United Airlines new Virgin Australia/Velocity Partner

[BRIS_VA_HAWK]

has anyone had a positive experience trying to book reward J on UA from Aus? i've been peering through the schedules quite a bit recently from MEL-LAX and there seems to be plenty of economy reward tickets but not a single business reward.

have just looked at the UA site and there seems to be heaps of options with JN (which are apparently only for UA MileagePlus members?)

need to book 2x flights for a wedding in late august next year and starting to think that flying via SIN on SQ is going to be the better (only?) way to go, seem to be reasonable availability that way, though would obviously like to spend 8 less hours on a plane if i can wrangle it

As with the DL partnership and when VA flew its own metal to the US, you need to continue looking on a regular basis. IMHO you'd be better off booking the Y reward flight now, and keep your eyes peeled for J award to come up. Unfortunately there's little rhyme or reason for when it gets released at the moment.
I've found that the Velocity app is best for a quick check of availability.

 

[bigbadbyrnes]

seems to be plenty of economy reward tickets but not a single business reward.

This has been my experience too.

 

[Mattg]

has anyone had a positive experience trying to book reward J on UA from Aus? i've been peering through the schedules quite a bit recently from MEL-LAX and there seems to be plenty of economy reward tickets but not a single business reward.

have just looked at the UA site and there seems to be heaps of options with JN (which are apparently only for UA MileagePlus members?)

need to book 2x flights for a wedding in late august next year and starting to think that flying via SIN on SQ is going to be the better (only?) way to go, seem to be reasonable availability that way, though would obviously like to spend 8 less hours on a plane if i can wrangle it

I have seen some occasionally, but never ~11 months out. You occasionally get random seats popping up around 2-3 months out.

I can't see anything available at the moment.

 

[FlyingKangaroo]

+1 to all of the above. Unfortunately this is increasingly a trend across many airlines who hold back reward availability for only their own members or select partners. Qantas, Qatar, and Singapore all immediately come to mind.

 

[RealtimeY]

Flying MEL-SYD-SFO, will VA will check bags through and provide boarding pass at MEL for the the SYD-SFO leg on UA?

 

[jaybo]

the only J reward flights i've ever booked have been ~11 months out as i figured i wanted them locked in well in advance, i have seen that they sometimes just appear a couple of months out but unfortunately i really want them locked in before that point.

might lock those flights in via SIN while they're an option and then keep an eye out for better direct options later

thanks for the quick responses, looks like the general feeling i was getting wasn't just specific to me!

 

[EuroKick]

Flying MEL-SYD-SFO, will VA will check bags through and provide boarding pass at MEL for the the SYD-SFO leg on UA?

If they’re all on the same ticket, then yes.

 

[jakeseven7]

Does anyone know why if you have your Velocity FF in a UA booking it doesn’t show up in your Velocity account / app etc? Is it because it’s a patchwork alliance member? My other star partners seem to show up?

 

[FlyingKangaroo]

Does anyone know why if you have your Velocity FF in a UA booking it doesn’t show up in your Velocity account / app etc? Is it because it’s a patchwork alliance member? My other star partners seem to show up?

Were you logged in when you booked? If not, that might be it as the system hasn’t linked the booking to your account. I’ve had this happen before and that appeared to be the culprit.

 

[henrus]

Does anyone know why if you have your Velocity FF in a UA booking it doesn’t show up in your Velocity account / app

It has always been the case that only bookings booked via Virgin appear in their app. So if you've booked your UA flights any other way (either through UA direct or other *A partner) then don't expect them to appear.

 

[jakeseven7]

Were you logged in when you booked? If not, that might be it as the system hasn’t linked the booking to your account. I’ve had this happen before and that appeared to be the culprit.

Thanks, sigh just another VA2 IT gremlin.
I guess it doesn’t really matter what that much just annoying.

 

[jakeseven7]

Are there any incremental benefits of VA2 Platinum v VA2 Gold flying UA does anyone know?

 

[henrus]

Are there any incremental benefits of VA2 Platinum v VA2 Gold flying UA does anyone know?

All status benefits are the same. The only difference is plats get a 100% points bonus whilst gold only gets 75%.

 

[jase05]

Sounds like UA really stepping up their schedule which is great.
-MEL-LAX starting OCT 28 with 3x weekly increasing to Daily on DEC 1st
- MEL-SFO going daily on OCT 28
- SYD-IAH starting OCT 28 3x weekly and going to daily on DEC 15.

Be nice if some J award seats opened up now

 

[bernardblack]

Sounds like UA really stepping up their schedule which is great.
-MEL-LAX starting OCT 28 with 3x weekly increasing to Daily on DEC 1st
- MEL-SFO going daily on OCT 28
- SYD-IAH starting OCT 28 3x weekly and going to daily on DEC 15.

Be nice if some J award seats opened up now

I'm not not holding some ExpertFlyer alerts for these flights (and SYD-SFO, SYD-LAX, BNE-SFO) for the days I'm considering being in the US in March. ;-)

 

[LeighP]

Anyone know that if I get the UA app to track my boarding passes etc, if I'll lose my Velocity link? I booked through United because I'm going to a small airport that the VA website doesn't list, and just added my number there. I don't want to grab their app (which I would assume means signing up to their rewards program) to have the flight shifted from Velocity to United rewards, just for the convenience of the app. Nice to get 190 SC in a round trip though haha.

 

[SeaWolf]

Anyone know that if I get the UA app to track my boarding passes etc, if I'll lose my Velocity link? I booked through United because I'm going to a small airport that the VA website doesn't list, and just added my number there. I don't want to grab their app (which I would assume means signing up to their rewards program) to have the flight shifted from Velocity to United rewards, just for the convenience of the app. Nice to get 190 SC in a round trip though haha.

You won't lose the link at all, and you won't need to sign up to United to use the app either.
When you download it and launch it for the first time, select "Continue as a Guest" and you can then add your booking into the app to manage it, get notifications etc.

 

[FlyingKangaroo]

Anyone know that if I get the UA app to track my boarding passes etc, if I'll lose my Velocity link? I booked through United because I'm going to a small airport that the VA website doesn't list, and just added my number there. I don't want to grab their app (which I would assume means signing up to their rewards program) to have the flight shifted from Velocity to United rewards, just for the convenience of the app. Nice to get 190 SC in a round trip though haha.

Adding the reservation manually to UA's app won't automatically link it to your UA account.

 

[furiousmango]

Not sure if anyone has encountered this before, United changed the schedule on my Australia to San Francisco flight which will make me miss my connection on a separate ticket. I'd like to rebook for a day earlier but Virgin is insisting there's no availability to rebook because it's run out in the award seat bucket (I). United are happy to rebook a fortnight in either direction if there's revenue seat availability but won't touch the reservation. Any way to get the two to talk to each other?

 

[FlyingKangaroo]

Not sure if anyone has encountered this before, United changed the schedule on my Australia to San Francisco flight which will make me miss my connection on a separate ticket. I'd like to rebook for a day earlier but Virgin is insisting there's no availability to rebook because it's run out in the award seat bucket (I). United are happy to rebook a fortnight in either direction if there's revenue seat availability but won't touch the reservation. Any way to get the two to talk to each other?

I can't speak to UA/VA specifically but had a similar issue on an Asiana-issued reward ticket for a flight on ANA a few months ago. ANA cancelled the flight on that day of the week, and initially Asiana offered only to refund as there was no reward availability for months. I then followed up with ANA who offered me the option to change the date, and after holding firm that Asiana wouldn't touch the ticket, ANA made the change in the reservation on their end by I assume tentatively reserving me on the new flight, and then told me to contact Asiana to re-issue.

Once Asiana could see that ANA had made the changes, they were happy to immediately re-issue the ticket.

That happened, twice, actually, but I went straight to ANA the second time. Interestingly, they were more resistant the second time, but after a few days of assuming I'd have to give up, true to their word they came back to me to confirm they'd do it and had updated the ticket. I then called Asiana and they re-issued again. (ANA's "The Room" is indeed the best business class product in the sky right now, btw, imho.)

You could try that by emphasising that VA can't open up availability that only United can. Hard to say if UA will do it, but short of that, your only option is to get someone at VA to call UA directly on your behalf.