Flights to USA June/July '22 - Velocity Earn on Partner Airlines?

[DonaldD]

My wife is a Velocity Platimum member and we wanting to book flights from Brisbane to the Chicago leaving in June/July, However, as Virgin Australia & United haven't yet announced their arrangement we don't know what to do or where to try booking. Our choices at the moment appear to be to book either through Air Canada (current partner airline) or United Airlines. Air Canada offers a quick flight time but as soon as we try to stopover in Vancouver the price escalates about 2.5 times. With United flights, as they don't fly from Brisbane, the flight to Sydney is operated by either Qantas or Jetstar. Therefore we're unlikely to get any Velocity credits for that part of the journey. Nor can we be sure if the Platinum membership gets us into the departure lounge in Sydney. In fact no one in the Velocity service centre seems to know anything. Does anyone have any suggestions?

An alternative idea was to take advantage of the Luftansa/Swiss RTW airfare but the only agent that seems to be promoting this fare states that unless they have previously booked flights for a customer, they are unable to offer any help. Apparently they have insufficient staff to take on any increased customer volumes. Seems like a strange way to do business!

 

[SYD]

The VA/UA tie up has been announced just not confirmed. Although, UA are advising their FFs that they can earn points etc on VA from 23 May:

United Airlines new Virgin Australia / Velocity Partner

This is what I got from VA on 08 March Thanks. Though email doesn't say anything about the benefits of the UA codeshare partnership that @kandy23 believes they are missing out on.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

It sounds like AC is the better option for you for flight time/min connections anyway (unless you really want to stopover in YVR), but you could take the gamble and see if a TA can book you on VA to SYD and UA to Chicago (via SFO or LAX) on one ticket/booking.

Alternatively, wait a little bit and hopefully the tie up gets Gov approval soon and VA will start marketing/selling that combo directly. They might even have a promo/sale.

 

[Mwenenzi]

My wife is a Velocity Platinum member and we wanting to book flights from Brisbane to the Chicago leaving in June/July, However, as Virgin Australia & United haven't yet announced their arrangement we don't know what to do or where to try booking. Our choices at the moment appear to be to book either through Air Canada (current partner airline) or United Airlines. Air Canada offers a quick flight time but as soon as we try to stopover in Vancouver the price escalates about 2.5 times. With United flights, as they don't fly from Brisbane, the flight to Sydney is operated by either Qantas or Jetstar. Therefore we're unlikely to get any Velocity credits for that part of the journey. Nor can we be sure if the Platinum membership gets us into the departure lounge in Sydney. In fact no one in the Velocity service centre seems to know anything. Does anyone have any suggestions?

An alternative idea was to take advantage of the Luftansa/Swiss RTW airfare but the only agent that seems to be promoting this fare states that unless they have previously booked flights for a customer, they are unable to offer any help. Apparently they have insufficient staff to take on any increased customer volumes. Seems like a strange way to do business!

Booking a flight just to be able to get VA points may not be the best option. Other airlines AU<---->USA may have better schedules and/or prices --> DL, QF, UA, HA, NZ, FJ (AA flights are suspended). Freq flyer points/miles are a by product of travel.

Going to Chicago any trip to USA is going to need a USA domestic or ex CA flight.
But as above, as UA have announced a date, but VA has not, over the next week look at the UA website to see what they offer. In June/July a good chance the VA-UA agreement will be in operation.

 

[SYD]

Booking a flight just to be able to get VA points may not be the best option. Other airlines AU<---->USA may have better schedules and/or prices --> DL, QF, UA, HA, NZ, FJ (AA flights are suspended). Freq flyer points/miles are a by product of travel.

Going to Chicago any trip to USA is going to need a USA domestic or ex CA flight.
But as above, as UA have announced a date, but VA has not, over the next week look at the UA website to see what they offer. In June/July a good chance the VA-UA agreement will be in operation.

The OP has access to VA WP, so there is the added incentive of lounge access if not flying up front of the plane.

 

[SYD]

From today‘s announcement on the VA/QR partnership:

Update on United Airlines

I’m also pleased to confirm that our new partnership with United Airlines will commence in two weeks on Tuesday 24 May 2022. We appreciate your patience as we’ve worked to connect our IT systems over the past few months, and we look forward to sharing detailed information about your benefits shortly.