Virgin Australia flights to Doha now on sale

[ben95]

Any considerations re status credits

Flying PE will likely give you more SC over flying Y on the QR flights, VA coded or not. Though going to Europe I think you no longer have the option of a SQ flight on VA codeshare.

opportunities to upgrade (points or pay)

You can redeem KrisFlyer points to upgrade a SQ flight if ticketed directly with SQ. Similar offer is possible with QR using Avios/Cash if booked directly with QR. It's unclear if the same option would be offered to VA flight operated by QR.

TBH premium economy will be much more comfortable than econcomy for a trip like this so I wouldn't even consider QR economy if SQ PE is an option. Also I suspect you can probably get a flat bed business for not much more than SQ premium economy if you take a slight detour and use non-premium Asian (Vietnam,India,China) carriers which often advertises cheap connecting fares to Europe from Australia. I'd pick a flat bed business over economy/premum economy of a more premium carrier any time.

 

[Roflco]

Flying PE will likely give you more SC over flying Y on the QR flights, VA coded or not. Though going to Europe I think you no longer have the option of a SQ flight on VA codeshare.

You can redeem KrisFlyer points to upgrade a SQ flight if ticketed directly with SQ. Similar offer is possible with QR using Avios/Cash if booked directly with QR. It's unclear if the same option would be offered to VA flight operated by QR.

TBH premium economy will be much more comfortable than econcomy for a trip like this so I wouldn't even consider QR economy if SQ PE is an option. Also I suspect you can probably get a flat bed business for not much more than SQ premium economy if you take a slight detour and use non-premium Asian (Vietnam,India,China) carriers which often advertises cheap connecting fares to Europe from Australia. I'd pick a flat bed business over economy/premum economy of a more premium carrier any time.

Any suggestions on other carriers?

 

[ben95]

Any suggestions on other carriers?

Just search it up using an OTA like trip.com to compare your options. Many of these airlines don’t have daily flights to Europe so you option varies depending on the time you wanted to fly. On a random date SQ wants 6000 for premium economy to Paris in July but Malaysian airlines offers 6800 in business. Places like Vietnam Malaysia, China, Turkey, Thailand are all places I’d feel comfortable with flying through.

 

[jase05]

Just search it up using an OTA like trip.com to compare your options. Many of these airlines don’t have daily flights to Europe so you option varies depending on the time you wanted to fly. On a random date SQ wants 6000 for premium economy to Paris in July but Malaysian airlines offers 6800 in business. Places like Vietnam Malaysia, China, Turkey, Thailand are all places I’d feel comfortable with flying through.

Hainan is another airline that have enjoyed my J flights in and often has J prices from Australia to Europe for around $6k. AFAIK they are still a partner of VA so should earn SC’s and points

 

[RooFlyer]

Another option @Roflco would be to get yourself to Jakarta or Bangkok or Singapore cheaply and then catch QR from there. Business price is very much cheaper from ex there and that’s taking to account the different distance. That would be a pure QR flight of course not VA wet lease.

 

[ben95]

Hainan is another airline that have enjoyed my J flights in and often has J prices from Australia to Europe for around $6k. AFAIK they are still a partner of VA so should earn SC’s and points

Yeah Hainan is a great airline, one of (if not the) best in China. The problem is that it's got a really patchy international network departing from seemingly random citities and almost never daily so you'd usually need to reposition via a domestic flight between where you arrive into china and where your flight to Europe departs and overnight connections as well because the fligts were mainly for OD traffic so not banked like SQ/QR operate their hubs.

For example HU only operates 3 times a week from Sydney and Melbourne to Haikou, then the onward flight to London is a tag flight with a stop over in Changsha so you'd end up making 2 stops and may require a visa depending on your passport. On the return you might need to fly via Hangzhou with an overnight stop on JD (a HNA group hybird subsidiary) that flies twice a week into Sydney.

It's just very complicated and they don't seem to advertise these fares at all locally in Australia - you can't book them directly on their website nor most typical travel agent in Australia (some big OTA have quite sophisticaed engine so is able to piece together the right flight for you) or you'd need to deal with agents in China that knows the system in depth.

 

[Roflco]

Can you upgrade from Y to J using points on the QR wet lease routes yet? Or do a upgradme bid?

 

[bernardblack]

Economy yes business no. QR does release 1 or 2 business seat ver far out from non SYD/MEL departures to Doha.

This seems to have changed in the last few days. Generally, the furthest date on the calendar (currently 3 March 2026) shows only the QR-coded flight for most of the day, although sometimes the VA-coded flights appear in the evening. The VA-coded flights are showing up to 2 March 2026 as at now.

And as of right now I can see J award space, for early March 2026, on:
VA0001 SYD-DOH 02/03
VA0007 MEL-DOH 01/03, 02/03
VA0015 BNE-DOH 01/03, 02/03
VA0021 PER-DOH 01/03, 02/03
VA0002 DOH-SYD 01/03
VA0008 DOH-MEL 01/03, 02/03
VA0016 DOH-BNE 01/03, 02/03
VA0022 DOH-PER 01/03, 02/03

Likewise at the end of the calendar, for J space on the QR-prime flights, I'm seeing plenty from ADL and CBR, some from PER and BNE, a few MEL and the odd SYD.

 

[ben95]

And as of right now I can see J award space, for early March 2026, on:

How did you do it when the VA calendar is only 330 days so the furthest out is Feb 3, 2026?

 

[bernardblack]

Sorry, I think you're right and it was actually early Feb.

 

[ben95]

Sorry, I think you're right and it was actually early Feb.

Ah well. Thought there’s some trick that we could use to extend the calendar like with the QF websitr