Virgin Australia partner reward availability continues to worsen...

[greenfish]

I noticed recently that there were a number of reward seats available on the Etihad site which were not available on either the VA site or through the contact centre.

I've monitored these flights for a while (2 or 3 weeks) and they've never found their way to VA, despite still being available on the EY site.

Anyway I thought I'd find another way home - and quickly found some rewards seats on the Virgin Atlantic site from LHR to PVG. Unfortunately, these once again cannot be booked on the VA site or through the contact centre.

Very disappointing..... the scissors are hovering over my collection of VA credit cards

 

[theblank]

I have been struggling to get seats to UK and back in July same sort of thing. But in my case the Etihad availability suddely all disappeared, and that reflected on VA.

Eventually I found it possible to book BKK-AUH then AUH-DUB as two seperate bookings on Velocity, despite Etihad making them available straight through.
I rang the call centre and the girl reckonded she could not do it but I persisted and she eventually booked my on BKK-AUH-DUB as a single ticket.
She used the terms 'build the itinerary' and 'force it' and 'see if it takes" because the leg wasnt auatomatically available and it worked. Then for giggles i got her to book me DUB-AUH-CGK coming back. Both were only $20 in taxes too!

As its turned out, after all that booking Etihad has made all the reward seats from AU to UK available again - DOH! anyhow, I decided stopovers in AUH suck, so stick with my one night in bangkok plan.


Now i have same problem getting from here to BKK., the exact flight I want, doesnt have a reward seat available on VA, but SQ have it.
This time I couldnt social engineer the VA nice lady to try and book it for me.

 

[PLANT]

So if flight is available on Etihad you can use velocity points on that site(same rate?) Or do you need to ring Virgin to find the Etihad reward booking that does not appear on VA site?

 

[theblank]

So if flight is available on Etihad you can use velocity points on that site(same rate?) Or do you need to ring Virgin to find the Etihad reward booking that does not appear on VA site?

you would need to ring VA and beg. Expect to get scripted responses. counter those first by saying you have done it before. ask them to check. press buttons, beg some more.
riing back an try again

My results vary.

 

[greenfish]

So if flight is available on Etihad you can use velocity points on that site(same rate?) Or do you need to ring Virgin to find the Etihad reward booking that does not appear on VA site?

Unfortunately no points transfer options to EY - unlike SQ. No choice but to go through Virgin. In the past Virgin Australia availability has closely mirrored Virgin Atlantic and Etihad's availability. But sadly, no more....

 

[greenfish]

you would need to ring VA and beg. Expect to get scripted responses. counter those first by saying you have done it before. ask them to check. press buttons, beg some more.
riing back an try again

My results vary.

You've done well - I've called 5 times now, same result Hopeless! And that's as VA Platinum.

 

[djchuckles]

You've done well - I've called 5 times now, same result Hopeless! And that's as VA Platinum.

Same experience. I did manage to get LHR to BNE on F eventually but only by booking two seperate seats, meaning using about 25k more points than the single ticket at 187,500 would have been. Will try my chance at emailing in to get the 25k refunded but don't hold much hope

 

[djchuckles]

Unfortunately no points transfer options to EY - unlike SQ. No choice but to go through Virgin. In the past Virgin Australia availability has closely mirrored Virgin Atlantic and Etihad's availability. But sadly, no more....

You can use Virgin Atlantic points on Etihad!?