd just get to travel to a further destination, spending less to get to point A only provides less SCs.

 

[Rebus]

I've just boarded VA8 from DOH to MEL. The CSM has just started his spiel by welcoming Qatar Airways Privilege Club members and those of our One World Partners. Not even a mention of VA or Velocity so far. I'm VA WP and zero recognition of status. In fact my boarding pass from DUB to DOH showed my VA FF# as xx_x PT but the boarding pass for this flight merely showed the FF#.

 

[jase05]

The CSM has just started his spiel by welcoming Qatar Airways Privilege Club members and those of our One World Partners. Not even a mention of VA or Velocity so far. I'm

Have found this to be very inconsistent with QR, don’t know if it’s poor training or not but on my last 6 flights I’ve had varied greetings.

SIN-DOH, QRPC, VA, OW in that order
DOH-SHJ, QRPC, OW, VA in that order
KUL-DOH, QRPC only
DOH-CAI, QRPC and VA only
BOS-DOH, QRPC, OW, VA in that order
DOH-ADL, QROC and OW only

 

[justinbrett]

Have found this to be very inconsistent with QR, don’t know if it’s poor training or not but on my last 6 flights I’ve had varied greetings.

SIN-DOH, QRPC, VA, OW in that order
DOH-SHJ, QRPC, OW, VA in that order
KUL-DOH, QRPC only
DOH-CAI, QRPC and VA only
BOS-DOH, QRPC, OW, VA in that order
DOH-ADL, QROC and OW only

Inconsistency on QR operated flights is one thing, but welcoming oneworld pax to a VA “operated” flight is quite another!

 

[Aussie_flyer]

How are the loads on these VA flights in peoples recent experiences? In Y in particular. I know my parents flew on a very empty flight in October and they all seemed pretty empty out of BNE

 

[jase05]

Inconsistency on QR operated flights is one thing, but welcoming oneworld pax to a VA “operated” flight is quite another!

Agree it’s bizarre.
Just catering for the majority of the passengers

 

[SeaWolf]

How are the loads on these VA flights in peoples recent experiences? In Y in particular. I know my parents flew on a very empty flight in October and they all seemed pretty empty out of BNE

The most recent stats from BITRE are from September.
It's not broken down by individual city in Australia, but they show that during September Virgin had 90 flights in each direction from Australia to Qatar and the average load factor was 84.2% inbound and 80.6% outbound. (See page 14).

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Any way we can view menus for the VA flights? The QR ones leave at substantially different times so may not be of much use? Unless it’s the same meals on each, just served at different times? (ie QR starts with denier then breakfast, VA is breakfast then dinner)

 

[Rebus]

Any way we can view menus for the VA flights? The QR ones leave at substantially different times so may not be of much use? Unless it’s the same meals on each, just served at different times? (ie QR starts with denier then breakfast, VA is breakfast then dinner)

VA8 is a scheduled 0150 departure from DOH. Y pax were served a typical QR dinner around 1 hour from take-off. The only noticeable difference is that the veggie option was replaced by an apple crumble. FWIW i had seafood noodles and was perfectly happy with the quality

 

[Rebus]

On the topic of food we did not receive the kids meals that we requested via the VA call centre at the time of booking and which were confirmed via MMB two days prior to travel. My wife queried this with a crew member. They told her that the kids meal issue happens a lot on these wet lease flights and that "neither systems or people talk to each other which causes a lot of problems".

On the leg from DUB - DOH we received child meals having requested them using the QR PNR on the QR website.

So far I've not seen a lot of upside of choosing this service as a VA Plat.

 

[MooTime]

On the topic of food we did not receive the kids meals that we requested via the VA call centre at the time of booking and which were confirmed via MMB two days prior to travel. My wife queried this with a crew member. They told her that the kids meal issue happens a lot on these wet lease flights and that "neither systems or people talk to each other which causes a lot of problems".

On the leg from DUB - DOH we received child meals having requested them using the QR PNR on the QR website.

So far I've not seen a lot of upside of choosing this service as a VA Plat.

I guess it's mainly the lounge access being the ace.

 

[Rebus]

I guess it's mainly the lounge access being the ace.

Yes, I suppose that's a consideration. However we had a 2 hour layover and by the time we got to the central concourse area it was only 30 minutes until we had to board VA8, so not a lot of time to enjoy it.