CommanderB

After the recent thread outlining the devaluation of miles by not being allowed to book on ANA, I didn't really think much.

But now, I just tried to see if there was any redemption space to Barbados... and apparently you cannot use miles for that route!?

Might it have something to do with this...?

Operated by Virgin Atlantic International on behalf of Virgin Atlantic

Are there any other known limitations?

SlimpyJones

You can use miles for BGI - make sure that you're searching for trips from *LGW* and not LON. I've just searched and there's plenty of reward availability for BGI.

You can use miles for any route that is entirely operated by VS.

UKtravelbear

VS created a separate subsidiary for some of the planes that operate out of LGW to (IIRC) 4 destinations in the Caribbean. It was done for investment / finance / regulatory / legal reasons.

For all intents and purposes these are still VS flights (otherwise why would VS be selling them?) with VS planes and VS crews and VS service levels.

Air Lingus has something similar for some of it's routes to the US.

When BA started it's LCY-JFK it also set up a separate (but wholly owned and now closed) company to operate the service.


The reason you found no reward seats was because (as Slimpy says) you probably searched LON rather than LGW. This is known bug in the VS system. You sometimes get different results searching LHR-NYC that LHR-JFK or LHR-EWR.

CommanderB

Interesting bug, thanks for the information. I looked again and there are indeed plenty of redemptions from LGW.