Points calculator - why is it broken/so hard to use

[kko]

I'm usually flying QF but recently decided to broaden my horizons since VA looks like it often is better value.

Qantas has a really easy and detailed redemption calculator and I was looking for something similar on Virgin and found this: https://www.velocityfrequentflyer.com/content/Redeem/Airlines/PointsTables/

While it appears to have a lot of information I have two issues with it:

The calculator at the top of the page appears broken (any cities I pick it shows Miles*: Not Available).

The table below perhaps could be used instead but I don't know off the top of my head the distances (in miles) between any two cities, nor which of their partner airlines fly a given route (since they are split into two buckets.


Is there something I'm missing? Am I looking in the wrong place? Is there a better page to find that out?

 

[eastwest101]

The calculator at the top is very "borky" but I did get it to work for me - it seems to fall over as soon as you ask it to calculate flights via another city, for example Port Headland to Hobart (via SYD or MEL of course).

And yes - you need to use great circle mapper or something similar unless you're rain man and have committed the distance in miles between all the places you may want to fly to.

Just had a look around some other parts of the Velocity and Virgin web sites since its been a few months since I have had a look - by god they are still awful web sites. I am loving all the pop up menus that go beyond the limits of your screen and disable scrolling. I am using a PC with newest IE browser.

 

[Milefest]

It'll only show the distance between two cities if VA or a partner airline flies there directly in one sector. If the route is more than one sector, each sector must be calculated individually.

It would be great if the calculator provided SC earn for each sector, but you have to go to another page for that..