Is International Virgin Reward availability now worse that QANTAS?

[Edge]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

This is the first year I've been unable to burn points for an international business class flight. For some time I've searched October (this year); January and May/June next year. Zero.

Eventually I converted 550,000 points to Kris and used them to subsidise a ticket. I got about $4,000 off, poor value considering last year I redeemed about 200,000 points for an Etihad business ticket Sydney > Frankfurt return. Prior that I almost always found a Sydney > LA J seat sometime around my preferred dates, searching a long way out.

Note there are redemption's generally available but for stupidly high points - I'm talking about traditional 'affordable' redemption's in this post.

Redeeming for J tickets is what I value, now I have little incentive to stay with Virgin Australia. Anyone have opinions on this?

Have you tried any other destination cities? I just did a quick check SYD-MUC on May 11th and found a number of fares available for 139,000 points + $643 on the Virgin website, flying Etihad. Note I searched only for 1 seat.

 

[juliusg]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

Have you tried any other destination cities? I just did a quick check SYD-MUC on May 11th and found a number of fares available for 139,000 points + $643 on the Virgin website, flying Etihad. Note I searched only for 1 seat.

Tried LHR and Frankfurt, not MUC. My point is the program seems way tighter, ironically after a slice of Velocity was sold to a fund.

 

[Edge]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

Tried LHR and Frankfurt, not MUC. My point is the program seems way tighter, ironically after a slice of Velocity was sold to a fund.

I just changed my search to SYD-LHR on the 11th of May and can see a number of options from EY for 139k points or SQ for 154k points (and only $104 surcharge) but 3 stops - VA flight to BNE first.

 

[RAM]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

The seats are there and released as the clock ticks over.

However, just like many many people who have taken advantage of 100,000 VFF point sign-on offers - there is a lot of demand.

I really decided to push my luck and waited until the last day before the EY scalping began to book a 2x one-way SYD/MUC in J on EY.

Checked each day in the preceding days to find out when the seats would most likely be released...

And sure enough on the day there were 6 or 7 options available for me to get there.

Moral of the story - have a little flexibility and do some prep work to get an idea how the system works. There are a number of stories around on how to go about searching for seats (say using Krisflyer if you want to go on SQ and then try VFF online before calling VFF if they don't show up).

Good luck.

Now to work out how First class from Europe to SYD redemptions for SQ work - guidance appreciated...

 

[ozjuice]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

This is the first year I've been unable to burn points for an international business class flight. For some time I've searched October (this year); January and May/June next year. Zero.

Eventually I converted 550,000 points to Kris and used them to subsidise a ticket. I got about $4,000 off, poor value considering last year I redeemed about 200,000 points for an Etihad business ticket Sydney > Frankfurt return. Prior that I almost always found a Sydney > LA J seat sometime around my preferred dates, searching a long way out.

Note there are redemption's generally available but for stupidly high points - I'm talking about traditional 'affordable' redemption's in this post.

Redeeming for J tickets is what I value, now I have little incentive to stay with Virgin Australia. Anyone have opinions on this?

BNE to LAX May 2017.....There's heaps of availability.

 

[serfty]

There's plenty of midweek single Z availabilty transpacific 42 weeks out.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

Ive had no issues redeeming for several J trips to various places. Guess you're not being flexible enough

 

[CJEMNMAC]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

I have the opposite problem

I just cannot generate points fast enough to keep up with the redemptions

 

[clipped_wings]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

I am wondering if The Business retrofit has much to do with things. Maybe there are enough revenue pax buying up seats over the coming months, therefore negating the need to offer Reward Seat Availability for the time being.

 

[serfty]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

FWIW - There are a couple more seats in the J cabin after the refurb ... whether enough to override popularity I can't say.

 

[pazz0102]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

Seems like there is a system issue as I'm looking for flights to Europe which were available a couple of days ago, and now not available!

 

[RAM]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

The seats are there and released as the clock ticks over.

However, just like many many people who have taken advantage of 100,000 VFF point sign-on offers - there is a lot of demand.

I really decided to push my luck and waited until the last day before the EY scalping began to book a 2x one-way SYD/MUC in J on EY.

Checked each day in the preceding days to find out when the seats would most likely be released...

And sure enough on the day there were 6 or 7 options available for me to get there.

Moral of the story - have a little flexibility and do some prep work to get an idea how the system works. There are a number of stories around on how to go about searching for seats (say using Krisflyer if you want to go on SQ and then try VFF online before calling VFF if they don't show up).

Good luck.

Now to work out how First class from Europe to SYD redemptions for SQ work - guidance appreciated...

So Velocity rep did not know what she was talking about yesterday. First class redemptions have to be done via Krisflyer by transferring your points (painless process) to a (newly) set-up Krisflyer account. Much more user friendly - tick a box to allow person X to access/manage everyone else's account vs "Fill out this form and mail or fax it back = VFF".

Kudos to Pointshack for setting me straight so quickly.

FWIW there are simply dozens of SQ A380 1st flights from Europe available for May/June next year. Over a 2 week period through to June 24, 2017 leaving from CDG to SYD there were well over 20 x one pair of redemptions available (so 40 seats).

2 x 1st suites booked. Better make sure to have the charger on the flights to allow sufficient photos for TR!

Did not look at US (as not the plan) but if there is not enough availability then how about this...

You do a SYD/JFK Rtn redemption flying SIA. Costs around 6,000 points (in First) or so more than a Europe ow or rtn. If booked as a return then you get a 'free' stopover along the way. Extra cost for a J/Y rtn should be similar BUT much more attractive as it can be booked via VFF which has much lower fees than if you do it as a Krisflyer redemption.

I don't think I am leading you astray.

So that means you can fly to the States and either throw in a stopover in Germany (for example) or Singapore.

 

[RAM]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

Seems like there is a system issue as I'm looking for flights to Europe which were available a couple of days ago, and now not available!

What system are you using to look? Velocity, Etihad or Krisflyer?

 

[pazz0102]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

Velocity - Business Class.

Seems like only VA is showing on redemption and not EY, even though it is available on the cheapest option on the Guest Miles!

 

[RAM]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

Velocity - Business Class.

Seems like only VA is showing on redemption and not EY, even though it is available on the cheapest option on the Guest Miles!

Go to the EY Guest, find out what J cheap guest award seats they have on the day/s you want. Screen print it (ctl printscreen), open a word new file, then 'paste' - save the file.

Call VFF (once you have checked to see not shown by now on VFF) and explain the seats are shown on EY's system. They then have a look and normally find them.

If they cannot see them then offer to email the screenshot to prove it.

Should work!

Good luck.

 

[RTH]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

Below I had posted in the thread "Etihad redemption seats not consistently available through VA?", but with update

---
Noticed the following when looking to change some award flights one economy and one business, was checking availability on Virgin site along with Etihad guest.
Anyone else found what I’d call blackout days on VA site for EY redemption?


Sydney to Frankfurt Economy Apr-17
On the Virgin site (I dummy check every date across a couple months) no availability would show up for Fri/Sat flights and the odd Thursday even though on EY site it would show 5+ seats available, however calling the call centre they could see and book Fri/Sat flight, i.e. when I changed my flight I booked a Friday departure than wasn’t showing availability on VA site.


Zurich to Sydney business class
Same as above but this time blackout days Fri (some), Sat-Mon, but Tue-Thu available (Once again the Fri, Sat-Mon would show available on EY site)
Now I haven’t rebooked this flight yet( too far ahead dates haven’t opened up yet) but when I was talking to call centre about Frankfurt I informed them of the availability issue on website (weren’t sure why). They agreed to just take a look at some days (Sat-Mon) that weren’t showing as available on website and see if they showed availability and yes that could book for any of the dates they checked.

I have now rebooked this for a Sunday departure , I had to do it through call centre anyway but on the VA website it showed no availability.


If I was doing a new booking and trying to book through website it would be one of those situations of ringing the call centre and getting the $60 fee waiver due to the fact that whilst I should be able to book it myself the site won’t let me for a date/flight that is actually available according to VA. Although now that there's the carrier surcharge I won't be doing any new booking redeeming on EY at least not J/F
--

Krisflyer

Around the time of doing the above I was checking some dates (Experiment I checked a whole lot of dates) LHR-SYD in J and also seeing what showed up on VA site as well, both KF/VA showed availability on pretty much all dates checked but one thing noticed KF site didn't show and LHR-SIN-SYD flying a380 on both legs but VA site would show availability for the A380 all the way through. Now not sure if that was a glitch on the KF site or something to do with KF status level.

 

[mark4217]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

I've been searching the VA site for SQ flight
Mel/SYD/BNE to Rome or Milan and there is nothing showing in Y or J from Dec to late May . Maybe they will just turn up all of a sudden. SQ /KF has award seats but they charge a lot more in taxes than VA. Let's hope !

 

[RAM]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

I've been searching the VA site for SQ flight
Mel/SYD/BNE to Rome or Milan and there is nothing showing in Y or J from Dec to late May . Maybe they will just turn up all of a sudden. SQ /KF has award seats but they charge a lot more in taxes than VA. Let's hope !

So try ringing VFF and saying I can see the points flights on SQ's site - but they do not show up on yours. Can you see them?

 

[mark4217]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

Yep , going to give that a go tomorrow .

 

[WethereX]

Re: Velocity internat J redemptions now totally scarce!

The real killer is the total lack of A330 business upgrades avail for points burn or flexi to biz WP upgrades, over a week period whilst i was in perth, i could not get a single upgrade on an A330 even when they were lightly loaded, but hey, 737s that were 90% pax load, no problem!