Experience redeeming VX miles on International Partners
 

This post is my personal experience, observation attempting to redeem VX points with Virgin Atlantic and Singapore Airlines. These attempts were made (hats off) to Lucky who initially posted the, at least in theory, great value of VX points for flying around the globe.

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/onemil...ity-is-loaded/

Ring the alarm
"We're still trying to get to know Singapore Airlines"
"I don't have any seats on Air Singapore"
"105,000 points from London to San Francisco"
"There are only three of us who do these types of tickets"
"The person who knows about the points required is not in on Saturdays or Sundays"
Award charts showing incorrectly first and business class seats redemption options to Singapore/Hong Kong and Seoul (Not permitted on 77W, 380).
VX website doesn't show SQ as a partner (only VA, HA, Virgin Australia)

Positive moments
-Agents proactively tried alternate airports (ie: SFO:LAX; LHR:LGW)
-Friendly, upbeat, effort made to make flights work using alternate days/times combo of airlines
-Offered to put me on hold or callback (they did the latter AND called back within 30 minutes)
-Willingness to check every week for me to see if specific dates opened up ("I will call if something becomes available and ask you before ticketing it.")
-AMEX MR points easily transfer to VX in case you are short for redemption
-Award redemption levels are very lucrative in some markets as Lucky points to.

Some issues I had:
1) LHR-SFO - no nonstop space in any class on the days I selected (they offered alternates). But DID find LHR-IAD-SFO in upper class. The pricing on it came to 105,000 points ONE WAY however. The rep claimed it is two award tickets; LHR-IAD and IAD-SFO (VX). Beside the point they are treating this as two tickets (very strange...), how do they price it at 105k when LHR-IAD is 25,000; A VX award ticket is based on market price of the ticket, not a fixed amount like their international partners. Meanwhile, if available, the LHR-SFO is 30,000. 105,000?** Even the agent didn't know how to explain it.

2) Overall impression based on my conversations is reps operate on a cliff notes version of the process and asking questions usually leads to several awkward moments of silence and/or asking a supervisor for help.

3) This process is not sustainable. Man, I love me my VX, but the manual process of this ("let me look these up and call you back...," "I can try looking each week for you...") just won't work long-term if their business model is to...grow. These partnerships with international carriers is great, but only if they can pull it off. Let us not forget the IT mess in the early days of VX and the headaches that was for weeks/months.

** Possible pricing they are use:
LHR-IAD 25,000 fixed price
IAD-SFO 75,163 refundable one-way ticket
IS approximately 105,000

Overall, I was not able to book today. On one hand, there are some really good opportunities here. The speculation of VX existence beyond 2013 are certainly of some concern which is pushing me to redeem sooner than later. Unfortunately, navigating through the redemption process does take some patience.

great recap DBCme - thanks!

The website clearly shows Singapore as a partner - http://www.virginamerica.com/frequen...levate_airline

Hawaiian Airlines
 

I would love to hear someone's experience with Hawaiian airlines redemption. If I book it 330 days in advance, I should get a seat right?

In all fairness, there really isn't much that VX can do when SQ is extremely stingy with F and J awards to its partners,though for Y they do release quite a bit.

In June, I redeemed VX points for VS Upper Class SFO-LHR. It was totally frustrating. It took about three weeks (It appears they had to redo things [our ticket numbers and VS booking codes were changed] - but because of the lack of visibility, I couldn't tell for sure) In any event, it took a lot of bird-dogging to get it done. I agree that the process is not scalable or even acceptable. I assume that the first person screwed things up - but even had things gone correctly, the process still is a back box which takes up to a week.

The worst part of it all was that there was no way to tell what was going on - there was no visibility as to where the process was at any time. (Money for taxes etc was charged at one point, and ultimately [much later] my VX points were deducted, but monitoring them was the only online evidence that things were happening.) Ultimately, I was able to get my VS booking reference - and I can now see and manage the booking on the VS site.

I'm looking forward to my flight next week, but I really can't say anything positive about the redemption and booking process.

Here's my experience booking a redemption through Elevate on VA:
15 minutes call to get a booking confirmation, and availability matches that of VA's, so that's a relief.

BUT, it will take 24 hours to get a confirmation from VA before VX can send the booking to ticketing. Until then, if availability changes then my reservation isn't 'protected'!
Also, ticketing might take up to 3 days since they have to do it manually. The agent said it's usually done within 3-4 hours of receiving confirmation from the other airline.

Another note: changes/cancellations and refunds within 24 hours of ticketing are free of charge. After that, up to 24 hours prior to departure, it's a $100 penalty. Within 24 hours of travel, all is forfeited (did not ask about taxes though).

Will update this as I hear back from VX. All up, it wasn't as bad as I expected, certainly much better than the OP's experience.

Something I forgot to mention. Taxes came in exactly those displayed in the paid fare on VA's website in USD, excluding the Australian GST component naturally.

I've had SQ economy class booked with no problems and I was pretty happy with the experience. The flight I wanted wasn't available when I first inquired, but the CSR called me a few days later letting me know she was able to book it.

That's very lax to say the least. How long did it take to get the tickets issued from the moment you provided your CC details?

Final update: 40 hours from having called to book, VX sent me a confirmation email with VA booking reference and the charges applied to my Elevate account and credit card.

What's interesting in the email is the following:
The agent mentioned 24 hours not 2 hours, could he have been mistaken? or could the text be inaccurate?

No, the flight wasn't even available at the time so the CSR kept checking for me. Once it was available, she called to confirm and I provided CC information. I received a VX confirmation within hours and a SQ confirmation within a day or two.

VX decided overnight to increase the one-way redemption levels on domestic VA by 15-25%. So instead of 3k/5k for MEL-SYD in Y/J, it became 3.5k/6k. Longer sectors went from 8.5k to 10k.

Return itineraries are not affected. No announcements or notifications made.

What's funny is that for redeeming on VS LHR-EDI it costs 2500 Elevate points return in economy, a trip of a similar distance on VA is 6000 Elevate points!

Good Experience Redeeming with HA
 

I'd just like to share my good experience redeeming with Hawaiian Airlines. I am doing a cruise over Thanksgiving week (high season). Although flights on Saturdays and Sundays were not available, I was able to secure flights on the Friday before Thanksgiving and the Monday after Thanksgiving (4 tickets). I was able to get my first choice flights, the non-stops between Oakland and Honolulu. I was very pleased to get these flights, as they are fairly expensive ($700 roundtrip). I got them for only 20,000 Elevate points each, which is a great conversion rate. Calling the Partner Redemption desk was fairly painless. After about a 10 minute hold time, the customer rep was easy to work with and was able to explain to me what was and was not available for various travel dates and itineraries (connecting flights through Maui, etc.). I did have to call Hawaiian airlines to get seat assignments (VX couldn't do this and I can't do it online). I am a very satisfied customer!

Why does the page for redeeming on Singapore Airlines shows this ?

Hmm. I'm going to attempt to redeem a oneway ticket from Europe to SIN for next week. So the consensus is that no 77W, A380 J/F seats are available?

Virgin America Partner Booking Desk
 

Virgin America Partner Booking Desk agents are phenomenal. Few interesting points based on a Virgin Australia booking between OZ/NZ:

- Queenstown, NZ isn't on Virgin Australia's city drop down list yet booked without issue
- Return from Queenstown to Sydney had no availability so agent suggested an open jaw from AKL @:-)
- Itinerary (SYD-ZQN & AKL-SYD) priced at 16,000 points and $121 in taxes (vs. SYD-AKL roundtrip would have priced same points but $180 in taxes)
- Received personalized email from booking agent with itinerary once VA acknowledged receipt
- Reservation isn't confirmed-confirmed until ticketing (1-3 business days)

All in all a great experience ^

How long did the whole procedure take?

Was on the phone 31 minutes which seems long, but I requested she check availability on EK, too. Agent shared VA's system response time is arduously slow (plausible being an Australia company :p)

Singapore Airlines partner availability doesn't match up with the ANA tool. I checked for business class on Singapore - Bangkok, and there was a rather large mismatch in business class award availability.

I am totally confused - can I or can't I redeem on Singapore for A380 or 77W F class ?

A couple of times every year Virgin Atlantic has a mileage rewards sale. If you redeem VX miles for a VS flight during the sale period does the rewards sale apply?

No

I spent 40 mins on the phone awaiting availability search on a single day on Singapore Air, only to be told there were no seats in any class on any of the 5 flights offered (HKG-SIN). Wasn't surprised to learn of no availability, but was surprised the hold time was that long.

Adding a data point: I just booked 4 upper class tix to LHR for next summer on VS, using Elevate points.

I had searched the VS site to find where there was availability for 4 UC tickets (none from SFO or LAX; lots from ORD, turns out), so I knew the exact flight I was asking about -- making this significantly easier.

But the agent was very competent and got it booked in maybe 15 minutes, including taking down some passport info for all four members of my family.

Nice Gold perk: if I need to change plans (e.g., if availability from SFO comes up), no change fee as long as it's 2 hours before takeoff; and if I need to outright cancel, I get all of my Elevate points back and they credit all of the fuel surcharges back to my card. So although it's "nonrefundable," it's actually 100% refundable.

Can you mix VX on partner award bookings?

Do you know who you dealt with at redemptions? I'll recommend Patti.

Gold on VX or VS? I was also told it was non-refundable, and changes were $100.

Angela


Gold on VX, no status on VS (haven't flown it since 1999). She told me I'd need to go through VX for any change or cancellation, since VS wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

Patti is excellent!

Gold on VX gets you fee-free Elevate Reward cancellations, which includes Elevate Reward partner flights.

Experience redeeming VX miles on International Partners
 

Could somebody point me in a direction of a partner award chart, specifically Singapore Airlines for VX redemptions? I can't seem to find it. Looking to fly NRT-SIN

deleted.

Click Elevate/Redeem Points, then scroll down below Redeem With Our Airline Partners. You'll see from/to airports. Change them to NRT and SIN and you'll see the VX points (thousands) required on Singapore: 20/70/90 for Y/C/F, plus $55.

About 4 months ago I was able to book 2 RT UC on VS using VX miles (SFO-LHR). The entire process was "easy". I say "easy" only because I had to wait 3 days for the VS seats to become available in VX's system even though VS showed availability (agent at VX was very knowledgeable indeed!!).

VX booked my outbound seats to hold them for the reservation and called me back 3 days later as promised she would to let me know seats were now available in UC for the return to complete my reservation.

Taxes and duties paid were paid then and maybe 3 days later the miles were deducted from my account. All in all, it was a good experience indeed.

Weird thing today... VX seems to be charging full YQ on SQ redemptions.

In Dec (and the for the past last 2 years) I redeemed SIN BKK SIN, I was always charged around $45 - $50 per pax for taxes and fees.

Today I called in for another SIN BKK SIN and it was priced at $145. Agent priced it out three times and was still the same.

Anyone having the same problem?

Really disappointing experience with VX and trying to book SFO-LHR on VS (availability showed on VS website) - could not even speak with the awards desk - was told they had no phone system because they were moving and that I should email - would get a response within 24 hrs. Did so and four days later no response. Called again, was told the same thing, and that I should call back and speak with a supervisor when one was available (was in Hawaii and guess the supervisors were gone for the day). During the four days I also sent DM to the Twitter team asking when desk would have communication - no response. Gave up, transferred the VS miles from a credit card and booked that way in fear of losing seats.

I've generally had good experiences with VX booking on VS. I've been advised that SQ is basically a lost cause, VA is spotty, and I'm not really looking at Emirates (IMHO it's all the fees of VS with a far worse place to lay over...yes, I'll take London over the UAE almost any day...). Finally, I've generally been informed that HA is basically a mirage: They partner with almost everyone in some fashion or another, but I think that's owing to their inter-island network (everyone else's offerings outside of HNL and, to a lesser extent, OGG are pretty slim).

As to that 100k price above, that's because the poster was getting a VS fixed-cost award alongside a VX award (generally the external awards are a substantially better value; heck, the only reason I'm spending points on an "internal" redemption in a few weeks is in anticipation of the merger being a disaster).

If I can see SQ availability on both AC, NH and Lifemiles, it is likely that it is available to VX agents as well right? Are VX agents able to hold award tickets?

EDIT: Just called Elevate and the agent could NOT see the seats in his system, despite them being available on Lifemiles, ANA and Air Canada (and SQ itself or course). It seems strange to me that Elevate would somehow not have access to these seats. Any advice? HUACA?

I have the same experience with SQ Award availability too.

I have thought that it might have to do with new a/c versus regional a/c, but VX simply does not show any award availability.

I am looking at SIN-HKG on August 19 and there are two SQ flights with J availability, but VX called me and said that they have no availability.

Carfield

Just a report back...
The partner desk is back in operation and it is available from 8am to 11pm PST daily. Some of the agents, who work in the regular desk, are not aware of it.

Unfortunately, Singapore Airlines or Virgin America or both are blocking award availability on SQ.

While ANA shows seats available in J and Y, Virgin America seems none. I am not even checking long haul flights, as I am just checking regional flights from SIN to BKK and HKG.

If you are looking to use your VX points for SQ award flights, basically you should forget about it, as it does not matter for any cabin class or on any routes - long or short haul.

Carfield

Agree, this is pretty crazy, I had her look at a two week span for CGK-SIN in J and Y and she couldn't find anything for any date. I was looking at award space at the same time via AC and LifeMiles and it was showing a lot of availability. Really bizarre.

They really should remove SQ from their redemption tables if seats indeed can't be redeemed on this carrier.