Article: Virgin Business Class Better Value than Qantas in 2022?

[jakeseven7]

Well I have to disagree there - twice in the last few weeks I have had my flights changed from a J booked 737 to a bloody Fokker.

Fokkkkkkk!

But we can blame Qantas - they are part owners of Alliance that still operates some routes for VA2

 

[cbourl]

Recently ADL-MEL-SYD in Virgin Business, and return Qantas SYD-ADL in Business
Virgin were good on ground, great in lounges ADL and MEL and fantastic on board ADL-MEL and MEL-SYD sectors
Return Qantas flight was just passable with poor Business checkin (3 counters open, with 2 counters with staff playing on their phones and not acknowledging me, the 1 person in the queue
Business lounge in SYD domestic passable only because they continue to retain self service (unlike PER, BNE) alcohol but poor food choices. Onboard just passable -form a half full cabin the day before to a suddenly ful lcabin on te day of travel -and judging from the uniforms and constant conversations between the attendants and the seated passengers, half the cabin was Qantas staff, either on or off duty. Flight attendants interested in these passengers rather than paying passengers. Personally, I paid ful lfare ADL-MEL-SYD in Business on Virgin, and used American AAdvantage points for the Qantas flight (because I have a few hundred thousand AA miles Id like to burn, and because taxes much lower on AA). I'd say from this trip, and similar trips to Perth and Brisbane late last year from Adelaide in Virgin Australia Business one way and Qantas Business to return, Virgin definitely have the edge in terms of product, comfort, service and also attempting to behave in a professional fashion. Its a no-brainer, and until I burn my AA miles on Qantas I wil lstill use Qantas. Forward of that, its Virgin Australia , and lets see what the United Airlines tie up gives us as United 1Ks, Global Services and Platinums.....

 

[cbourl]

Recently ADL-MEL-SYD in Virgin Business, and return Qantas SYD-ADL in Business
Virgin were good on ground, great in lounges ADL and MEL and fantastic on board ADL-MEL and MEL-SYD sectors
Return Qantas flight was just passable with poor Business checkin (3 counters open, with 2 counters with staff playing on their phones and not acknowledging me, the 1 person in the queue
Business lounge in SYD domestic passable only because they continue to retain self service (unlike PER, BNE) alcohol but poor food choices. Onboard just passable -form a half full cabin the day before to a suddenly ful lcabin on te day of travel -and judging from the uniforms and constant conversations between the attendants and the seated passengers, half the cabin was Qantas staff, either on or off duty. Flight attendants interested in these passengers rather than paying passengers. Personally, I paid ful lfare ADL-MEL-SYD in Business on Virgin, and used American AAdvantage points for the Qantas flight (because I have a few hundred thousand AA miles Id like to burn, and because taxes much lower on AA). I'd say from this trip, and similar trips to Perth and Brisbane late last year from Adelaide in Virgin Australia Business one way and Qantas Business to return, Virgin definitely have the edge in terms of product, comfort, service and also attempting to behave in a professional fashion. Its a no-brainer, and until I burn my AA miles on Qantas I wil lstill use Qantas. Forward of that, its Virgin Australia , and lets see what the United Airlines tie up gives us as United 1Ks, Global Services and Platinums.....

In the Weekend Australian yesterday, and article about VA. Seems a new Frequent Flyer program is coming (noting tie up with United, maybe Star Alliance?)
"Next month Virgin will reopen its invitation-only lounge previously known as The Club in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The move will coincide with the launch of a new loyalty program."

 

[Digicola]

In the Weekend Australian yesterday, and article about VA. Seems a new Frequent Flyer program is coming (noting tie up with United, maybe Star Alliance?)
"Next month Virgin will reopen its invitation-only lounge previously known as The Club in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The move will coincide with the launch of a new loyalty program."

I think it just means the introduction of the new VIP tier which will come with « The Club » access

 

[ag4647]

Hopefully it includes UA bookings to count towards the flights required to maintain status.

 

[alexczarn]

Flew QF J (usually a VA J customer) for the first time Sunday BNE-ADL.
Impressions(compared to VA): superior hard product to VA, but that's where it ended. Catering seemed roughly equivalent to the VA offering; however no PDB, and no drink/etc offerings after meal service, I found underwhelming.

 

[AIRwin]

superior hard product to VA

BNE lounge?

 

[alexczarn]

BNE lounge?

plus seat

 

[AIRwin]

Not an April Fool's Day joke:

Virgin Australia has cut the price of one-way Business Class fares, seats from $299 on selected routes*

newsroom.virginaustralia.com

 

[JackMiles]

Not an April Fool's Day joke:

Virgin Australia has cut the price of one-way Business Class fares, seats from $299 on selected routes*

newsroom.virginaustralia.com

You sure?

Cairns <> Perth

$409

If not AFD joke, then surely a typo.

 

[alexczarn]

You sure?

Cairns <> Perth

$409

If not AFD joke, then surely a typo.

yeah that's the LITE fare.

 

[Zanzaid]

You sure?

Cairns <> Perth

$409

If not AFD joke, then surely a typo.

That one might be a typo, but there is some PER <> TSV via BNE flights for $710, which is pretty decent considering it's ~$1000 for PER <> BNE direct.

 

[samas]

Can Confirm the Cairns <> Perth J for $409 is not a joke.

Has been that low for quite some time. I booked during last years DSC promo for travel in October 2021 but ended up postponing to June 2022. Just in the last few weeks the direct flight had been axed through to end of June so I now get the added value of a connection PER-BNE-CNS and back CNS-BNE-PER so now works out to about 740 Status Credits I think it was for close to eight hundred dollars!

Looking at EF it looks like the direct is now axed through to December. Looks like December 16 is first day for it now. Personally I can't see the direct flight ever getting off the ground, but incredible deal that once the direct flight disappears the connection option ends up about the same price for a lite fare....

 

[JackMiles]

That one might be a typo, but there is some PER <> TSV via BNE flights for $710, which is pretty decent considering it's ~$1000 for PER <> BNE direct.

Thats incredible. May I ask which dates you found that fare on? It's actually a route we are looking at booking.

 

[JackMiles]

Can Confirm the Cairns <> Perth J for $409 is not a joke.

Has been that low for quite some time. I booked during last years DSC promo for travel in October 2021 but ended up postponing to June 2022. Just in the last few weeks the direct flight had been axed through to end of June so I now get the added value of a connection PER-BNE-CNS and back CNS-BNE-PER so now works out to about 740 Status Credits I think it was for close to eight hundred dollars!

Looking at EF it looks like the direct is now axed through to December. Looks like December 16 is first day for it now. Personally I can't see the direct flight ever getting off the ground, but incredible deal that once the direct flight disappears the connection option ends up about the same price for a lite fare....

View attachment 274116

Holy moly! That is amazing. The dates I looked at were WAY higher. Never would have guessed that dates near XMAS would be lower. And in fact reduced this much. This is a crazy good fare.

 

[samas]

Thats incredible. May I ask which dates you found that fare on? It's actually a route we are looking at booking.

I just did a random date and found PER-TSV (via SYD) on Sept 7 for $697.80 - exactly the same price as a flex!

 

[Zanzaid]

Thats incredible. May I ask which dates you found that fare on? It's actually a route we are looking at booking.

I did June 9th just for the sake of DSC checking. I think I saw the same on June 16th too. Certainly a few dates around if you're flexible I'd say. Doesn't seem to work going through SYD or MEL though. (Actually maybe it does as per post above, I couldn't find any that cheap at least)

 

[ferntree]

Then again how many QF passengers are stooged before flying, having booked an A330 J only to see aircraft changed to 737.

Very good point. I've been caught out by this bait and switch practice twice this year. (The only reason I was only flying Qantas was to use up my flight credits from 2020: these days whenever there's a choice I go with Virgin, for me it's a no brainer ....)

 

[pangwen]

Flew VA J between BNE-SYD with SWMBO a couple of times this year, and would echo most of the comments above:
- Very good service on the ground and in the air
- Only thing is VA doesn't offer any opportunity to note special dietary requirements/allergies, so there was one flight where none of the meals were suitable. The crew were great in finding snacks that were suitable though!
- They still haven't re-opened the premium entry at BNE or SYD... the security lines were pretty crazy for most of the times we were there, so it would be great if they could get those re-activated
- Priority boarding worked well, priority baggage not so much. Our bags were probably in the middle of the bunch coming out onto the conveyors
- I guess this is a reflection of the popularity of the cheaper fares - we were unable to use the Gold Fly Ahead benefit on *any* of our flights. We wouldn't have been able to for one of the flights as it was the first flight of the day, but we checked in at ~12:45pm for a 6:30pm flight from SYD and were informed that there were no available business seats on the 2pm, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm flights.

 

[Saab34]

Looking at EF it looks like the direct is now axed through to December. Looks like December 16 is first day for it now. Personally I can't see the direct flight ever getting off the ground, but incredible deal that once the direct flight disappears the connection option ends up about the same price for a lite fare....

I think you might be right, Perth market would sway more Bali vs Cairns, sale flights are about the same price, however destination wise Cairns is ten times more costly especially if taking the whole clan.

Perth to Bali on Virgin would be good if made a return. Only a 3.5hr hour flight, surely couldn't be that loss making.