Where are the gaps for your travels?

[theevilmuppet]

Hi all,

My partner and I are planning our next holiday, and the gaps in the VA partner network are causing us a minor issue. We're planning a holiday that will see us travel to China, Korea and Japan and there are currently a number of gaps in that itinerary when looking to maximise status credit and points earn.

Getting to any one of these countries with SQ is easy enough, however domestic connections are problematic as well as connections between this countries. Although the ability to send Star Alliance earn to SQ assists in retaining some of the miles/points earn, the SC earn is completely wasted.

With all of that said, what parts of the world do members identify as the greatest gaps in Virgin's bespoke set of partnerships? I'm not seeking to turn this into a thread along the lines of "Borghetti should hurry up and join *A!" or "They were thinking of joining SkyTeam, get on with it!", as neither of those options would likely address everyone's concerns.

As always, thanks to all those that decide to reply.

 

[Mattg]

The entire continent of South America, for starters...

 

[grubbidok]

South and Central America for sure (often go through via USA and DL, which TBF is often cheap, but horrendous transit time). Also India.

Despite AB and now AZ I've never found the arrangements inter-Europe (either independently or a SQ/EY hub connection flight) particularly useful.

 

[Denali]

South America!

We're going the long way, SYD-LAX-ATL-SCL with VA & Delta then Easter Island with LAN (QF partner). Thankfully all J so hope to sleep a lot.

On the way back, swinging past Nashville and Atlanta as we've not been there before but would have picked direct of available.

 

[NZflygirl]

Sometimes I end up on another carrier not due to gaps in networks but just because I want to take the cheapie so same outcome of no sc etc anyway.

 

[RooFlyer]

South and Central America for sure (often go through via USA and DL, which TBF is often cheap, but horrendous transit time). Also India.

<snip>

SQ do fly to Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata from SIN ...

 

[theevilmuppet]

South and Central America for sure (often go through via USA and DL, which TBF is often cheap, but horrendous transit time). Also India.

Despite AB and now AZ I've never found the arrangements inter-Europe (either independently or a SQ/EY hub connection flight) particularly useful.

AB is a borderline member at best, given SCs are only earned when flying on VA ticket stock.

 

[grubbidok]

SQ do fly to Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata from SIN ...

You can get to India, but you can't do much if you have to get around once you're there.

 

[CPMaverick]

VA does a pretty good job of getting people to most world destinations from Australia on partners. SQ, EY, and DL have pretty extensive networks.

However once you leave Australia it does get pretty difficult. The lack of a major alliance means few partners that fly domestically in other countries. DL is great for North America, SQ is pretty good for South Asia. There are a few decent partners in Europe. The rest of the planet suffers.

My biggest peeve is no way to get direct to HKG or Japan or China from Australia on VA partners. When QF has direct flights it makes itineraries on SQ look silly sometimes. Heck Jetstar has a much much better network than VA or their partners on these routes.

 

[bnalyd]

You have hit the nail on the head pretty well. If you just want to get to one destination and back (outside of the US and parts of Europe) then VA is pretty good, but if you want to travel within or from one of the other continents it gets tricky. Right now my partner and I are trying to book MEL-BUE-NYC-SFO-LA-MEL and it would be great to use VA and partners the whole way. It is possible, but you have to book so many individual legs without any return flights that the cheapest we have found so far is $7800 each. Where as we could book something similar using OW for around $4300 in premium economy for the majority of flights. It is a similar scenario in Asia. Here again Singapore is great to get somewhere, but if you want to get somewhere else in Asia with a VA partner then you have to go back via SIN 99% of the time. Maybe this will change once Hainan starts getting more involved.

I think that would be one improvement VA could make, allowing a multi-stop booking on their partners that could be readily booked via the VA website. Like others on here, I would be thrilled for VA to join A* or Sky, but I can appreciate the business practicalities involved... Who knows, maybe one day once Ethiad has finished purchasing other airlines in distress and sorted them out, there may be a fourth alliance.

Side note- for getting to South America I highly recommend ANZ, it is a top service and the transit in AKL really helps break up what would be a rather long flight (having lunge access in AKL also helps).

 

[grubbidok]

Side note- for getting to South America I highly recommend ANZ, it is a top service and the transit in AKL really helps break up what would be a rather long flight (having lunge access in AKL also helps).

I've tried these bookings, but NZ doesn't appear do anywhere in Colombia, and every time I try to book one of their codeshares to Brazil I'm told there's no availability

 

[bnalyd]

Generally you can get anywhere Aerolienas Argentinas flies. I have used it to get to Uruguay and the interior of Argentina. It further illustrates what I said in my post, the bespoke alliance is great to get to one place, but once there you are left without many options.

 

[Cryptarcadian]

I'd be keen to try fly NZ for AU-AKL-EZE itself, but beyond that...

Aerolineas Argentinas :shock:

What kind of even pseudo-alliance are we talking about when you have to resort to connecting with them?!
(Disclaimer: I've flown AR a few times domestically within Argentina, but never internationally, having heard their reputation.)

As far as Asia goes, VA doing AU-HKG/PEK will help that to some extent, but Japan will remain a rather unfortunate gap.

 

[grubbidok]

Generally you can get anywhere Aerolienas Argentinas flies. I have used it to get to Uruguay and the interior of Argentina. It further illustrates what I said in my post, the bespoke alliance is great to get to one place, but once there you are left without many options.

I wouldn't call an interline agreement with no recognition or points and SC earn something that fills the gap.

edit: also, after checking out the VFF page, it seems AR are no longer even an interline partner

 

[bnalyd]

I completely agree. Aerolineas is no longer a partner (just an ANZ partner), I was clutching at straws (being optimistic that you can at least progress you trip a little in South America before maybe swtiching to DLA). Unfortunately this is something that you have to do with a 'bespoke' alliance!!!

Aerolineas is not the greatest airline in the world, but within Argentina it is okay. As someone who travels to Argentina 3-4 times per year part of me was grateful when Aerolineas stopped being an option!! Likewise, I was very excited once ANZ picked up the route, especially as someone flying out from MEL to BUE.

 

[theevilmuppet]

I'd be keen to try fly NZ for AU-AKL-EZE itself, but beyond that...

Aerolineas Argentinas :shock:

What kind of even pseudo-alliance are we talking about when you have to resort to connecting with them?!
(Disclaimer: I've flown AR a few times domestically within Argentina, but never internationally, having heard their reputation.)

As far as Asia goes, VA doing AU-HKG/PEK will help that to some extent, but Japan will remain a rather unfortunate gap.

Domestically within Japan it'll be terrible, however there are 2-hop options with the Singapore Airlines and upcoming Hainan Airlines tie-up.

Flying from Japan, Delta has Fifth Freedom rights from Tokyo which can help in exploring other parts of Asia without doubling back and still earning points + status credits. Of course, Tokyo isn't all of Japan!

 

[deva22]

South and Central America for sure (often go through via USA and DL, which TBF is often cheap, but horrendous transit time). Also India.

Despite AB and now AZ I've never found the arrangements inter-Europe (either independently or a SQ/EY hub connection flight) particularly useful.

Agreed!
Off to Europe on SQ (award J) and need to do some intra Europe flying. Can't earn status or points without going through Italy all the time! An LH tie up would be nice (fat chance)... Or even if they could do SCs on AB that'd be a start! We ended up booking whoever was cheapest (mixture of AB, LH, OU & 4U)

 

[fewings85]

As others have said south America.

its a mjor problem for me as I frequent Colombia a lot. Joinging Star Alliance would fix this for as I use Copa most of the time if not Avianca who are both star alliance. Only option Is delta via ATL but most of the time transit/flight times are an issue.

 

[CPMaverick]

Flying from Japan, Delta has Fifth Freedom rights from Tokyo which can help in exploring other parts of Asia without doubling back and still earning points + status credits. Of course, Tokyo isn't all of Japan!

This is one reason that a VA flight to TYO would make lots of sense! Connect to PVG or Taipei... And the Shinkansen can get you to many other cities from Tokyo without too much fuss.

DL flies to 4 cities in Japan from HNL. But I've never been able to book a VA flight to Japan via HNL. Maybe it's a bit longer than through SIN but you could get more VA segments that way.