boonkoh

Was trying to book LAX to LHR flight, but Virgin Atlantic have no availability on the days I wanted. So rang up to see if they can check Air New Zealand availability on the exact same route - and was told that even if there was availability, I can't use my Virgin miles on a partner airline that Virgin fly themselves!

Even when Virgin has run out of reward seats on their own flight!

Is this right? Thinking of calling up again but the customer service assistant on the phone sounded so sure...

gq_dq

They generally appear not to have a lot of availability on any days that anyone wants.

doktordru

I'd call again, unless there's been a recent change that's not a policy I've ever heard of... However I wish you good luck ref securing a an ANZ seat via Virgin points, I and others have tried that without success even across a wide date range.. No availability. From memory there's a thread covering this topic over on V-Flyer.

Let us know how you get on.

Andrew

slinky09

I was about to say you'd been told utter bollocks, but then I checked the T&Cs on the VS web site here. It says:

Routes are available as follows:

New Zealand to the Pacific Islands: (Auckland to Fiji / Samoa / Tonga / Raratonga / Norfolk Island / Tahiti / New Caledonia & Hanan)

New Zealand to Australia: (Auckland / Wellington / Christchurch / Queenstown / Dunedin / Rotora to Sydney / Melbourne / Brisbane / Adelaide / Cairns / Coolangatta & Perth)

Australia to UK: (Sydney to London via Auckland)

Hong Kong to UK: (Hong Kong to London)

New Zealand to Asia: (Auckland to Nagoya / Osaka / Tokyo / Hong Kong / Shanghai & Beijing)

Flights originating from any destination within New Zealand other than Auckland will incur an additional internal reward mileage charge.

So apart from the error with Hong Kong, since ANZ stopped that route to London, it appears that LAX has dropped off the route list for redemptions. It certainly was there before, albeit that it was nearly impossible to book in premium or business, and it looks as though the information you were given is correct. Shame.

UKtravelbear

But in the 'spend miles' section on that page (rather than the T&Cs) it does list LA-UK (and I assume UK-LA) for 50k miles for Economy and 75k for Business.

VS Inconsistency strikes again !

at240

It surely isn't a general rule because that would prevent (say) mileage bookings on DL to NYC or BOS, which are clearly permitted.

Perhaps it's a specific thing for that route.

slinky09

True enough. I'll try to find out the official word from someone at VS.

boonkoh

So I rang Virgin again today. After spending lots of time on the phone and being transferred around, I got:

• Even on OW redemptions, you need to pay the roundtrip mileage
• Took forever to look up availability! A good 5 minutes of silence on the phone
• In order to look up availability, they need to enter my full details & VS number into the ANZ system (crazy right?)

So that's it cleared up then. You can redeem partner airlines on VS routes. But its not very elegant, and quite expensive for one-way!

mario

Can anyone else confirm that this is the case? Not that I'm doubting the OP but I just would like to confirm that this is not some made-up rule by a call center agent.

Seems a bit crazy to ask return miles for a one way redemption!

slinky09

It's pretty standard for rewards to be return trips, in fact VS is unusual in allowing one way rewards.

atomicc8

The only exception to the one way mileage charging as a rtn rule is redemptions made on Virgin Australia so you can get MEL-ADL for 8000 or LAX-SYD for 47000 with very little taxes.