EY J award flights following changes

[scwappy]

Just interested in people views if they would still book J award flights on EY using velocity points given the dramatic increases in carrier surcharges back last year?
Availability to ports in Europe is pretty wide open for wide dates but the cost would be circa $1,200 and 278k in points. Given Y flights can be had for a similar price do people think it is worth using them to fly EY anymore?

 

[jbman]

It all depends on how you value the points
How much did it cost you to get the points?

How much will the same J airfare cost?

Personally, if I can fly J for the price of Y I am very happy

 

[cssaus]

Personally, if I can fly J for the price of Y I am very happy

I agree.

Redeemed a VA J award on EY for my wife SYD-LHR return for later this year for which the fees/taxes cost me $1580. I somewhat offset this cost by purchasing a VA J ticket on EY to accompany my wife for $6500 which I thought was quite a good price.

 

[Denali]

I will be redeeming about 600K points (inc taxes) in a couple of months because availablity is easier to find/secure with EY than SQ for the route I want.

Im sure wiser, smarter AFFers would have worked a cheaper points spend but Im not in that league and I dont want to be wait listed with SQ, I prefer to be ticketed asap.

Ive done some dummy bookings, taxes of $1200 is about 220K points so by paying the price of a Y ticket but flying J, I still have 220K points for my next long haul search.

 

[Blackswan]

I won't redeem my points for EY following the fee introduction. Not only do I consider the fees too steep, but I wasn't impressed with EY after my J redemption last year. AUH is an awful place to transit - I've always found the corridor to transit security to be packed and disorganized, with no premium lanes.

I'm looking at redeeming with SQ instead - taxes almost match EY's fees, but better product.

 

[Pleb Status]

A J award ticket on EY (via VA) is still slightly cheaper PER-xx_-LHR rtn than on EK (via QF) when it comes to the cash component.

The EY J product is superior onboard when compared to EK. The EK lounges are better however.

 

[jbman]

I won't redeem my points for EY following the fee introduction. Not only do I consider the fees too steep, but I wasn't impressed with EY after my J redemption last year. AUH is an awful place to transit - I've always found the corridor to transit security to be packed and disorganised, with no premium lanes.I'm looking at redeeming with SQ instead - taxes almost match EY's fees, but better product.

I have to agree I am not a fan of AUH at all. I have always had to bus from the plane to the terminal, then go through the security lines to find my way to the lounge.

 

[andy2015]

I agree.

Redeemed a VA J award on EY for my wife SYD-LHR return for later this year for which the fees/taxes cost me $1580. I somewhat offset this cost by purchasing a VA J ticket on EY to accompany my wife for $6500 which I thought was quite a good price.

With $6500 to spend I'd be buying AA points and flying F.

 

[Tremere]

I won't redeem my points for EY following the fee introduction. Not only do I consider the fees too steep, but I wasn't impressed with EY after my J redemption last year. AUH is an awful place to transit - I've always found the corridor to transit security to be packed and disorganized, with no premium lanes.

I'm looking at redeeming with SQ instead - taxes almost match EY's fees, but better product.

Agree. Had a J trip with EY recently (booked a few months before the enhancement), AUH feels very rough in comparison to SIN. Maybe in a couple of years with the new terminal opens it will be better, but not now.

I am going to try and shoot for SQ on the next one. Might fall back to EY if I'm stuck for availability.

Also I understand that the chauffeur service is no longer available on reward redemptions regardless of the ticketing airline? Feels like you aren't getting the full 'product'.

 

[henleybeach]

Another option which I have used for later on this year is to fly out of Perth on VA service to AUH and then connect onto Alitalia service to Milan . I think it was 121k points and $90 taxes.
i just booked a y class fare from Adelaide to Perth to catch the international flight

 

[cssaus]

Another option which I have used for later on this year is to fly out of Perth on VA service to AUH and then connect onto Alitalia service to Milan . I think it was 121k points and $90 taxes.
i just booked a y class fare from Adelaide to Perth to catch the international flight

A good option from Adelaide but not sure if it's too convenient flying from the east coast. Was your Alitalia flight booked as a VA code-share?

 

[henleybeach]

A good option from Adelaide but not sure if it's too convenient flying from the east coast. Was your Alitalia flight booked as a VA code-share?

Yep it was a codeshare . VA 6010 I think was the number . It wouldn't show online so I rang up and explained it to the operator and he did for me .
Im not sure how many points it would be to do a j redemption from the east coast via Perth to Milan , but at the least the taxes are bugger all. Another option I guess is airberlin to Berlin .

 

[bwhouse]

It's a tough call IMHO, I just redeemed 400k points + $1800aud to fly syd-nyc in Etihad apartments, which was a hard choice when I could have done SQ for less points and tax. But ultimately for me it was about the experience, I have already tried SQ Suites and really wanted to try EY Apartments so it was worth it. But that is flying in F and really only doing so for the inflight experience. If I wanted to fly in J and save the points then I would probably have just gone SQ or VA and battled the availability.

 

[jpk]

When VA devalued last year I swore I wouldn't redeem on EY anymore. The extra carrier charge at the same time as putting them into Table 2 was quite rude. I've since been transferring into SQ which is better value. That said, today I redeemed 2 x MEL-LHR on EY J as I couldn't find availability on SQ or anything via QFFF for my date range.

When I compare what I paid today (278k + $1300) vs a year ago (250k + $200) I wince quite a bit. Hopefully the 380 studios make me feel better!

 

[cssaus]

When VA devalued last year I swore I wouldn't redeem on EY anymore. The extra carrier charge at the same time as putting them into Table 2 was quite rude. I've since been transferring into SQ which is better value. That said, today I redeemed 2 x MEL-LHR on EY J as I couldn't find availability on SQ or anything via QFFF for my date range.

When I compare what I paid today (278k + $1300) vs a year ago (250k + $200) I wince quite a bit. Hopefully the 380 studios make me feel better!

Probably the reason you found availability on EY may have much to do with the extra charges now being levied and others having the same attitude as yours to redeeming on EY. I too now prefer to transfer miles over to SQ and redeem with them.

 

[bwhouse]

When VA devalued last year I swore I wouldn't redeem on EY anymore. The extra carrier charge at the same time as putting them into Table 2 was quite rude. I've since been transferring into SQ which is better value. That said, today I redeemed 2 x MEL-LHR on EY J as I couldn't find availability on SQ or anything via QFFF for my date range.

When I compare what I paid today (278k + $1300) vs a year ago (250k + $200) I wince quite a bit. Hopefully the 380 studios make me feel better!

I was in the same boat and swore I wouldn't use EY after the change. Especially because I was trying to redeem an EY seat at the time prior to the award chart change I couldn't find any availability that VA could see.

But I have since come around, as mentioned above I just booked EY to JFK and coughed a little when paying the taxes but in the end, I think it was worth it. Overall when comparing EY to SQ using VA points it actually isn't a huge difference, for example, SYD-JFK in SQ J is 123k points and $670 in taxes vs EY J which is 139k points and ~$590 in charges depending on exchange rate. So if you value points at ~1.3c the difference is ~$128 in total. From memory when I crunched the numbers for F it was about the same.

Also agree, availability on EY seems to be much better than SQ and VA.

*edit* The above calculation assume you are transferring points to SQ to secure better availability rather than booking SQ directly via VA