Virgin Australia flights to Doha now on sale

[levelnine]

Swaps almost never happen on the Australian routes.

 

[WilsonM]

I guess from the tables, they've aligned to the higher QR partner chart coming 21 January.

But a couple of interesting notes on their page, right below the new award chart:

"When a single booking includes: multiple flights with a break in the journey (at least 24 hours between flights); a change in cabin class; multiple airlines on one itinerary; or a VA domestic connection to a VA long haul flight; the number of Points required for Reward Seats will be higher."

Will Qatar be counted as on the same chart as Virgin Australia? From an FAQ on the same page: "A Reward Seat is also calculated on a per sector basis when there is a change in class of travel within the journey or when combining a journey that includes airlines located in different Reward Seat Points tables."

Yes, VA Long Haul and QR are the same cost, but the tables are under a different heading. You can't combine SQ and QR, even though they're on the same table...

Also hilariously, if you take a VA domestic flight before a VA long-haul international one, it'll be counted per sector, not combined. Even though they're the same airline, although I guess you can also argue they're not - VA International is technically different I guess?

From the chart, it seems obvious that they're allowing QR to be combined with VA. But all I'm pointing out is that the T's and C's say something different, and it'd be pretty crucial to get the wording correct on this.

 

[bernardblack]

Yes, this seems odd to me too.

The general thrust of the new chart seems to be that they intend to offer single through award bookings [Aust port]<>DOH<>[Euro/Gulf port] and vice versa. But as far as I understand, VA prime codes will only be between Australia and Doha. And award seats are almost always sold on prime codes only.

So will this actually work as a joint booking on a VA code then a QR code (or vice versa)? Or will they offer award seats on VA codeshare flight numbers beyond Doha?

Also: The dollar copay table has only a single row, for 4000+ miles. If shorter sectors are free, it should mean that you only need to pay one sector between Australia and Qatar, and almost anywhere in Europe is no additional surcharge? (Obvs if you route through Doha to the Americas or maybe deep Africa, you'll hit a second surcharge.)