in2it54

I've only just eased in. I am PER based.

Up until the middle of last year I was Oneworld focussed. Most of my leisure earning was done on QR and some employer stuff on QF. I currently sit Silver with about 120K miles in QR (QF about 60K).

My leisure travel habits are shotstay travel to Bali about 2 times a year, and one biggie to Europe or beyond.

So last years midlife crisis, I was looking for QF flights out of PER to Asia - there wasn't any ! (but now I think there is one 737 flight to SIN). The aim is to use miles with regional international, either straight up Biz. or upgrade from Y.

So my thinking took me to Virgin. I'll use their Bali service to utilise my Miles. I'm now Velocity silver and 50K (some recent Bali flights and EY flights on the last biggie).

You got it. Virgin is ceasing it's International flights out of PER. Their timeslots have been passed to Tigerair, which has no Biz class.

What to do into the future ? Any thoughts ?

Osmo

Does Silk Air depart from Perth?

Silk Air is a VA and SIA partner. Im guessing you can transfer your VA points to KrisFlyer and book that way if you cant book via VA.

Mwenenzi

For flights PER to Bali is it worth messing about with awards or upgrades? Just pay the $$$ for the best seat & schedule. Exit row for short day time flights can be reasonable value.
It is possible Air Sydney (sometimes known as Qantas) does not know Perth is part of Australia

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...help-here.html

NZbutterfly

http://www.news.com.au/finance/busin...-1227473777760

This article says virgin are continuing flights bali from port hedland. Could you fly perth - port hedland - bali? (I've not looked at the schedule).

I do feel for Perth.

eastwest101

I do feel for Perth as well but as others have said - airfares to Bali are almost at the point of them paying you to fly to Bali soon with all the capacity and cheap options. You may want to consider an alliance (or two) that suit your domestic needs and also work for you with flying to Europe (either direct from Perth or ex-Bali)

in2it54

Here's the problem. They look cheap up front, but by the time you add the addons (seating, food, luggage, fees) you near normal prices.
What a pack - Air Asia, Jetstar, Tigerair.
In Y (at a reasonable price), it use to be good for getting your Sector count up. All going/gone now.
Garuda is the only mainline operator left offering direct flights.

eastwest101

Exactly - I take your point about add-on costs with LCCs such as Air Asia, Tiger Air, Jetstar etc etc, I am aware of this, I was just pointing out to the OP that their choice in loyalty program shouldn't solely be dictated by who flies to DPS.

There are other places in the world that are not DPS, and Perth does have a variety of international airlines serving it, the OP need to figure out their current domestic patterns within Australia and their planned patterns overseas (whether originating from Perth or via DPS to other places) and work out what works for them. Unless QF route planners suddenly remember Perth and announce increased services or the OP definitely knows they will be on a lot of QF planes and not many VA planes in the future, then walking away from Velocity would seem a bit weird in my opinion.