What's going on with reward availability to Europe?

[Rayesfeg]

Haha eithad did not only do this to velocity. It is for every single member

Yep I totally get that but what I am saying is, given Virgins international network is extremely limited, to make the Velocity program more valuable to its members, they should negotiate better terms with their partners.

You're not getting QR flights 350 days out because Velocity's booking window starts at 330 days

Again, my point is, Qantas is not perfect but at least Qantas frequent flyers have a sense of certainty and know the approach of how and when reward seats become available.

 

[bcworld]

Again, my point is, Qantas is not perfect but at least Qantas frequent flyers have a sense of certainty and know the approach of how and when reward seats become available.

I'm a QFF (no status) and have far more success with Velocity.

Post automatically merged: Apr 10, 2024

Yep I totally get that but what I am saying is, given Virgins international network is extremely limited, to make the Velocity program more valuable to its members, they should negotiate better terms with their partners.

Maybe Qantas should negotiate away the 3 day booking window for QR business and Emirates' heinous carrier surcharges?

 

[MooTime]

While Qantas may not be perfect, they do operate internationally so frequent flyer point holders have some sense of certainty of when and how to book reward seats (Generally, stay up till midnight to snap them up 1 year in advance).

Oh so incorrect, punters have a sense of certainty with QF releasing reward seats....oh my.

Once upon a time that was true, so yesterday, now it's random dumps of reward seats that QF play the social media PR game.

The crux is there's plenty certainly with velocity, multiple Tier 1 International carriers with many J reward seats popping up at known windows.

 

[ben95]

they should negotiate better terms with their partners.

What makes you think they don’t already do that? SQ only releases J rewards on long haul flights to its own KrisFkyer program and selected partners (AC, NH, OZ and VA are the only 4 I think). VA wouldn’t be in that list to get access to SG long haul J rewards seat if they had not negotiated better terms with SQ.

Qantas frequent flyers have a sense of certainty and know the approach of how and when reward seats become available.

Even Qantas is moving away from that now. It’s been reported in various places batch release 353 days in advance no longer happens on 787 operated long haul routes. You’d also have to be Gold or above to get that certainty as the 353 days calendar is restricted. When the seats open up to Silver or Bronze the 2-4 seats per flight release at 353 days would have been snatched up by higher tier member so for low tier QF members like myself (I don’t fly Qantas enough to earn status but do get decent amount of points via credit card and the occasional OW partner flight) I have no such certainty even for just QF metal.

 

[masco131]

Yep I totally get that but what I am saying is, given Virgins international network is extremely limited, to make the Velocity program more valuable to its members, they should negotiate better terms with their partners.


Again, my point is, Qantas is not perfect but at least Qantas frequent flyers have a sense of certainty and know the approach of how and when reward seats become available.

What sense of certainty? They literally do a dump of route randomly. There’s surely no certainty. Don’t forget velocity partners with Singapore which seems to always have good availability out of AUS. You can also convert velocity to krisflyer. IMO, velocity has better chances of getting you to Europe.

 

[levelnine]

Qantas must love these people who think black is white.

 

[MathNerd]

VA's US partner is UA, which releases award flights close to departure:
View attachment 378087

Thanks for this info (that UA releases award flights closer to departure). I was perusing seats.aero yesterday as well and saw this, that within the next 60 days there's sporadic UA availability in J for LAX/SFO - MEL/SYD.

I've recently snagged 2 J awards on SQ for April next year for MEL-JFK, and am now thinking on how to get back to MEL from any West coast US city. Could go with SQ of course but it's 2 flights back and 136,500 KF (which cost ~212,000 VA), or take the cheaper option of a UA LAX/SFO - MEL via VA and only splurge 95,500 Velocity points plus hardly any taxes. Plus the bonus of getting the journey done and dusted with a single flight, as well as try a new J product!

What would you suggest would be a good way to plan this out?
Most (all?) of my award redemptions are on SQ so I know that system well, camp on the site 355 days prior to flight date at the exact time of release and get 2 J awards pretty consistently.

For using VA to book UA J awards it appears to be a completely different game so just trying to wrap my head around it. Thanks!

 

[bcworld]

For using VA to book UA J awards it appears to be a completely different game so just trying to wrap my head around it. Thanks!

Essentially you would be looking to make that booking 1-2 weeks out. Obviously you would check every day in advance of that...but that is the sort of time period where you're going to start to see seats pop up. Although there was a time a few months ago where there was a lot of UA J availability showing in the following 3 months....e.g. I was looking in January and could see up to 4 seats on MEL-LAX/SFO on many days through Jan, Feb and Mar.

 

[levelnine]

Book flights now in Y or PE then rebook in J when/if it becomes available. Set up alerts in seats.aero. Be willing to be flexible on the precise date and port (LAX or SFO) you depart.

 

[MathNerd]

Essentially you would be looking to make that booking 1-2 weeks out. Obviously you would check every day in advance of that...but that is the sort of time period where you're going to start to see seats pop up. Although there was a time a few months ago where there was a lot of UA J availability showing in the following 3 months....e.g. I was looking in January and could see up to 4 seats on MEL-LAX/SFO on many days through Jan, Feb and Mar.

Book flights now in Y or PE then rebook in J when/if it becomes available. Set up alerts in seats.aero. Be willing to be flexible on the precise date and port (LAX or SFO) you depart.

Thanks @bcworld and @levelnine for your advice - 1 or 2 weeks prior to departure is definitely cutting things fine, but yeah it's possible that there could be seats popping up 3 months before departure (I remember seeing a post somewhere else where someone found multiple J seats for Xmas departures, in mid-September!).

I do like to lock things in a year in advance (which is what booking SQ awards requires effectively), so to have to leave things "to the last minute" is certainly going against the grain.

However, no risk no reward as they say, and of course I'm flexible with the departure city (easy to reposition within the States) and date can be flexible too (within reason). Just need to be back on/before a weekend ready for work on Monday. The Friday evening UA98 service is perfect - depart LAX at 11pm Friday and arrive in MEL 7am Sunday, then rest up on Sunday and adjust the body clock and bam back to the daily grind on Monday!