Dear Australian Frequent Flyers and loyal Velocity members

[Fifa]

Some great points have been raised by everyone.

Why are we unable to check our bags through to an international destination when the flights are booked on two different PNRs?

 

[legalistic]

Rep,

Shout us to a lunch at Rockpool and all will be forgiven

 

[oz_mark]

Rep,

Shout us to a lunch at Rockpool and all will be forgiven

Even Glass would do

 

[LiamR]

Rep,

Shout us to a lunch at Rockpool and all will be forgiven

In all serious, some sort of focus group/casual lounge would be a lovely idea!

 

[Hvr]

Even Glass would do

Maybe a plastic bottle of soft drink between the three selectees (mods allowed to enter).

 

[JessicaTam]

Welcome back VFF. Hopefully the pro-activeness will remain. I am a pretty rusted on QF flyer, and the Sabre debacle hasn't made choosing VA any easier. Hopefully the improvements will continue so I can choose a competitor, not just an alternative.

 

[medhead]

I cannot believe the number of people who were not aware of the situation with connecting flights instead of direct flights. Qantas do this, and it is standard practice to price a connecting fare at more than a direct fare. The only real exceptions are when there aren't direct flights or I guess in certain circumstances. An example that jumps to mind with QF is BNE-ADL. The connecting flights used to cost the same as direct, I guess because of the limited direct options. That changed a few years ago, with the fare rules for connections no longer being allowed at the same price as direct flights.

I am also amazed at some of the suggestions here that, for example, MEL-CBR-SYD should be the same price as MEL-SYD. We all want something for nothing, well sorry but welcome to the big bad world.

 

[doctork]

@VelocityFrequentFlyer: Spent half an hour in the Gold Coast lounge two weeks ago and was very happy with the service, the staff, food, drink and layout.
Well worth the use of one of my two Silver level passes. Lounge access is now a good reason for me to try to move enough travel across to VA to get Gold. But that trip SYD-OOL-SYD has yet to post to Velocity Rewards. Is there a reason why VA flights don't show up in Velocity for 14 days? It's one of the annoying things about the VA/Velocity Rewards split sites. Is there a plan to have prompter points/status posting?

 

[RooFlyer]

I cannot believe the number of people who were not aware of the situation with connecting flights instead of direct flights. Qantas do this, and it is standard practice to price a connecting fare at more than a direct fare. The only real exceptions are when there aren't direct flights or I guess in certain circumstances. An example that jumps to mind with QF is BNE-ADL. The connecting flights used to cost the same as direct, I guess because of the limited direct options. That changed a few years ago, with the fare rules for connections no longer being allowed at the same price as direct flights.

I am also amazed at some of the suggestions here that, for example, MEL-CBR-SYD should be the same price as MEL-SYD. We all want something for nothing, well sorry but welcome to the big bad world.

I believe the issue arose in post #54 by VFF where it was implied that a connecting flight being double the cost of a direct flight was 'pretty standard practice' (rather than merely being 'more').

Whilst I recognise it costs more to deploy 2 flights A-B-C over one A-C, I'm still not keen on it being seen as 'standard' that for example MEL-SYD-BNE alternative will cost me double MEL-BNE.

 

[wallacej]

@VelocityFrequentFlyer: Spent half an hour in the Gold Coast lounge two weeks ago and was very happy with the service, the staff, food, drink and layout.
Well worth the use of one of my two Silver level passes. Lounge access is now a good reason for me to try to move enough travel across to VA to get Gold. But that trip SYD-OOL-SYD has yet to post to Velocity Rewards. Is there a reason why VA flights don't show up in Velocity for 14 days? It's one of the annoying things about the VA/Velocity Rewards split sites. Is there a plan to have prompter points/status posting?

Interesting. My points have been posting within 24-48 hours lately, even over this Easter period. The last 8 flights in the past four weeks have all posted that quickly.

 

[oz_mark]

I believe the issue arose in post #54 by VFF where it was implied that a connecting flight being double the cost of a direct flight was 'pretty standard practice' (rather than merely being 'more').

Whilst I recognise it costs more to deploy 2 flights A-B-C over one A-C, I'm still not keen on it being seen as 'standard' that for example MEL-SYD-BNE alternative will cost me double MEL-BNE.

Compare it to other airlines then. It's pretty close to how Qantas would price it these days...

 

[RooFlyer]

Compare it to other airlines then. It's pretty close to how Qantas would price it these days...

Just had a look. For QF MEL/BNE 17 April 7am departure :

Red edeal : Flexi Saver : Fully Flexible : Business

171 : 340 : 771 : 1000

for MEL/SYD/BNE

434 : 552 : 1089 : 1329

At other times there are no equivalent departure times. The difference is more than I thought for the economy fares, but for J about what I've noticed previously. But as we know, prices swing throughout the day and the gap probably will open out depending on demand.

 

[Gremlin]

Interesting. My points have been posting within 24-48 hours lately, even over this Easter period. The last 8 flights in the past four weeks have all posted that quickly.

I've found my post-Sabre bookings to have credited promptly but pre-Sabre bookings still dragging the chain when it comes to posting.

 

[Jurahn]

Answering your questions:

Hi Doc, yes there is a plan to allow seat selection online between booking and check in. Sabre wasn’t able to support this functionality at cutover, however we are working with the Sabre team on a solution. We know that the current setup isn't perfect, but know that we are working towards giving as much flexibility as possible to our members to choose their favourite seat!

Hi VFF

Just (yet) another query re seat selection. I know a number of people have been having problems with seat selection, i.e. being able to select a seat during booking but then receiving a "seating cannot be confirmed" message or similar. When I recently booked flights in J for PER-LAX return for later this year, I was able to select seats for the international sectors, but not for the domestic ones (PER-MEL, MEL-PER) - there was no error message at any stage, there was no seat map shown at all, just the message "Seat selection is unavailable for this flight. Seats will be allocated at check-in". Of course OLCI is not offered for these flights, so I cannot select seats then, and will need to ring the GCC to put in a seat request. Is this maybe a Sabre "blip" due to the domestic sectors being part of an international itinerary? I was a bit disappointed in a way, as this is my first time flying J (and shelling out the hard-earned in order to do so!), and was looking forward to perusing the J seat map and picking a seat!

 

[medhead]

I believe the issue arose in post #54 by VFF where it was implied that a connecting flight being double the cost of a direct flight was 'pretty standard practice' (rather than merely being 'more').

Whilst I recognise it costs more to deploy 2 flights A-B-C over one A-C, I'm still not keen on it being seen as 'standard' that for example MEL-SYD-BNE alternative will cost me double MEL-BNE.

It really depends on the route. I think it is unreasonable on the golden triangle to expect such a great benefit. Certainly it is standard practice for connections as you suggest to be more expensive, I don't know if it is double or just the sum of 2 direct flights on the route. But for something like MEL-TSV, they are clearly going to have to do something about the pricing. And probably refine the pricing on golden triangle flights as well.

 

[bcworld]

I've found my post-Sabre bookings to have credited promptly but pre-Sabre bookings still dragging the chain when it comes to posting.

MEL-ADL-DPS booked in Feb, flown 23/3. No sign of any points yet. I really struggle to understand how points for VA flights can't post to VA's FFP in this timeframe - how is it not automatic? What sort of manual intervention is required?

 

[smit0847]

Answering your questions:

1. Where we had “journey” fares before, we have now implemented pricing based on sum of sectors especially where a direct flight also operates. With your particular example, we simply want to encourage people to fly direct MEL-OOL rather than connect hence the cheaper fare on the direct flight. This is a pretty standard industry practice.

Sorry, MEL-OOL was probably a bad example.

Let's take MEL-CNS. I believe there is usually only 1 direct flight per day. I've flown both direct and MEL-BNE-CNS on VA pre-Sabre before. From memory the via Brisbane was only slightly more than the cost of the direct (25% or so), not double.

Just looking at a random date (6 months out) for this route on the QF website, yes their direct flight is the cheapest. But their flights connecting through SYD and BNE are only slightly more expensive in all classes (20% more, not 100%).

I fully understand you wanting pax to take the direct route where possible (MEL-ADL via SYD is just ridiculous) but Im more interested in those route where there is only 1 direct flight per day and the connecting flights simply stop off somewhere logically on the way. Of course pax should be charged more where they connect rather than go direct as there are obviously higher costs for you, my question is whether charging them double is the correct amount as surely no-one would ever pay double and hence my original question why sell them if no-one is going to buy them. I would have thought 25 - 50% would be far more reasonable than 100%.

 

[oz_mark]

Just had a look. For QF MEL/BNE 17 April 7am departure :

Red edeal : Flexi Saver : Fully Flexible : Business

171 : 340 : 771 : 1000

for MEL/SYD/BNE

434 : 552 : 1089 : 1329

At other times there are no equivalent departure times. The difference is more than I thought for the economy fares, but for J about what I've noticed previously. But as we know, prices swing throughout the day and the gap probably will open out depending on demand.

It has passed quietly by, but Qantas seem to have been removing the routings that allow connections for little extra than going direct. You certainly used to be able to do it though.....

 

[Fruitcake]

Let's take MEL-CNS. I believe there is usually only 1 direct flight per day. I've flown both direct and MEL-BNE-CNS on VA pre-Sabre before. From memory the via Brisbane was only slightly more than the cost of the direct (25% or so), not double.

Just looking at a random date (6 months out) for this route on the QF website, yes their direct flight is the cheapest. But their flights connecting through SYD and BNE are only slightly more expensive in all classes (20% more, not 100%).

For dates in November, MEL-CNS is $229 for a Saver on VA, whilst MEL-SYD-CNS is $264. So a 15% premium for the connecting service. For a Flexi fare the connecting service is at a 16% premium ($349 direct, $405 connecting).

The "sum of parts" fare (ie MEL-SYD + SYD-CNS) is $334 for the Saver and $588 for the flexi.

There are a few connecting services where pricing is more punitive, ie 30% premiums for the connecting services. But these tend to be either flights which don't make sense relative to the direct service (ie depart before the direct service but arrive after it), have additional stops (ie MEL-BNE-TSV-CNS) or depart in the late afternoon, which I guess is a more desirable time for departure.

I certainly did notice that just after Sabre cutover pricing was very close to the "sum of parts" fare on all routes. So some sanity is returning.

 

[williamsf1]

Sorry, MEL-OOL was probably a bad example.

Let's take MEL-CNS. I believe there is usually only 1 direct flight per day. I've flown both direct and MEL-BNE-CNS on VA pre-Sabre before. From memory the via Brisbane was only slightly more than the cost of the direct (25% or so), not double.

Just looking at a random date (6 months out) for this route on the QF website, yes their direct flight is the cheapest. But their flights connecting through SYD and BNE are only slightly more expensive in all classes (20% more, not 100%).

I fully understand you wanting pax to take the direct route where possible (MEL-ADL via SYD is just ridiculous) but Im more interested in those route where there is only 1 direct flight per day and the connecting flights simply stop off somewhere logically on the way. Of course pax should be charged more where they connect rather than go direct as there are obviously higher costs for you, my question is whether charging them double is the correct amount as surely no-one would ever pay double and hence my original question why sell them if no-one is going to buy them. I would have thought 25 - 50% would be far more reasonable than 100%.

What date were you looking at MEL CNS?

Lets take the 15th OCT 13 as a example.


QF - 1 direct flight $256

JQ - 2 direct flights $206

VA- 1 Direct flight $229 ( using a saver fare as bag and meal incl - meals over 2h45 on VA)

VIA point flights

QF- Via SYD cheapest $301

VA - Via SYD $264 ( used saver fare as bag included - however no meal as both flights under 2.45hrs)

JQ - no option