Hrm, so fiddling with this one.. there seems to be a reasonable selection of premium awards on EY available, though I think they've got a little tweaking to do yet:
- The 'tabs' at the top of each day showing the cheapest reward available sometimes shows figures that don't match up with reality (Looking at GVA-MEL, it tells me that I can select a flight on the 18th of Jan from 143700 + $43 .. but nothing is available for me to select)
- F reward flights (not any seat) seem to have some strange things going on with availability .. I've seen awards be available at stupid prices, disappear on a second search and then reappear at the normal price on the third search. It would seem selecting a one way award vs. a return award affects this in some way..
- Also, I'm struggling to find F rewards coming back in to MEL..
- Annoyingly, it would appear that if you're selecting an EY redemption at the "reward" level, you can't have VA or DJ sectors in the booking.
- Also annoyingly, it seems I can only get a redemption involving VA29/30 if I'm looking for SYD-AUH-SYD.
Availability appears to be better than QF, on first glance, especially for European ports other than LHR .. (one of the extraordinarily irritating features of the QF Awards site is that it will show availability in Business, even if only one of the sectors is in Business with the rest is in Economy).
For more easily comparable routes (SYD-LHR), the points cost is very similar - if slightly cheaper with Velocity. Random examples for SYD-LHR in February next year (out on the 7th, back on the 14th):
Velocity Rewards
SYD-AUH-LHR in J, 125000 + $73
LHR-AUH-SYD in J, 125000 + $359
Total: 250000 + $432
SYD-AUH-LHR in F, 187500 + $73
LHR-AUH-SYD in F, 180800 + $359
Total: 368600 + $432
Qantas Frequent Flyer
SYD-BKK-LHR in J
LHR-SIN-MEL-SYD in J
Total: 256000 + ??
SYD-BKK-LHR in F
LHR-BKK-SYD in F
Total: 384000 + ??
I don't have enough points with QF, so I can't see what the taxes come to to see how they compare to VA.
