Qatar Airways to acquire 25% of Virgin Australia

[PERLHR]

I did have a chuckle the other night in the VA lounge at ADL. For the first time, at least for me, I was a bit surprised to hear an announcement for boarding of the Qatar flight to Doha and quite a few people make their way out of the lounge to the departure gate ...,. So, if they were booked on VA codeshare would it be they get rejected from the QF lounge or is it that VA lounge is actively encouraged by QR? ,

 

[Bagpuss]

Somehow missed this thread, can someone recap what are the thoughts on EY?

I am assuming any tickets booked before April 2025 will be honored for SCs and points. I'm also wondering about F lounge access, since this is really the main reason I like flying EY now, in terms of what kind of timeframe is safe for that

Thinking Face Emoji​

I actually think EY will get booted when Qatar acquire 25% of Virgin Australia.
Therefore, it's not in the program changes.

When they get booted you may find that existing bookings will remain valid for Velocity benefits for a few months and in line with the Velocity SC changes.

I think EY is safe up until 1st April 2025.

To be honest with EY's current flight operations in Australia I thought Qatar may have let them remain in some sort of sense such as interlining etc. so it seems a little harsh.

 

[HS-TQE]

To be honest with EY's current flight operations in Australia I thought Qatar may have let them remain in some sort of sense such as interlining etc. so it seems a little harsh.

The agreement does allow for airlines in the highlighted areas to do a unilateral domestic codeshare with VA, however VA won't be codeharing on them on any services out of Australia, where applicable.

Considering the current EY/VA agreement is a unilateral domestic codeshare with VFF redemptions available (reverse of the NZ agreement but for EY putting their code on VAd), and that they're basically neighbours with QR, I can't see QR letting EY continue with the current unilateral agreement as they will likely not want their rivals taking up seats on VAd.

it's tipped that EY will likely be demoted from a unilateral/VFF redemption partner to an interline only partner as what happened with DL.