Advice on award seat bookings

[HeavyElectricity]

Hi,

I'm planning on meeting a friend in Sydney over a weekend in late October, and I've never made a reward seat booking - so am looking for some advice on when best to make the booking.

I'll be arriving to Sydney using my AMEX redemption flight (PER-SYD). They're likely to be travelling from Melbourne, but they might end up being elsewhere - and that's why I'm hesitant to book right now. I've never travelled MEL-SYD, so again I'm not familiar with the typical availability here.

I see the change fee (~$30) is actually more than the points+pay option I was planning on using (~7000 points + ~$20), so it seems a bit of a waste to pay for changing the booking if I book too far in advance.

If anyone can provide some advice on the following two questions, I'd be grateful for some insight

1) Can I make a saver award seat booking for another person, even if I'm not travelling with them?

2) The MEL-SYD route currently has a lot of options/capacity - are the saver reward seats typically still available all the way up until the flight, or would I be best making a booking at least x weeks in advance?

Thanks!

 

[burmans]

Which day & time of days are they travelling? If you are flexible you should have no problem waiting, if you want to travel peak hours (particularly on Mon/Fri) get in now.

 

[HeavyElectricity]

Which day & time of days are they travelling? If you are flexible you should have no problem waiting

Thanks for the advice, they're pretty flexible with flight times, so I'll hold off for another few weeks before booking anything then . It will be likely be a Thursday night / Friday flight to Sydney and a Monday flight back to Melbourne, but time of day probably doesn't matter.

 

[andye]

Unless you are looking at a Grand Final weekend or school holidays there is likely to be ample choice of times two weeks out. May be worth keeping an eye out to see if there are any special prices on revenue fares that represent better value than the points cost in the meantime.

VA don't ask you anything about who you are booking for (unlike QF who want a 'relationship' if you are not flying with them)

 

[Cryptarcadian]

VA don't ask you anything about who you are booking for (unlike QF who want a 'relationship' if you are not flying with them)

And it's not an omission either, it's perfectly OK according to their terms and conditions to book for someone else:

15.1.11 A Member may redeem their Points to acquire an Air Reward for a person other than the Member.