Best value flight redemption for long haul international

[Dannyism]

Hi All,

I'm looking for some inspiration or thoughts for my next holiday.

I'm a VA gold with 200k points. My review date is august 2016 and I will comfortably get there, so no need to earn SC's. I am thinking about canceling my VA AMEX and flyer card and signing up to NAB for the extra 60k points, so lets say i have 260k.

I can't stand winter in Melbourne and want to get away for 3 or 4 weeks in July with my girlfriend. I like traveling in Asia and Europe, but I haven't been to North America so am considering that.... I'm not desperate to fly business, but I am not opposed to it.

My question(s) are, what is the best value reward seats out there? Is it to fly to Europe with a partner airline booked through the VA website? Or should I look at flying to LAX for the best value?

Can one of us book with points, the other pay and we still sit together/check in together/get lounge access ? Are there ever 'sales' on points redemptions ?

Thanks and I'm interested to here your thoughts...

Danny

 

[ojm]

I'm interested too. Have ~800k points and looking for some ideas! (probably will end up being 2x J to EU).

 

[mooingchicken]

Hi All,

I'm looking for some inspiration or thoughts for my next holiday.

I'm a VA gold with 200k points. My review date is august 2016 and I will comfortably get there, so no need to earn SC's. I am thinking about canceling my VA AMEX and flyer card and signing up to NAB for the extra 60k points, so lets say i have 260k.

I can't stand winter in Melbourne and want to get away for 3 or 4 weeks in July with my girlfriend. I like traveling in Asia and Europe, but I haven't been to North America so am considering that.... I'm not desperate to fly business, but I am not opposed to it.

My question(s) are, what is the best value reward seats out there? Is it to fly to Europe with a partner airline booked through the VA website? Or should I look at flying to LAX for the best value?

Can one of us book with points, the other pay and we still sit together/check in together/get lounge access ? Are there ever 'sales' on points redemptions ?

Thanks and I'm interested to here your thoughts...

Danny

The best value is business class redemption. 260 is enough for one person return to LA (98k in points each way)
You might have enough to get to asia 2x business return. so check out the site for the required points. https://www.velocityfrequentflyer.com/content/Redeem/Airlines/PointsTables/
However the issue is your booking time. July is middle of school holidays, and these seats are always grabbed as soon as they are released. (355 days out).

Booking with points and pay you can do everything as per a normal ticket, check in lounge access all that.

There are sales on points redemptions like 15% off bookings etc, but these are really only once or twice a year, and no good to you if the seats aren't available to book. so really best off booking as soon as they seats open up of when you want to fly

 

[juliusg]

You can also search KrisFlyer, (join online if not already a member) and transfer VA points there for immediate redemptions. One VA is worth 0.7 Kris (from memory). Singapore seem to have a lot of redemption seats.

 

[Dannyism]

Let me have a go at answering my own question using dollars per point to common destinations.

All of these are Y, specifically economy saver, return, per person. I've used July 6 to July 27 on the VA website to find flights.


MEL - LAX $1054.68 / 122400 points = 0.0086167 $/P

MEL - BKK $963.01 / 96600 points = 0.0099690 $/P

MEL - ATH $2757.52 / 135100 points = 0.020411 $/P

Now MEL to ATH isn't a typo, at the point I recalled that I've never actually booked an international flight through virgin because they are scam artists... So I went to skyscanner and searched the same destinations and the same dates, taking the lowest of Virgin, ANZ, Etihad, Delta or Singapore and redid the calcs using the points values from the virgin website.

MEL - LAX (Delta) $957 / 122400 points = 0.0078186 $/P

MEL - BKK (SG) $874 / 96600 points = 0.0090476 $/P

MEL - ATH (SG) $2215 / 135100 points = 0.0163952 $/P

Now Athens is still bugging me, so I'm going to find the cheapest place in EU to fly to... London $2070(SG), Paris $1920(SG), Amsterdam $1987(SG), Istanbul $1769(SG)

Searching for flights to IST broke the VA website... so..

MEL - CDG $1920 / 152700 points = 0.0125737 $/P (note that the $ flight is Singapore and the P flights is Etihad)

Perhaps lack of Singapore airlines points flights via VA website is inflating the value of points flights to Europe...

I guess it's not fair to compare Asia which is off season to NA or EU which are on season also..

I may be more confused now than when I started..

 

[Dannyism]

However the issue is your booking time. July is middle of school holidays, and these seats are always grabbed as soon as they are released. (355 days out).

Thanks for your reply, that's a good point. I'll have a look at June instead.

 

[Dannyism]

You can also search KrisFlyer, (join online if not already a member) and transfer VA points there for immediate redemptions. One VA is worth 0.7 Kris (from memory). Singapore seem to have a lot of redemption seats.

Thanks for your reply.

If I book with points through Krisflyer.. Can I still give me VAFF number and enjoy lounge, priority etc. ?

 

[mooingchicken]

Thanks for your reply.

If I book with points through Krisflyer.. Can I still give me VAFF number and enjoy lounge, priority etc. ?

You can book SQ flights through VA by calling aswell, some flights are better booking through VA, others are better with converting the points to SQ then booking.

Yes, all status still stands. lounge at sin is the Kris Gold lounge (no showers, but its fine)

Also remember that the points you also have to pay taxes. You can find these amounts by doing dummy bookings. If you transfered your points to SQ the taxes are higher then is you booked a SQ flight through VA, so allow for this when comparing

 

[rtyuiop]

If you can get it (call centre issues and seat availablity can both make this a challenge) and want to spend a long time in comfort in the air for your points, Etihad F from the US back to Australia is probably pretty good in terms of points/dollar. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it over a more direct flight home via VA, but if VA doesn't have availability it sure is an experience!

 

[Dannyism]

Has anyone had any success with points for one person, pay for another, then the itineraries combined, or at least like able to sit next to each other?

I know this is something I've had luck with by asking at check in, but never formally had it approved.

 

[andye]

Have regularly done this by calling to have PNRs linked and to request adjacent seats. Will give the seating plan for higher status eg row3 for WP in my experience. Doesnt always stick so need to check at desk too

 

[get me outta here]

I couldn't find a specific thread, so risking ire by asking here what is the chance of booking to HNL w' Velocity points J especially?

 

[tyler21]

Can members advise if there is an opportunity to use velocity points to book a RTW trip that is similar to the Qantas Oneworld option for 280k points in J?

 

[rtyuiop]

Can members advise if there is an opportunity to use velocity points to book a RTW trip that is similar to the Qantas Oneworld option for 280k points in J?

Only way I can think of is to transfer points to SQ and book a star alliance RTW. Probably works out to be OK value if you use plenty of stops, but worth checking if you are better off making individual redemptions on a mix of VA points and points-transferred-to-SQ, you'll get more availabilty options that way.

 

[Fiches Mouser]

Can members advise if there is an opportunity to use velocity points to book a RTW trip that is similar to the Qantas Oneworld option for 280k points in J?

Yep, as rtyuiop said, the only way is Star Alliance.

It appears VA does have a paid option though: https://www.velocityfrequentflyer.c...WorldandCirclePacificFaresTermsandConditions/

 

[tyler21]

Thanks guys for advising, wasn't aware star alliance offered a similar RTW option so certainly will review this with a mixture of SQ and VA points.

 

[Mattg]

I couldn't find a specific thread, so risking ire by asking here what is the chance of booking to HNL w' Velocity points J especially?

Very unlikely, I believe. I don't think HA release too many J seats on the Oz-HNL routes.

 

[Quickstatus]

Has anyone had any success with points for one person, pay for another, then the itineraries combined, or at least like able to sit next to each other?

I know this is something I've had luck with by asking at check in, but never formally had it approved.

2 people can be on separate tickets. The tickets cannot be combined( as in turned into one ticket), but notes can be put into the ticket by the airline to say "so and so are travelling together" Some would say this is "linked" but only in so far as there are notes saying one passenger is related to another.

So when you get two separate tickets ring airline and say "Can you please note in Passenger A ticket that passenger A is travelling with passenger B" and then hang up and ring again and say "Can you please note in Passenger B ticket that passenger B is travelling with passenger A". You will need the booking reference of both tickets.

Always select seat as part of getting a ticket. Dont wait till later.
Always buy (even if separate tickets for 2 people) while logged into the Frequent flyer account of the highest status member.

 

[Dannyism]

FWIW I booked an economy seat MEL-LAX return for 90k points, leaving me with 130k left. I know it's poor value, but I figure I'd rather fly twice in Y than once in J... I'm sure that will change as I get older! Oh and my girlfriend paid $ and the booking centre didn't join the itineraries but seated her next to me.

 

[mlob]

I couldn't find a specific thread, so risking ire by asking here what is the chance of booking to HNL w' Velocity points J especially?

I can't report on J. I think I have read somewhere on here that they only release one seat but I recently had excellent availability for Y seats. We are a family of 4 and I was looking in April 21016 school holidays. I was quite happily impressed.