Things Virgin Australia Does & Doesn’t Do Well

[Secco]

They do offer these originating from Bali, as they sell them in Rupiah, or Fiji, sold in Fijian Dollar, Queenstown, sold in NZD (down to tax implications in each country/complying with each country's regulations to sell fares). But yes, I agree 100%. They need to start selling flights originating in other countries a lot more.
This hasn't personally impacted me, as I always book a return or book the return with points and pay cash on the outbound. But I can see they would lose some business operating this way (and it's annoying).

That's because they are Virgin planes. You can't book a one way flight from Christchurch or Auckland directly with Virgin

 

[simmomelb]

As a reference point: we booked VA to/from Paris earlier this year. We were lucky enough to see upgrade availability to J on the return DOH-SYD sector and I was still Plat at the time and able to upgrade from a Choice fare. However, we had to book direct to do this which meant I had to book to/from Paris instead of to Paris and back from Lyon as I had preferred. We figured it was a sacrifice worth making to get the J flight on the final sector and so took an unnecessary train trip back to CDG, but it was frustrating that we had to make that choice. In the end, the whole trip got scrapped anyway and moved to EK thanks to the war. That’s when we were introduced to VA’s policy not to refund credit card surcharges, or perhaps I’d just never paid attention as I’d never spend that much on VA in one go to rack up a fairly hefty fee.

Yeah that sounds frustrating. I get it! I would have been annoyed at that also.
The no-refund policy on card fees has been there since I can remember.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

That’s when we were introduced to VA’s policy not to refund credit card surcharges, or perhaps I’d just never paid attention as I’d never spend that much on VA in one go to rack up a fairly hefty fee.

They *used* to say that CC fees were refundable in cases where VA cancelled your flight, or you were otherwise entitled to a refund under ACL.

But they never had a mechanism to refund it, ‘computer said no’.

I had a long battle to get my fees refunded after VA cancelled a flight due to crew shortage. Countless screenshots of their official policy to refund in those circumstances.

They have now changed their website to remove any references to CC fees being refunded.

It’s pretty poor. Qantas refunds them automatically.

 

[Ansett Nostalgic]

They *used* to say that CC fees were refundable in cases where VA cancelled your flight, or you were otherwise entitled to a refund under ACL.

But they never had a mechanism to refund it, ‘computer said no’.

I had a long battle to get my fees refunded after VA cancelled a flight due to crew shortage. Countless screenshots of their official policy to refund in those circumstances.

They have now changed their website to remove any references to CC fees being refunded.

It’s pretty poor. Qantas refunds them automatically.

Sounds like something worth a complaint to ACCC / Fair Trading.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Sounds like something worth a complaint to ACCC / Fair Trading.

ACCC is silent on the issue, as is fair trading

VA claims the fee is for the convenience of using the credit card, and is separate to the airfare. So regardless of whether or not you use the airfare, you chose to pay the fee for a credit card.

i think that’s rubbish personally.

 

[simmomelb]

That's because they are Virgin planes. You can't book a one way flight from Christchurch or Auckland directly with Virgin

Yep, aware of that. A frequent route I travel on
VA should, however, be selling flights on its website for its partner airlines, originating overseas, as Qantas does. That was FlyingKangaroos' point.
Just as I recently booked Sao Paulo, one way to Melbourne, with LATAM metal the whole way via Qantas' site.

 

[HS-TQE]

Yep, aware of that. A frequent route I travel on
VA should, however, be selling flights on its website for its partner airlines, originating overseas, as Qantas does. That was FlyingKangaroos' point.
Just as I recently booked Sao Paulo, one way to Melbourne, with LATAM metal the whole way via Qantas' site.

As it may be said, Virgin (or the customer reps) have in the past would say they are primarily a "domestic" airline that provides some short-haul international services on the side.
Hence, restricting the POS of codeshare fares on the Australian side to provide to their 'domestic' customers wanting to fly overseas.

Had there been some passenger support under the previous (although chaotic and probably likely financially unstable) ownership structure and various former JVs (i.e EY, DL, SQ, etc). Purchasing a VA codeshare on their partners from the other end may be still possible online today.

 

[simmomelb]

As it may be said, Virgin (or the customer reps) have in the past would say they are primarily a "domestic" airline that provides some short-haul international services on the side.
Hence, restricting the POS of codeshare fares on the Australian side to provide to their 'domestic' customers wanting to fly overseas.

Had there been some passenger support under the previous (although chaotic and probably likely financially unstable) ownership structure and various former JVs (i.e EY, DL, SQ, etc). Purchasing a VA codeshare on their partners from the other end may be still possible online today.

VA has plenty of great international partners to get you to & from most parts of the world, other than South America.

They could easily improve their VA Marketed flights. And what I believe FlyingKangaroos point was
Just start offering flights beginning from other countries as codeshare on the VA website, like most airlines do. It really can't be that hard. They do it with Velocity Points (rewards flights), just not cash (customer paid for) flights.
But yes, I don't see that changing at all.

 

[clarkkent]

If you are referring to the 50% requirement on a VA "marketed" flight, it is relatively easy to get flights with VA flight numbers. You can book with any of their partners on the partner's website (or VA website), generally speaking (some caveats), as long as it's a flight also sold on the VA website, and you enter your Velocity number, most of the time you'll be fine. In other words, a flight sold as a cash fare on the VA site usually also has a VA flight number; it doesn't need to be VA metal (that's mostly irrelevant). E.g., I booked Air Canada, Sydney to Vancouver return on the Air Canada website in Economy, entered my Velocity number, and this counts as a VA marketed flight (as long as it's a fare class VA sells - e.g., don't book a cash premium economy fare - needs to be economy or business).
Note, if booking with Air New Zealand, make sure you book via the VA website only (slightly different arrangement), and it's not on a competing route with VA (Queenstown - ACCC requirement), and departing and returning to Australia flights only.
If you booked on the Qatar website to say London, all flights Australia - DOH have a VA flight number (not just wet-leased), then the second leg would still earn status but count towards the other 50%, which is still important. Not sure about others, but the 50% marketed flights requirement hasn't impacted me at all. What have others found? Genuinely interested.

Interesting, I haven't noticed this when booking SQ flights on the SQ site. I thought a marketed flight had to be booked on the VA code, not merely that the codeshare exists. Is there a different deal with Air Canada?