Are there issues with searching Partner reward seats on VA currently?

[Madz]

Evening all - wondering if anyone has successfully redeemed a Business Reward Seat on United using VA points? I'm looking for May (I know, probably way too late - but I can hope). Out of interest I've looked months ahead as well and can see nothing. Do they exist?!

 

[ChrisFlyer]

They exist, but you're lucky to find one seat a year. (Literally, that's all I could find for BNE-SFO). If you're looking at flights from Australia, you'd probably have better luck finding an Air Canada seat into Vancouver first... but even then, Premium cabin availability isn't great.

 

[aaronm]

I haven't even seen anything on their US domestic services. Plenty of Y availability but the business reward appears to be a theoretical concept only. Shame as Delta used to have good availability in both cabins.

 

[yoyo]

I can see business reward seats for MEL-SFO available tomorrow and next week. Looks like they release last minute. I changed to a business seat a few days before a few years ago which can work if you can book an alternative that you can cancel last minute.

 

[Phoenix-1]

Can you still see those flights? I see zero availability in any class on any day for MEL-SFO.

 

[yoyo]

Sorry, my bad, I can see them on the United website, I thought they would be available to virgin members also.

 

[Phoenix-1]

They are usually. Just seems to have disappeared in the last day or so.

 

[ruben38]

I'm also looking at these. There was a lot of availability in economy last week, but looking today, seems like zero availability in the next year on United. Would they have been booked out or removed by the airline?

 

[MELso]

Are they showing as Saver awards? I can't see any labelled as 'Saver' which are the ones that are bookable through VA (EDIT - ah, there are I fares available, but not through VA, whose systems don't seem to be talking to UA ATM)...

(Quite a fair bit of Saver availability for MEL-SFO in Y though, particularly towards the end of the year - I fluked a SYD-SFO award on Boxing Day a few days ago, which also shows up as booking class X on UA's site, labelled as a Saver. Fingers crossed for a US-MEL Saver award for mid-January next year...)

 

[Phoenix-1]

It's not just UA. No AC either for SYD-YVR which I've seen plenty of Y for just yesterday.

 

[Madz]

I can see business reward seats for MEL-SFO available tomorrow and next week. Looks like they release last minute. I changed to a business seat a few days before a few years ago which can work if you can book an alternative that you can cancel last minute.

That's great to know. I have booked one I can change so will keep an eye out!

 

[MELso]

It's not just UA. No AC either for SYD-YVR which I've seen plenty of Y for just yesterday.

AC is still showing up for me for domestic flights - e.g. there's heaps of award availability showing on VA for YYZ-YVR in November (even if no availability from Canada to Oz is showing).

It's not like UA where nothing is showing ATM as best I can tell...

 

[Phoenix-1]

I accept that. I still think it's too much of a coincidence that long haul flights for AC have also disappeared.

Anyway it seems some UA flights still exist. SYD-SFO-LHR shows up. EWR-SFO-HND or EWR-ORD-HND shows up...but no direct flights. Searching ORD-HND or SFO-HND instead show flights via EWR. I wonder if it's something about direct flights?

 

[MELso]

Wonder if it's something to do with availability ticking over to 2024 (January 1 being 330 days out)?

Anyway, hopefully it'll be sorted in a few days.

 

[Gianni S]

Having the same issue, up untl yesterday there was plenty availability especially in Y, however i checked yesterday and also this morning and when searching anything to the US just says no availability. I assume a glitch in the system or some kind of update on virgins side has gone wrong causing it.
As someone mentioned above you can find availability to Europe with UA, ironically via US

It not even just UA that no results, its any airline

 

[Spizz]

Agreed. All missing currently on the Virgin site. Must be a bug or issue.

 

[Happy Dude]

Just adding my data point here too. Plenty of availability last week and earlier, and now absolutely nothing on UA. I did see a few June dates for Europe-DOH but they're not there either now.

 

[wendlle]

Glad I have been directed to this thread after starting another one.
I even called them and they couldn't find anything.
Last week I saw plenty of availability and even booked a one way flight to the USA but I wanted to check the return flights today and there is nothing for the entire year showing.

 

[duanemiller]

Hi all. First time poster! I’ve been searching VA’s site twice a day for UA and QR reward seats and about a day ago VA’s site stopped showing any at all (there were plenty of reward seats available). Keep getting “No flights found for your search” and nothing in the calendar for the whole year. Multiple routes.
I’m wondering if there’s a problem with VA loading UA and QR reward seats currently? Anyone else having this problem too? It seems to have started ever since the availability calendar has ticked over to 2024.

 

[wendlle]

yes, I posted a few hours ago, and then was directed to another post about it also.
Seems like something is going wrong. I can't get anything to show for the entire year.