Velocity Points Programme & flights to USA

[Tangalooma2000]

Hello esteemed travellers. Very quick background: had the (mostly) pleasurable task of flying all over Australia on Virgin in Business Class. Accumulated quite a few points. Spent most on kids and partners travel. Retired due to 2 x cancers + heart problem. Read on your site Velocity points being stolen- thought I would check on mine. GONE. Not by theft; by Velocity reclaiming MY points I paid for-not happy. They explained I had not flown for a couple of years so..... I explained why. Amazingly, the day after my contact with them, they returned 228k worth of points!!. Decided to look at flights they could be used on. USA was first choice....however....all or most flights were NOT on Virgin airlines but by UNITED AIRLINES.Is this a new thing or has it been thus for a long time?.I am not flying with an American Airline (spent almost 60 horrendous hours flying with Continental 37 years ago and that killed my wish to fly anything American. Can anybody help me to get around this UA problem please, or do I set my sights elsewhere?. Thank you for the opportunity to ask you, instead of reading many of your brilliant stories and absorbing your advice.

 

[Saab34]

Virgin pulled out of all long haul flying, ie USA, in 2020.

They don’t appear to be reinstating that anytime soon, if ever again.

UA isn’t as bad as it once was, certainly has its moments but equipment is much better vs 10/20/30 years ago.

I am not overly up to date with the Velocity redemption network these days, but is Delta an option? Or SQ via Asia?

 

[Tangalooma2000]

I loved Singapore Airlines on a couple of previous flights so that might be the best way of handling this. Many thanks!.

 

[HS-TQE]

UA is VA's primary Transpac partner since 2021, but both DL and AA has interline agreements with VA through TAs (and DL still sells VA interlines alongside QF and JQ connections on their website booking engine)

 

[jase05]

UA have great availability within a fortnight of travel if you are flexible.
Very low fees and surcharges too

 

[elanshin]

Virgin pulled out of all long haul flying, ie USA, in 2020.

They don’t appear to be reinstating that anytime soon, if ever again.

UA isn’t as bad as it once was, certainly has its moments but equipment is much better vs 10/20/30 years ago.

I am not overly up to date with the Velocity redemption network these days, but is Delta an option? Or SQ via Asia?

DL was replaced by UA as the US airlines. You can also find AC redemptions although from everything UA is the best out of thr NA carriers it seems witb Polaris.

The alternative from the east coast is to use NH and their excellent soft product. From SYD you have an ok J product but drom HND you could be booked into the room if you find the right plane. Granted right now rewards to and from NA on NH are tight.

Other options include going backwards through DOH or SQ.

 

[Mwenenzi]

Tangalooma2000 Welcome to posting on AFF (after 11 years)

Hello esteemed travellers. Very quick background: had the (mostly) pleasurable task of flying all over Australia on Virgin in Business Class. Accumulated quite a few points. Spent most on kids and partners travel. Retired due to 2 x cancers + heart problem. Read on your site Velocity points being stolen- thought I would check on mine. GONE. Not by theft; by Velocity reclaiming MY points I paid for-not happy. They explained I had not flown for a couple of years so..... I explained why. Amazingly, the day after my contact with them, they returned 228k worth of points!!. Decided to look at flights they could be used on. USA was first choice....however....all or most flights were NOT on Virgin airlines but by UNITED AIRLINES.Is this a new thing or has it been thus for a long time?.I am not flying with an American Airline (spent almost 60 horrendous hours flying with Continental 37 years ago and that killed my wish to fly anything American. Can anybody help me to get around this UA problem please, or do I set my sights elsewhere?. Thank you for the opportunity to ask you, instead of reading many of your brilliant stories and absorbing your advice.

As above VA1.0 ceased long haul flights when it went into administration in the pandemic. The VA B777 are gone. The current VA2.0 has different shareholders and new different management. Nowadays VA's only international flights are on B737 to Queenstown NZ, Fiji, Samoa, Vanuata & Bali

VA(& QF) have rules for expiry with eligible point earning or burning. Not hard to earn a few VA points every year or so. Look at the VA web site. Coles and 7-eleven Petrol. Suggest you spend $10 for petrol at a 7-eleven, swipe your VA card/app and then good for 24 months.

You cannot equate a USA airline 37 years ago with current USA long haul airlines. Nothing wrong with UA long haul business class. UA has several routes AU<--->USA (not just SYD LAX)

 

[ben95]

I loved Singapore Airlines on a couple of previous flights so that might be the best way of handling this.

As I've recenly discovered and discussed in another thread it is currenly not possible to book business class rewards seats on SQ's North America routes with Velocity points. One option for you is to transfer your points to SQ's KrisFlyer program at 1.55 Velocity Points to 1 KrisFlyer points and redeem directly with Singapore Airlines.

If you are going to the US West Coast then chances are UA is your best option and frankly it's not a bad one. The Polaris seats are nice and Polaris lounges at SFO/LAX are also excellent lounges before your return. It's not going to be as nice as SQ but considering the redemption rates are also lower it's a good product overall. It's also hard to beat the usually plentiful business class redemption seat release when you are 14 days within depature.

If you want to go to the East Coast then you have a few more option such as transfer to Singapore Airlines, flying "the other way" via Doha/Abu Dhabi on QR/EY or via Air Canada. Flying ANA via Tokyo is also possible and great (also one of the best First Class prodcut that is open to Velocity points redemption if you ask me). More exotic routes can include Virgin Atlantic, once you figure out how to get yourself to London, they are a great option to East Coast US but you do need to call them up to book.

 

[Tangalooma2000]

Thank you Ben(95) that is fantastic. I have been out of the loop for a while and only flew within Oz and Tassie for the last 12+ years.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Feed your familys Coles shopping to VFF.
This stops your VFF points from expiring every 18 months.
If you dont earn or burn, you will loose them as you found out.
If you plan to fly in the next 18 months, then good, but if not, make sure you have some activity, of points going into your VFF account.
Every 1000 Coles Flybuys points auto transfer gives you 500 VFF points.
And, yes, points loss via others somehow succeeding in using others points does exist.

 

[MathNerd]

UA have great availability within a fortnight of travel if you are flexible.
Very low fees and surcharges too

It's also hard to beat the usually plentiful business class redemption seat release when you are 14 days within depature.

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed availability dry up once September kicked in?

I've been watching LAX/SFO - MEL on seatsaero almost daily, and usually there'd be between 5 - 10 J rewards ready to go within the next week/fortnight. Now there's not as many... Is it just a temporary blip?

Counting on the usual UA "award dump" close-in for a trip back home from the west coast in April next year.

 

[levelnine]

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed availability dry up once September kicked in?

I've been watching LAX/SFO - MEL on seatsaero almost daily, and usually there'd be between 5 - 10 J rewards ready to go within the next week/fortnight. Now there's not as many... Is it just a temporary blip?

Counting on the usual UA "award dump" close-in for a trip back home from the west coast in April next year.

No one can predict the future with award availability. We are coming into the school holidays in Australia, so that might be reducing availability. But more importantly, UA is significantly reducing capacity to Australia. It would be a mistake to expect the ready availability of the past to continue into next year — award patterns could look the same, but could look very different.

 

[flyguy77]

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed availability dry up once September kicked in?

As mentioned you've got school holidays/capacity reducing in the future

I'd also state - it's become quite well known/promoted in large Facebook groups etc. about the trend of the last minute seats opening up with United.

Combine this with the increased popularity of award search tools and alerts.

It means lots more people are aware & booking these last minute so lots more competition.

 

[MathNerd]

No one can predict the future with award availability. We are coming into the school holidays in Australia, so that might be reducing availability. But more importantly, UA is significantly reducing capacity to Australia. It would be a mistake to expect the ready availability of the past to continue into next year — award patterns could look the same, but could look very different.

As mentioned you've got school holidays/capacity reducing in the future

I'd also state - it's become quite well known/promoted in large Facebook groups etc. about the trend of the last minute seats opening up with United.

Combine this with the increased popularity of award search tools and alerts.

It means lots more people are aware & booking these last minute so lots more competition.

Damn it, I suspected as much. The only way forward if I want to go the same route is to set alerts and watch the availability like a hawk. It's alright, award travel is a game of challenges at the end of the day isn't it?

Thanks both for your inputs.

PS: The route I was looking at specifically (SFO - MEL) seems to be one of the few routes not hit with UA's schedule reductions - it's always been on a 787-9 daily, both before and after the schedule adjustments). So was hoping that things at least on UA60 would stay fairly consistent.

 

[TMP]

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed availability dry up once September kicked in?

I've been watching LAX/SFO - MEL on seatsaero almost daily, and usually there'd be between 5 - 10 J rewards ready to go within the next week/fortnight. Now there's not as many... Is it just a temporary blip?

We have noticed the same thing for Europe to North America and the UA J rewards seats within the month.

 

[MathNerd]

We have noticed the same thing for Europe to North America and the UA J rewards seats within the month.

I did hear that they've restarted flights to China (PVG specifically) at the end of August, as they weren't running them before and needed somewhere to send all these widebodies, leading to the availability you and I had seen.

I suspect with the reintroduction of PVG flights that they can now "take away" availablity from their otherwise generous routes! Just a shot in the dark guess.

 

[ben95]

I did hear that they've restarted flights to China (PVG specifically) at the end of August

It’s only LAX-PVG and only 4 flights per week initially until December which will increase to daily. On the grand scheme of things it’s still just a fraction of capacity compared to pre pandemic UA so the extra 1.5 787 this route will take is relatively minor compared to the overall 787 fleet at UA.

needed somewhere to send all these widebodies, leading to the availability you and I had seen.

They still have excess wide bodies, they just couldn’t sustain sending them to AU/NZ as the market wasn’t able to sustain this. This is probably the main driver behind the reduction in award space.