Is International Virgin Reward availability now worse that QANTAS?

[Cruiser Elite]

Not one single Business Reward seat showing available on MEL-LAX for entirety of 2016 - well til end August that is - VA are you serious?

Now if I was actually a fare paying pax at any time given that VA have axed MEL-LAX direct and ZERO Award seats available - then I'd spend my money elsewhere.

 

[Freq Flier 2013]

Not one single Business Reward seat showing available on MEL-LAX for entirety of 2016 - well til end August that is - VA are you serious?

Now if I was actually a fare paying pax at any time given that VA have axed MEL-LAX direct and ZERO Award seats available - then I'd spend my money elsewhere.

Is there a Virgin rep on this forum to tell us what is happening?

 

[andye]

Can't imagine it getting any better with the NAB 250K offer. The majority of point collectors end up with small balances and redeem them for giftcards and domestic Y. Offer the masses a megabonus and all the good seats will go-particularly with a limited route network to redeem on

 

[grubbidok]

Can't imagine it getting any better with the NAB 250K offer. The majority of point collectors end up with small balances and redeem them for giftcards and domestic Y. Offer the masses a megabonus and all the good seats will go-particularly with a limited route network to redeem on

Not sure everyone with a megabonus is going to want J. My guess is a lot of those 'bonus' points will be spent on a 'bonus' family/spouse holiday in Y for most people. They're not going to get much change out of 2x Y tickets to a non-Asian international destination on those. I'd be more concerned about DL elites etc.

 

[kamchatsky]

If all else fails, just transfer points to Krisflyer and redeem on Singapore Airline instead.

 

[Captain hum]

Just read that they've pushed back the upgrade of the 777's to early 2016, so this may free up a few J class seats between now and then?
Virgin Australia Boeing 777-300ER new business class seats upgrade - Australian Business Traveller

 

[Cruiser Elite]

Is there a Virgin rep on this forum to tell us what is happening?

I think they may have abandoned ship - last posted June 30, 2015 - now there is a pro-active Airline representation!

 

[Freq Flier 2013]

I think they may have abandoned ship - last posted June 30, 2015 - now there is a pro-active Airline representation!

View attachment 57236

Anything admin can do to get them to be more active? I'm sure we would all benefit from virgin rep participating more.

 

[Cruiser Elite]

I'm sure we would all benefit from virgin rep participating more.

I'm sure VA would benefit from being an active participant.

 

[Virgin Bart]

I'm sure VA would benefit from being an active participant.

I can't for the life of me understand why VA/VFF are not constantly active here.

 

[Denali]

If all else fails, just transfer points to Krisflyer and redeem on Singapore Airline instead.

That's now our plan at the moment, I said to hubby we we'll blow a heap on a trip to Europe or as I refer to it, "Not another bloody castle tour".

Im also trying to figure out how to get to Easter island using points, via London then Chile by the looks of it

 

[pauly7]

I can't for the life of me understand why VA/VFF are not constantly active here.

I suspect there were too many structural problems to sort out / their marketing/CRM team budget was cut! It was quite annoying how they would only respond in one part of the forum as well. Funny how Etihad are on here but not their subsidiary!!!

 

[eastwest101]

I suspect there were too many structural problems to sort out / their marketing/CRM team budget was cut! It was quite annoying how they would only respond in one part of the forum as well. Funny how Etihad are on here but not their subsidiary!!!

I didn't think I'd seen the VA or VFF company rep post on here for a while, have they been active or present on Flyertalk at all?

 

[vetrade]

What can the VA rep possibly say we don't already know? We would just get the usual (non) story that our business is important to them blah, blah, blah but there's virtually no award availability because of unusually heavy demand, blah, blah, blah but they are working on what they can do - blah, blah, blah because they are a customer focused business and our best interests are their priority - blah, blah, blah.............

 

[CJEMNMAC]

This recent decline in availability has been quite annoying.

The end result is I just booked 2 x J JFK -AUH- SYD and 1 x J SYD -AUH- JFK for 125,000 VA points each ticket on EY for next year. There was decent availability in comparison.

 

[pauly7]

This recent decline in availability has been quite annoying.

The end result is I just booked 2 x J JFK -AUH- SYD and 1 x J SYD -AUH- JFK for 125,000 VA points each ticket on EY for next year. There was decent availability in comparison.

Through Velocity? Or direct with EY?

 

[CJEMNMAC]

Through Velocity? Or direct with EY?

Through VA. Just call Velocity and book partner redemption using velocity points

 

[Ben6]

This recent decline in availability has been quite annoying.

Annoying doesn't even come close to it for mine. I can cop having trouble finding 4 J Reward seats to the USA but the current lack of availability is awful. This used to be one of VA's strengths but as already stated is now a major weakness.

I have been a staunch VA fan for a long time and while I still prefer their service to QF, I am seriously considering changing my allegiance as the ability to actually redeem points is very important to me. I direct about 10-12 staff nationally where to fly and at present it is all VA. It may not be the case for long I fear.

 

[Alanslegal]

I have been a staunch VA fan for a long time and while I still prefer their service to QF, I am seriously considering changing my allegiance as the ability to actually redeem points is very important to me. I direct about 10-12 staff nationally where to fly and at present it is all VA. It may not be the case for long I fear.

Feel free to switxh over but I can assure you that getting 4J seats flying Qantas to the USA is highly unlikely, close to impossible.

 

[Ben6]

Feel free to switxh over but I can assure you that getting 4J seats flying Qantas to the USA is highly unlikely, close to impossible.

Agreed Alan, my point is that I used to be able to get single J seats on VA very easily and more seats than that with some forward planning. Right now it's next to impossible to even get a single seat and there's no real transparency on how long that will last. I wish SQ and EY flew a more direct route to the West Coast! I was thinking of changing to AA points as they do seem very good value to me.