mfFrom35K

Just tried again per the response from Delta and Virgin Australia awards are now showing as available this morning.

Wisdom

Thank you. But I was too late to get my non-stop one way from SYD to LAX. I have to go through Brisbane. These seats went fast.

Wisdom

Does VA release more business class award seats on the same flight as time goes by? The flight I'm on shows only the two seats I booked and yet the flight doesn't show award seats available. All of the other seats are available if I wanted to switch seats.
Are there only two award seats available per flight? I thought I read somewhere there were about 6-8 award seats per flight.

Bowgie

I would not count on VA releasing more Biz-class seats as time goes by.

There is no way VA is going to make 6 to 8 biz-class awards seats available at the same time for any given flight. An initial two seats is pretty common.

3Cforme

Never say never. AF and VA appear to load award inventory very differently from the onesie-twosie stuff favored by DL (and AA).

Wisdom

Wow. I guess I'll be checking back each day. Thank you.

Wisdom

But would you say that after the initial two seats are offered it may not be unusual for them to offer more award seats?

Bowgie

Anything is possible -- even getting six biz-class seats on the same flight apparently

Personally, I would give-up. Find another day with the quantity of seats you need, or split your party up by flying out on consecutive days.

If you wait until your travel date is close and space does not open up, then you'll really be stuck.

I have noticed that VA does not consistently add initial availability at the same 330 or whatever days out. Sometimes, initial availability drops in under 300 days, so I suppose you can keep trying for a while. In other words, it makes a difference whether only the particular day you want is sold out, or nothing near the date you want has been loaded. I'd wait for the second case (schedule not loaded), but not the first (desired day sold out).

Wisdom

I really appreciate your comments. I wasn't very clear on why I'm wanting one particular day. I do have travel booked on VA for my return, but I have to go through BNE then on to LAX. A non-stop from Sydney would be so much easier. I'll keep checking in hoping they decide to add my award travel.
Thanks again.

Kremmen

I've not seen any VA availability in ages now. LAX-MEL or MEL-LAX searches used to show plenty of seats, if you looked far enough ahead. Now they all return "Travel for the date you selected is not offered or sold out. Check our worldwide timetable to see dates that this service operates. #101762A".

Anyone know what's up?

2Tall4Y

I saw plenty of BNE-LAX last week at the lowest tier when I booked. Delta is a mystery on any award travel of more than one segment, but per OMAAT the website is either glitchy (can only search round trip) or the Delta FFP overlords are up to something.

bgriff

One thing that happened is Virgin Australia stopped flying MEL-LAX. You'll have to check SYD-LAX or BNE-LAX and look for domestic connecting flights to MEL.

mattp1987

Don't know how long you've been searching, but if it was just last night this might be the problem. Hopefully they fix it soon.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...-vanished.html

Kremmen

That should never be necessary. It should find domestic connections itself.

Thanks. My other searches worked, but were ones that would often be DL-only, so I didn't know there was a massive outage with no partners coming up.

mfFrom35K

As some of you many know when partners came back from the partner glitch VA returned with coach seats only. Timing might have been a coincidence as VA is in the process of changing J configuration.

I just checked the whole schedule and found 2 days with 2 J seats on VA (Sept 6 and 7). So at least VA does still release J to partners. I do hope there will be more once they figure out how the new configuration will sell as I am hoping to book a trip to Australia and 175,000+ from the east coast one way isn't very attractive.