SQ J availability only on Velocity at Christmas - a pleasant suprise!

[doctorstrangelove]

Hi all,

I just had a very pleasant surprise using my Velocity points. I've been looking to book rewards tickets to and from Europe for Christmas and yet again found myself unable to utilize my 400,000 Qantas pesos. Having seen the light and fled the QFF programme over a year ago I have now accumulated a sizeable war chest of Velocity points - just over 250,000. Utilizing Roame to search for awards seats I was astonished to see the availability of LHR - SIN on SQ in J using Velocity points on 28/12! Out of curiosity (and having never used Velocity to book a rewards flight before) before committing I signed onto SQ to see if it would be cheaper to transfer my Velocity points across and book it with Krisflyer miles. What I discoved was that I couldn't actually book this flight with Krisflyer miles - their website simply gave the option to join the waitlist for 123,000 miles. So for the price of 92,000 Velocity points and $730 ( UK APD ) I've booked J from LHR to SIN. I now just need to get a cheapo ticket on Scoot to get me from SIN to PER (I can tolerate daytime flying in Y for up to 6 hours ).

It's not my ideal redemption, but my attitude is around Christmas you should be happy if you can get even part of the trip covered by an awards fare that doesn't take you too much out of your way!

What I'm curious about is it strikes me as really unusual that a partner airline like Velocity would have access to rewards seats that SQ wasn't offering to their own customers! Is this something that other people have seen with Virgin and SQ in the past? Or indeed any other airline partnership? Or did I chance across a once in a blue moon aberration with the system?

 

[MELso]

FWIW, seats.aero is showing J availability on SIN-PER on QF on 31/12 on the redeye via MEL... (There's also availability on the 29/12 SQ redeye through VA through but that may be a little early, and one through MEL on New Year's Day).

 

[Gold Member]

What I'm curious about is it strikes me as really unusual that a partner airline like Velocity would have access to rewards seats that SQ wasn't offering to their own customers! Is this something that other people have seen with Virgin and SQ in the past? Or indeed any other airline partnership? Or did I chance across a once in a blue moon aberration with the system?

Great to see another QF dissenter benefit from an open market which Qantas desperately tries to close and restrict for their own gain. Well done Dr Strangelove on securing your desired flights and giving it to Qantas. Loyalty is a two way street; they don’t deserve yours.

The great news is, there’s no aberration here. I’ve booked several Velocity rewards on SQ biz where there were none on SQ (waitlist or Adv only). It’s certainly not common, but they do exist and a sweet hack to secure SQ biz.

 

[doctorstrangelove]

Great to see another QF dissenter benefit from an open market which Qantas desperately tries to close and restrict for their own gain. Well done Dr Strangelove on securing your desired flights and giving it to Qantas. Loyalty is a two way street; they don’t deserve yours.

The great news is, there’s no aberration here. I’ve booked several Velocity rewards on SQ biz where there were none on SQ (waitlist or Adv only). It’s certainly not common, but they do exist and a sweet hack to secure SQ biz.

Cheers Gold Member! I greatly dislike Alan Joyce's spin and gutting of the airline. I was one of those few unfortunate souls that had issues with Qantas last year when it came to booking flights and obtaining refunds, and even more amazingly it happened to me more than once! Unlucky me - the vast majority of Qantas' userbase never had any issues at all last year according to AJ! The coup de grace was the loss of a reliable way to get back to Europe from Perth on points arising from the spat with Qatar, the paucity (and price) of Emirates and when do you ever see availability on QF metal as a lowly silver!

The reason I'm mentioning this is that despite the above I'm not one of these never again guys. If Qantas stepped up to address its deficiencies and made its FF program competitive again I'd be willing to start looking at them afresh. But I don't see the neccessary changes going ahead because as you alluded to it's a closed market. I'm not saying this to insult QFF members but Qantas is the beneficiary of a points program lazy tax here in Australia. The majority of their members will stay with the program because it's easy to earn points for compared to other airline currencies and easier to redeem from a familiarity point of view... if fortune smiles on you and a rare awards seat pops up.

That's great to know it wasn't necessarily a one off with Velocity and SQ J! With EY and SQ as options I'm finding Velocity beats QFF hands down for getting to and from Europe, although that's not to take away from the fact it still takes some flexibility, a little bit of grinding through search engines and a stroke of luck to find that elusive seat!

 

[hossein_au]

[...]

[...] With EY and SQ as options I'm finding Velocity beats QFF hands down for getting to and from Europe, although that's not to take away from the fact it still takes some flexibility, a little bit of grinding through search engines and a stroke of luck to find that elusive seat!

I concur, but let's not forget the ridiculous carrier charges one needs to pay for the privilege. I much prefer many non-Aussie FF programs for that very reason.

 

[doctorstrangelove]

I concur, but let's not forget the ridiculous carrier charges one needs to pay for the privilege. I much prefer many non-Aussie FF programs for that very reason.

Yes indeed. I also have a balance of Avios to play with. And only another 3 months before I can take advantage once again for an AMEX card sign-up bonus. Except this time I won't be going for their QFF marketed card, I'm going to be seeking a Membership Rewards program card!