Hong Kong Airlines - Virgin Australia Partnership

[Ansett Nostalgic]

That makes sense.

I recently volunteered at a film festival in Sydney, and one of my roles was to sell raffle tickets. I would approach cinema goers and say "Would you like to get a ticket? On top of supporting us which is a non profit, you could be flying [insert a US flag carrier here] to LA!"

Of everyone I approached, except 2 people, responded basically with this: 'Why would I want to go there."

I would sometimes counter with "Hey, it's LA, that's California, and California is not America!". And people would still say "Nah" or "Still the same".

Some people would say "I would actually love to win the private screening", so I asked those "You would rather a private screening over a trip to LA?". Everyone said yes.



Australia and Hong Kong is now a duopoly. If you actually want to end in Hong Kong and not continue to Europe, CX and QF are charging really high fare. I think here is an opportunity for Hong Kong Airlines to take some of the passengers off CX and QF, especially to start with Hong Kong diaspora.

Film festival attendees on average are going to be pretty left-wing so no surprises with those reactions.

What's the best way to search HX award availability before calling Velocity?

 

[nightelves]

Does anyone know if reward seats with Hainan is available to other destination such as Vietnam?

 

[jeppetto367]

Does anyone know if reward seats with Hainan is available to other destination such as Vietnam?

I'm pretty sure you can redeem HU Reward seats to anywhere in the world.

On the Status Credit earn page it says: "Our partnership allows you to earn Status Credits when flying on eligible Hainan Airlines operated flights and fare classes within or between Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Greater China (China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan)."

But on the Redeem page it says: "From 17 June 2025, Velocity members can redeem Points for flights across the Hainan Airlines network."

So looks like they've specifically worded it so that you can redeem flights to anywhere. I found the info here: Hainan Airlines

 

[mrflyby]

What annoys me is that for a number of the VA partners that you can only book via points redemptions instead of also being able to book as a paid ticket when you want to do so, although yes it can be more expensive normally to book via a VA.
I would sometimes prefer to book via VA rather than direct with that partner airline if it's not a substantial price difference.

 

[markis10]

What annoys me is that for a number of the VA partners that you can only book via points redemptions instead of also being able to book as a paid ticket when you want to do so, although yes it can be more expensive normally to book via a VA.

Probably a regulatory thing where they don’t have approval for codeshare rights for competition or capacity reasons, or Bain just cannot be bothered for the perceived return.

 

[Rembrandt]

I can't seem to reserve seating for my 2x Velocity Reward seats on Hong Kong Airlines. Tried the HK Airlines app and web site as there is no option to do this via VA.

Doing a web search it appears the only way for VA customers to reserve seats is by calling Hong Kong Airlines. FFS VA get your s#it together with your airline partners, it's a joke.

 

[ben95]

Tried the HK Airlines app and web site as there is no option to do this via VA.

But every single airline in the world this is true? You have to use the operating airlines system to book a seat, not the airline that ticketed your flight, and the fact that you can’t use HK airlines app on a VA issued ticket that’s a HK Airline problem not VA’s issue? This is actually common in Chinese and Japanese airline where interline reservations are not handled well by the website.

FFS VA get your s#it together with your airline partners, it's a joke.

So that seems unfair. Its frustrating indeed but that is just the reality of the industry and its IT infrastructure.

 

[Rembrandt]

But every single airline in the world this is true? You have to use the operating airlines system to book a seat, not the airline that ticketed your flight, and the fact that you can’t use HK airlines app on a VA issued ticket that’s a HK Airline problem not VA’s issue? This is actually common in Chinese and Japanese airline where interline reservations are not handled well by the website.

So that seems unfair. Its frustrating indeed but that is just the reality of the industry and its IT infrastructure.

Ah no, it is fair, maybe do research before biting at me. There is currently no way for VA customers to reserve seats on HK Airlines other than calling HK Airlines. The HK app and web site don't allow VA customers to reserve seats, as the system doesn't recognise VA customers even when using the airlines own reference number. VA support centre don't know what to do either.

I've never had to go the extent of calling an airline directly to reserve seats.

Furthermore, I will reinforce the VA partnership with other airlines is woeful and in particular with Chinese carriers. QF is far superior in this regard. VA needs to up their game.

 

[markis10]

Furthermore, I will reinforce the VA partnership with other airlines is woeful and in particular with Chinese carriers. QF is far superior in this regard.

I disagree as well, QF is not any better with Chinese carriers be is seat selection or award booking, and QF interact with the bigger carriers as opposed to HK which was tightly wound in with Hainan before their chairman/CEO mysteriously jumped off a cliff.

 

[simmomelb]

Furthermore, I will reinforce the VA partnership with other airlines is woeful and in particular with Chinese carriers. QF is far superior in this regard. VA needs to up their game.

It's common not to be able to book seats on another airline's app. I recently flew Sao Paulo to Santiago, then Sydney (then MEL). First leg was on LATAM, then Qantas and Qantas.
I definitely couldn't book LATAM seats on the Qantas app or site; it specifically said to use the LATAM app or call LATAM, I couldn't use the LATAM app after entering their correct booking reference, so I ended up calling them.
If you can't select a seat on the HK Airlines app on a VA-issued ticket, that's definitely a HK Airlines issue, which they need to address (VA clearly doesn't operate their backend booking platform).

 

[ben95]

maybe do research before biting at me

Flown internationally with many many airlines for the past 15 years (traveled on 543 flights and 1.3mil kilometers over this period of time) so yes I know in depth and have dealt with these system countless times before biting at you.

I've never had to go the extent of calling an airline directly to reserve seats.

Just means you haven’t flown enough airlines. I’ve redeemed QF points for China eastern, and had to call MU’s Sydney office to book seat. Neither their website nor their general customer service would let me do it. Flown ANA on UA ticket back in early 2010s, had no option to select seat at all - website can’t find the reservation, called customer service they couldn’t do it for 3rd party tickets.

The HK app and web site don't allow VA customers to reserve seats, as the system doesn't recognise VA customers even when using the airlines own reference number.

This is extremely common for Asian carrier’s system as I’ve said. Their website is built differently to western carriers off the shelf system so it require extra metadata to be generated by the website or app when you make a booking so they just don’t work for any booking made outside of those platform which is why you needed to call to access an agent with direct access to the GDS system.

QF is far superior in this regard. VA needs to up their game.

Nope. QF also deals with airline with cough IT system. China eastern or China airlines is one of those partner that QF has.

 

[Chatswood]

Furthermore, I will reinforce the VA partnership with other airlines is woeful and in particular with Chinese carriers. QF is far superior in this regard. VA needs to up their game.

At least you could get a seat on HX by calling them. I’ve booked a Qantas CR ticket for travel on CX earlier this year and as a no OW status holder I couldn’t reserve a seat on CX whatsoever. This is whether through the app, website, or call centres in multiple languages, CX simply doesn’t offer seat selection for partner award tickets.

Mainland carriers (HX is really Hainan Airlines under the hood) have different IT systems that feed into a different reservation system from most Western carriers, hence the difficulty in integrating with VA. I had no problems with a VA award ticket on SQ for example.