VA Reward Seats - when is availability decided?

[theevilmuppet]

Hi all,

As a follow-up to an earlier question of mine, I was looking at Reward Seat availability for a few destinations in the Dec/2015 - Feb/2016 period and found that there is almost no availability for a number of destinations. This was the case for both VA-operated flights and various codeshare options with SQ, EY and others.

This leads me to two questions:

• Is there a generally known period for which Reward Seats become available for a flight (3 months prior, 6 months prior etc)?
• Are there any general rules of thumb for redemption of codeshare Reward Seats for the various partners that differ from VA-operated flights?

Thanks to all who reply

 

[mooingchicken]

Hi all,

As a follow-up to an earlier question of mine, I was looking at Reward Seat availability for a few destinations in the Dec/2015 - Feb/2016 period and found that there is almost no availability for a number of destinations. This was the case for both VA-operated flights and various codeshare options with SQ, EY and others.

This leads me to two questions:

• Is there a generally known period for which Reward Seats become available for a flight (3 months prior, 6 months prior etc)?
• Are there any general rules of thumb for redemption of codeshare Reward Seats for the various partners that differ from VA-operated flights?

Thanks to all who reply

Reward seats are released 330 (?) days prior to travel (90% sure that for VA maybe 335 or something like that). so for busy travel periods ie, Dec etc, generally get booked the day the get released. but they can come and go if they release more/people cancel.

Partner awards are pretty bad with booking online, it seems like its a lot easier to ring and check availability for these (fees are waved if you cant book online)
If you really want to travel these days maybe look at a possible transfer to SQ and then can book with them or any *A but you do lose points in the transfer. so check availability first before transferring obviously

 

[theevilmuppet]

Reward seats are released 330 (?) days prior to travel (90% sure that for VA maybe 335 or something like that). so for busy travel periods ie, Dec etc, generally get booked the day the get released. but they can come and go if they release more/people cancel.

Partner awards are pretty bad with booking online, it seems like its a lot easier to ring and check availability for these (fees are waved if you cant book online)
If you really want to travel these days maybe look at a possible transfer to SQ and then can book with them or any *A but you do lose points in the transfer. so check availability first before transferring obviously

Many thanks for the information. You officially win an internet or 3.

Given the awards won by Velocity being often focusing on redemption I think many would agree that the provided tools for securing said redemption are quite lacking.

I would prefer to provide my desired itinerary and see availability as opposed to clicking through dates in the hope of snagging reward seats.

 

[jneufeld]

All flights go on sale 331 days prior