Maybe I should just give up with VA/ Velocity

[James White]

I’m feeling abit Bleh towards VA/Velocity at the moment.
I need to travel between the USA and Australia abit over the coming years.
Currently between Melbourne/ Hawaii and the mainland.
Every time I call up to try and book a Hawaiian rewards flight. Nope. None.
Even when I have lots of different dates.
Nothing.
I’m a Platinum Member. Loved the Delta partnership
I haven’t used United yet but haven’t heard great things ( but then again if I can get reward business seats I’ll be happy enough)

I have so many velocity points I just can’t use.
Same with my AMEX points.
I can’t even transfer them to any decent airlines that I fly with/ use. Because it’s an Australian Amex.


Maybe I am just tired and grumpy.

Atleast my wife can use her Qantas points easily.
Like so dam easily.
And she doesn’t even hold status with them

 

[AIRwin]

Sounds like the grass is greener on the other side?

 

[Lynda2475]

I regularly look for SYD-HNL on QFF and can never find any classic reward seats - other US routes are available, but Hawaii seems illusive on both programs.

 

[JasonK]

Sounds like the grass is greener on the other side?

The grass is definitely not green in the Qantas sub-forum

 

[AIRwin]

The grass is definitely not green in the Qantas sub-forum

Not green except for Emerald?

 

[levelnine]

Every time I call up to try and book a Hawaiian rewards flight. Nope. None.

Same with Qantas. You'll almost never get a reward seat on SYD-HNL.

Atleast my wife can use her Qantas points easily.

On what routes? There's plenty of reward availability on domestic flights and international economy flights, which isn't all that different from VFF. Otherwise it is extremely slim pickings (the recent apology release of seats notwithstanding). At least you have SQ with VFF, which has quite a lot of reliable international business award availability.

 

[jase05]

I’m feeling abit Bleh towards VA/Velocity at the moment.
I need to travel between the USA and Australia abit over the coming years.
Currently between Melbourne/ Hawaii and the mainland.
Every time I call up to try and book a Hawaiian rewards flight. Nope. None.
Even when I have lots of different dates.
Nothing.
I’m a Platinum Member. Loved the Delta partnership
I haven’t used United yet but haven’t heard great things ( but then again if I can get reward business seats I’ll be happy enough)

I have so many velocity points I just can’t use.
Same with my AMEX points.
I can’t even transfer them to any decent airlines that I fly with/ use. Because it’s an Australian Amex.


Maybe I am just tired and grumpy.

Atleast my wife can use her Qantas points easily.
Like so dam easily.
And she doesn’t even hold status with them

I’ve been checking on the AA site for availability on HA and no availability at all when I look.
Seems like they aren’t releasing much

 

[Mattg]

You can sometimes get availability on Hawaiian Airlines between Hawaii and mainland USA in economy or first class, and sometimes there are reward seats on Hawaiian from SYD or AKL to HNL in economy. I haven't seen any business class availability on Hawaiian from SYD or AKL to HNL for months though. Not one seat, and I have been checking thoroughly and regularly.

Air Canada and United release barely any business class availability to Australia either, nowadays. That said, United occasionally does have something if booking a few months out. Plenty of economy availability.

FWIW, Qantas and its partners aren't much better.

 

[ANstar]

QF availability is worse. Grass is not greener.

 

[jakeseven7]

I’m feeling abit Bleh towards VA/Velocity at the moment.
I need to travel between the USA and Australia abit over the coming years.
Currently between Melbourne/ Hawaii and the mainland.
Every time I call up to try and book a Hawaiian rewards flight. Nope. None.
Even when I have lots of different dates.
Nothing.
I’m a Platinum Member. Loved the Delta partnership
I haven’t used United yet but haven’t heard great things ( but then again if I can get reward business seats I’ll be happy enough)

I have so many velocity points I just can’t use.
Same with my AMEX points.
I can’t even transfer them to any decent airlines that I fly with/ use. Because it’s an Australian Amex.


Maybe I am just tired and grumpy.

Atleast my wife can use her Qantas points easily.
Like so dam easily.
And she doesn’t even hold status with them

I don’t know if you remember this but there was a very very smart AFF member on here a couple of years ago that built a script that bot-queried the Velocity booking engine to try and find reward seats across to the US and it uncovered that there were actually none available at all. IIRC Virgin took legal action / legal letter or something against them. This was of course before Virgin collapsed, but your post reminded me of it!

Most airlines are in the same bucket right now, most international routes are 100% full and riding unprecedented demand in forward bookings as they rebuild their fleets and staff, this applies to VA2’s partner airlines too.

VA2 is also restricted now because they basically don’t have a real international business anymore (just short hops on 737s) post the collapse into administration- so no longer have ‘own metal’ flights that they can control and do promotions with award seats on etc.

There is also the challenge that their approach to partnerships is ad/hoc and not at an alliance level - however interestingly the VA2 CEO has recently not ruled out joining a formal alliance when questioned, whereas the CEO who was at the helm when the ship went under had clearly and repeatedly ruled it out…. Green shoots?

So a lot is ‘just what it is’ right now across the industry and VA2 is no exception.

One thing that does annoy me about Velocity as you say is that platinum really doesn’t get me much special treatment in this space (awards) whereas QF it is really helpful to get seats released from inventory, I’ve had great use of that benefit to date. Maybe they could look at improving platinum in this space….

 

[James White]

Maybe I just needed a vent hahaha

I’m hoping I can get some flights between Hawaii and the mainland with rewards. I have too many dam points and I was banking them for many years to be able to use when I did this career change.

I don’t think I could go to Qantas. I had to book a single Syd to Melbourne flight later in the year to get me home one night. And already I am just feeling wrong and dirty about it hahaha

 

[Ausbt]

I’m feeling abit Bleh towards VA/Velocity at the moment.

Pretty much agree, but on the positive side at least my obsession of staying Plat with VA has come to an end. I pretty much don't care about dropping to SG next March (I hold no status with any other). I have no enthusiasm for climbing back on the golden triangle treadmill even letting a colleague handle interstate clients while I handle local ones. That mindset might change of course in a year or so when priority check-in/boarding drops off, the thought of joining the massive pleb line-up does give me genuine chills. But yeah flying huh? It's not like it used to be.

 

[Matt_01]

Same with Qantas. You'll almost never get a reward seat on SYD-HNL.

Agree it is difficult but not impossible. I have managed to request seats for my parents in J RTN on three occasions. It normally took a few requests via the SST and now VIP teams.

 

[levelnine]

I’m hoping I can get some flights between Hawaii and the mainland with rewards.

You and millions of other people. Pretty much every American that collects credit card points wants to redeem them for business class travel between Hawaii and the mainland. It is one of the most competitive routes for reward seats in the world. You can't really blame that on VFF.

Post automatically merged: Sep 2, 2022

I have managed to request seats for my parents in J RTN on three occasions. It normally took a few requests via the SST and now VIP teams.

LOL. The OP doesn't have P1 status, so my statement holds. Indeed, all you've done is confirm how correct I am — the only way to get access to reward seats was to request them whilst being in the highest tier of elite member.

 

[Mattg]

You and millions of other people. Pretty much every American that collects credit card points wants to redeem them for business class travel between Hawaii and the mainland. It is one of the most competitive routes for reward seats in the world. You can't really blame that on VFF.

This is still easier than getting seats from Australia to Hawaii (perhaps due to the sheer volume of flights). I have seen first class reward seats available on Hawaiian on various routes between Hawaii and the US west coast as recently as last week.

 

[jakeseven7]

Agree it is difficult but not impossible. I have managed to request seats for my parents in J RTN on three occasions. It normally took a few requests via the SST and now VIP teams.

I have got seats released on this route as well for my parents (WP). Definitely not impossible, but note that was pre-covid.

 

[levelnine]

This is still easier than getting seats from Australia to Hawaii (perhaps due to the sheer volume of flights).

And also the implementation of dynamic pricing.

You can generally get seats on AA, for example, but you are not getting them at what we could classic flight reward levels. You are getting them at web special levels.

As frequent flyer points are in abundance in the United States, people tend to be more willing to pay at dynamic pricing levels, especially when they are not at insane levels like those of Qantas' 'pay with points' feature.

 

[HS-TQE]

There is also the challenge that their approach to partnerships is ad/hoc and not at an alliance level - however interestingly the VA2 CEO has recently not ruled out joining a formal alliance when questioned, whereas the CEO who was at the helm when the ship went under had clearly and repeatedly ruled it out…. Green shoots?

You're mixing up Borghetti (who ruled out Alliances) with his successor .
His sucessor, the 'CEO' before 2.0's CEO had the same view, 'not ruling out anything'

 

[James White]

I actually found some reward seats between Hawaii and Vegas
But I ended up needing to change my plans. But there was some.
But not business

I’ll put my points to Hawaiian airlines where possible once the platinum VA has been covered.

19 commercial flights between now and 2023
Ohhhh the fun of airports

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Transfer points from VFF to SQ KF, and that can get you J on SQ, up to SIN, then you can get premY from there to the US.
Yes, a very long way around, but if you have 200,000 VFF points, that is 128,000 SQ KF points, should be enough to get some love out of SQ.
Or Au - NZ with AirNZ using SQ KF miles, then onwards to the US west coast, and pay a bit for US west coast to Hawaii.
Looks like VA will never join an alliance, and they are not likely to tie in with Skyteam, so your choice, is the "*horrid*" other airline, according to what has been said, with the way our other airline outsourced CS centres treats customers.
Other way, you or we just can't win.
If you love DL, you could still fly them, but join Skyteam side of airline alliances, China Airlines FF points last 10 years.