Is International Virgin Reward availability now worse that QANTAS?

[williamsf1]

Yeah I thought it might have something to do with the new business class as well. Seems like the only logical explanation. I will give them a call, not that I expect them to know what the story is, but they might just be releasing them over the phone for now.

I just looked at a random date in November 15 ( the 25th) and could get 2 seats from Brisbane

 

[Brooke01]

I definitely think there is something going on. I am looking to book 2 x Syd (or Bne) to Lax around July 20, 2016 - and I have been keeping an eye on reward seats as my 330 day window is approaching.
Currently the release date is at June 30. Whilst I haven't done the whole "check at 12.01am thing" - I did happen to check around 4am this morning and there was nothing for June 30 in J or PE. (We will prob be looking at PE due to shortfall of points for J).
At a more reasonable hour today, I decided to search back through the month of June for any PE and J availability. BOTH BNE and SYD to LAX still had random availability from early June until June 10 - then both routes dried up on June 11 and still nothing right up until June 30th's release today.
Have never had a problem before booking this far out - am feeling a little nervous now. Plenty of availability in Y - God forbid I have to go with that option
Fingers crossed for some availability when I need it in a few weeks.
Brooke

 

[mlob]

From my observations the award availability dried up sometime earlier this year. I have been quite surprised that there wasn't more of an uproar on this site. There has been the odd post about it and that's been about it.

 

[EUROPA]

International rewards availability on VA is an absolute mystery, always has been, seats come and go without any rhyme or reason. Golden rule, if you see something that even closely resembles what you're after... book it! SYD-LAX is one of the biggest mysteries but you can often find something SYD-BNE-LAX.

 

[stux]

100% Something has changed. I have booked 2xBusiness seats to LAX Twice a year with both little and moderate notice every year since inception, now its not possible to book 1 seat to LAX. An Increase in members is not a sufficient explanation. It is a lot worse than Qantas now, who at least hold reward seats for Higher Tiers, Velocity need to start doing the same, or may as well go back to Qantas.

I booked a seat to LAX return for a 2 week trip with 1 weeks notice this morning. Availability seems about normal. Yes, I called the guest contact centre at 0730 to snag it.

Was booked as W w/ upgrade to J on both legs.

Ie, there was reward availability.

Had to return via Brisbane though. Par for the course really.

 

[ttoth]

Yes I've been trying to find PE or J flights from Brisbane to LAX and checked everyday from February to June next year and nothing at all. I can only see economy reward flights. I've saving points for years to snag PE or J flights so I am not happy! I would prefer to fly over September/October next year so I'm hoping the reward fares will flow through again before those dates become available. There used to be plenty to choose from so something has definitely changed.

 

[VAG newbie]

I have a feeling this has something to do with the new J seat. With the new J it is arguably the best J product across the pacific. JB is proud of it and calls is Business First and was even hinting the price may go up. So perhaps they are just holding onto the reward seats and see the demands for these new seats before they have an idea how many seats they can release (and if any need to block weekends like QF).

This is not unusual for Australian airlines. When QF launched BNE-NRT, they initially didn't release any J seat on this flight. But now it's kind of wide open (although weekends still blocked) as QF has a rough idea what the demand for J is on this route.

I don't believe it has been snatched by the other 95 million DL members. Because if it is, there should still be plenty of PE seats remain as DL can't book PE, it's just simply VA hasn't released it. Also there will be a new PE product with significantly reduced seat, which JB wanted to market it as Business Lite. So give it a bit of time and see how it goes. I'm glad I already got my J seat booked next Mar/Apr. Let's hope I get the new seat.

I also don't believe that VA will just turn the tap off completely. After all, FFP is a cash cow for most airlines and already VA is suffering from a smaller partners' network compared to QF's OW alliance (plus many other non OW partners). Their ace card is the greater award availability (which they are proud of). Although if the demand for the new J is high, then expect a reduction in award availability.

 

[Alexh92]

been trying to get flights to America using the current Amex bonus can't seem to find anything... What is the general rule for lead time to book with virgin? Qantas in the past I could book reward flights with little notice without a problem

 

[CJEMNMAC]

been trying to get flights to America using the current Amex bonus can't seem to find anything... What is the general rule for lead time to book with virgin? Qantas in the past I could book reward flights with little notice without a problem

Are you saying you could book US reward flights with little notice on qantas ? Was this Y or J ?.. I have found this to be one of the most difficult situations to book.

If you are talking about Y then virgin availability to USA is fine IMO but the issue recently has been limited J awards particularly with the SYD - LAX route. I have had some success with 1 x J seat 4-6 months out, but at the moment it is looking like 9-10 months

 

[rfc4eva]

Hi Guys,Im new to this site,As a few others have said its near impossible to find any Business reward seats on Velocity.Im looking MEL-Syd-Lax and looked at pretty much every day available and found 2 dates.
I have 250k points, someone told me I would better of transferring my points to Krisflyer.What do you guys think?

 

[Mattg]

Hi Guys,Im new to this site,As a few others have said its near impossible to find any Business reward seats on Velocity.Im looking MEL-Syd-Lax and looked at pretty much every day available and found 2 dates.
I have 250k points, someone told me I would better of transferring my points to Krisflyer.What do you guys think?

As others have said, VA award availability is traditionally supposed to be quite good. So I wonder if this is a temporary "glitch" rather than a sure sign of things to come.

Transferring to KrisFlyer has its own advantages and disadvantages, but it won't make it any easier for you to fly VA to LAX as the availability will probably be the same for KrisFlyer members and you'll probably need more points overall when you take the 35% penalty into account.

Would you could do, however, is transfer to KrisFlyer if you were able to book MEL-SIN-LAX on Singapore Airlines. Travel time would be a bit longer though.

 

[andye]

....Would you could do, however, is transfer to KrisFlyer if you were able to book MEL-SIN-LAX on Singapore Airlines. Travel time would be a bit longer though.

Taxes higher too

 

[Jack_OC]

As others have said, VA award availability is traditionally supposed to be quite good. So I wonder if this is a temporary "glitch" rather than a sure sign of things to come.

Transferring to KrisFlyer has its own advantages and disadvantages, but it won't make it any easier for you to fly VA to LAX as the availability will probably be the same for KrisFlyer members and you'll probably need more points overall when you take the 35% penalty into account.

Would you could do, however, is transfer to KrisFlyer if you were able to book MEL-SIN-LAX on Singapore Airlines. Travel time would be a bit longer though.

Travel time is much longer actually. SQ don't fly SIN-LAX direct - AFAIK you have to go via Tokyo. So instead of MEL-SYD-LAX in about 18 hours, your're looking at MEL-SIN-NRT-LAX, which takes at least 30 hours (and a lot longer in some cases, depending on how the connections match up).

Also, as andye said, taxes are higher, and again not just by a little bit. The taxes on an SQ redemption from MEL-SIN-NRT-LAX are ~$670 one way, compared to just $55 with VA (at least that's all I paid for the most recent award booking I made with them). On the face of it, the points required are similar with both options (94,000 Velocity points vs 85,000 KF miles), but when you factor in the conversion rate (1.35 Velocity points = 1 KF mile), the actual cost of transferring from Velocity to KF and booking with SQ is 114,750 Velocity points.

So to summarise:
- VA: 94,000 Velocity points + $55 and travel time of ~18 hours
- SQ: 114,750 Velocity points + $670 and travel time of 30 hours plus

Unless VA reward availability really has dried up completely, transferring to KF isn't a very attractive option at all for this particular route.*

I really hope the VA situation is just temporary, as it really was the best thing about Velocity IMO. For example, a while back I booked four x J awards from LAX-SYD-MEL on the same flight (travelling next month), with no difficulty. I had a choice of dates and there was availability via both BNE and SYD on each day that I looked at.

* the situation is different on other routes. For example, if you want to go to the EU, you can get one way to a number of airports with plenty of availability from MEL via SIN for about 80,000 KF miles, with just as direct a route as VA/EY. Again the taxes are higher (~$500) than with VA (~$100), but in this case, the difference isn't as big, and it's offset by the lower number of points required.

EDIT: corrected original error re number of KF points required. Thanks to CJEMNMAC for pointing out.

 

[VAG newbie]

Travel time is much longer actually. SQ don't fly SIN-LAX direct - AFAIK you have to go via Tokyo. So instead of MEL-SYD-LAX in about 18 hours, your're looking at MEL-SIN-NRT-LAX, which takes at least 30 hours (and a lot longer in some cases, depending on how the connections match up).

Also, as andye said, taxes are higher, and again not just by a little bit. The taxes on an SQ redemption from MEL-SIN-NRT-LAX are ~$670 one way, compared to just $55 with VA (at least that's all I paid for the most recent award booking I made with them). On the face of it, the points required are similar with both options (94,000 Velocity points vs 100,000 KF miles), but when you factor in the conversion rate (1.35 Velocity points = 1 KF mile), the actual cost of transferring from Velocity to KF and booking with SQ is 135,000 Velocity points.

So to summarise:
- VA: 94,000 Velocity points + $55 and travel time of ~18 hours
- SQ: 135,000 Velocity points + $670 and travel time of 30 hours plus

Unless VA reward availability really has dried up completely, transferring to KF isn't a very attractive option at all for this particular route.*

I really hope the VA situation is just temporary, as it really was the best thing about Velocity IMO. For example, a while back I booked four x J awards from LAX-SYD-MEL on the same flight (travelling next month), with no difficulty. I had a choice of dates and there was availability via both BNE and SYD on each day that I looked at.

* the situation is different on other routes. For example, if you want to go to the EU, you can get one way to a number of airports with plenty of availability from MEL via SIN for about 80,000 KF miles, with just as direct a route as VA/EY. Again the taxes are higher (~$500) than with VA (~$100), but in this case, the difference isn't as big, and it's offset by the lower number of points required.

Agree with above. I actually did an analysis saying it is not worth converting to KF most of the time unless your goal is to fly SQ suite (but at the same time, you might as well fly EY apartment).

The question is, do you really need to go to LAX or is your goal just to get to US? If just US, especially the East Coast, try use those VA points to redeem EY. It is about 125K in J one way so at 250k you've just got enough for a round trip.

I really hope it is a temporary thing. Not only SYD/BNE-LAX is dried up, SYD-AUH (on VA metal) is also gone. This route is not that high in demand especially you can still find award space in EY metal (and I suspect most people would prefer to fly EY A380 over VA anyway) so obviously VA hasn't released it. I don't think VA can suddenly become so stingy, especially to their own members (some airlines gets stingy with their partners but remain generous to their own member to encourage loyalty. SQ and BR, I am looking at you!). It must have something to do with the new business class.

So, give it a few weeks and see what happens. Of course if your trip is coming up soon and you can find seat availability in SQ, then by all means transfer it. Just beware of the high fuel fine though, a rt trip to LAX via NRT can easily set you close to $2000 for "free" flight.

 

[CJEMNMAC]

So to summarise:
- VA: 94,000 Velocity points + $55 and travel time of ~18 hours
- SQ: 135,000 Velocity points + $670 and travel time of 30 hours plus

Unless VA reward availability really has dried up completely, transferring to KF isn't a very attractive option at all for this particular route.*

1 clarification here. You only need 114750 VA points to transfer to KF for the redemption.

If you book online it is 15% discount so requires 85000 KF points one way. 114750 VA = 85000 KF

 

[Jack_OC]

1 clarification here. You only need 114750 VA points to transfer to KF for the redemption.

If you book online it is 15% discount so requires 85000 KF points one way. 114750 VA = 85000 KF

Yes you're right actually - I will go back and correct.

 

[hummel]

You know what would be good... a way to search only 'Business Reward' flights. I've spent 25min's searching a variety of routes to Europe and USA... sweet bugger all. And I'm talking 10 months out.

I'll more my 200k VA over to SQ I think.

 

[VAG newbie]

You know what would be good... a way to search only 'Business Reward' flights. I've spent 25min's searching a variety of routes to Europe and USA... sweet bugger all. And I'm talking 10 months out.

I'll more my 200k VA over to SQ I think.

There are some heavy weight journalist onto this now. VA has been promoting themselves as the "best award redemption availability in the pacific", they can't just claim one thing and win the reward yet back on what they advertised for.

Let's keep an eye and see how this pen out. It will be bad publicity if people starting to know that VA is now worse than Qantas.

 

[CJEMNMAC]

only searched for 1 seat Business just now on 4 days and this shows available if this helps

April 19 BNE to LAX VA7
April 20 SYD to LAX VA1
April 26 SYD to LAX and BNE to LAX ( both direct flights VA1 and VA7 )
April 27 SYD to LAX VA 1

Seems to be Tuesday and Wednesdays

May 3 and May 4
May 10 and May 11

 

[VAG newbie]

only searched for 1 seat Business just now on 4 days and this shows available if this helps

April 19 BNE to LAX VA7
April 20 SYD to LAX VA1
April 26 SYD to LAX and BNE to LAX ( both direct flights VA1 and VA7 )
April 27 SYD to LAX VA 1

Seems to be Tuesday and Wednesdays

May 3 and May 4
May 10 and May 11

That's very bad news. So it's not IT glitch or anything, just simply they decided to release only on the dates that has the least demand. Similar to QF's pattern. After all, I'm not surprised, because we have the duopoly and VA has been too generous in the past few years.