Looking to fly with the wife in June 2023 return from Melb to Sweden (prefer Gothenburg but can be other cities)
I have
Velocity - 340k+ points (temp gold status)
Qantas - 670k points (platinum)
To add one slight twist, if possible we would like to stop in Koh Samui on the way home. The guides on how to book seem so simple, and the points costs seem so basic (eg just get 140k points for a business flight) but the execution of it seems near impossible.
I’m terribly confused and would be very grateful for any advice. I dont care if we only go business one way and then the other way economy, but for the life of me, how do i just keep this simple?
I have searched the virgin website, checked “points” and keep finding some availability but the points cost varies from 120k upto 1.5m for a one way flight. I read that it was 139k business class. What am i not understanding here? How do i simply find an available business class flight? Why do the points change so much and are not consistent?
As for Qantas, can anyone advise am i supposed to look for the whole route, or should i be trying to look for sectors only? Again, I keep getting wildly different points costs and they all seem exorbitant seeing as the RTW ticket is only a little bit more.
There’s a similar post on here about flying to Europe. As a platinum, you do get some leeway with regards to asking the Qantas team to ‘unlock’ some reward seats for you. Given the absolute desert of business class seats on the saught after Australia to Europe market, this could be the way to go. You could request them to unlock anything within the operated by Qantas network so perhaps their London or Rome flights and figure it out from there. Have a read here.
If you get the ‘computer says no’ then you’d have to work a little bit harder.
Business class is hard at this time of year. Premium economy is pretty decently available on a lot of dates on Singapore Airlines to frankfurt. Sadly, if you want business, you’ll have to transfer your Velocity points to Krisflyer to get their primo selection of availability.
Qantas, as expected, returns absolutely nothing on the way out to Europe.
I think the ideal case would be:
Outbound from Melbourne to London/Rome + connecting flight to Sweden on Qantas (hopefully requestable)
You mentioned stop over in Koh Samui and the most obvious way/flexible way is to have a stopover at Singapore or Hong Kong or Bangkok where you could take a flight/side trip to Koh Samui. I think Singapore or Hong Kong is the most flexible in terms of getting home so:
Departing Europe to Singapore/Hong Kong is quite simple and availability is comparatively more abundant and you can use Qantas or Velocity points on either.
From Singapore, likely Singapore Airlines will have more options than Qantas so you might want to use Velocity points for that. From Hong Kong, Qantas likely trumps.
Hope that gets the juices flowing and solidifies your searches.
Let’s address your points costs questions:
139k is the standard rewards flight price. If you see exorbitant ones above that, it means this is the anytime price (as a standard reward is not available) There’s a helpful pointshack article explaining the difference. Essentially, if you see a VA flight number next to it, it’s probably a rip off as only Virgin’s codeshare and operated flights can be priced that way.
Round the world with qantas is great value IF you can get the flights. As you said, it’s pretty hard and confusing to tie it all together. Usually people start planning these things as soon as the calendar opens (so around a year in advance and book as they go) and this process gets progressively harder as time goes on!
Just updating with some award finds while I was planning a Europe trip for myself as well.
On the way out is tough. I see Melbourne to Frankfurt in the last week of May in Singapore Airlines but not bookable through velocity so you’d need to transfer.
I see some rare availability on Copenhagen to Singapore direct for two in Business on Singapore Airlines bookable on Velocity on 25th June and a few dates for Qatar with a connection in Doha. From the last time I was in that part of Europe, I think there’s a train from Copenhagen to Sweden so shouldn’t be too difficult. 92K velocity points per person. Singapore offers some budget fares to Thailand, might be worth booking cash for those.
Thank you for all the detailed information. I gave the suggestions a try and here was the results:
1: OUTBOUND - I rang and used my platinum benefit, qantas were very helpful, although were unable to locate a single bus or eco flight from melb to london, rome, frankfurt or france between 16th June - mid July 2023 (edit: forgot to mention we also looked from adelaide and perth outbound as well)
2: INBOUND - they also looked for london and rome to melb, via multiple routes home. Couldnt find a single ticket in bus or eco, nor the fare class that allows for the request to be approved.
3: searched the multi city qantas tool myself, and actually did find a couple of flights in econ, prem eco and bus, but they were very disjointed (often 40+ hr flights), often were jetstar to singapore, then charging bus points rates to fly econ on other sectors.
4: searched the virgin website. It seems that they are only flying melb to america, bali, fiji etc atm. I couldnt find any flights to europe, nor any flights back from europe. I didn find some very limited flights from asia to melb, but they were very points expensive and in mid July (before we are able to even leave Australia, let alone return from Europe)
Thank you again for the additional reply, that was very kind. Sadly, those dates are too early - We can be flexible on our departure date (16th june - early july) and then our return would be approx two weeks after that.
I will keep checking the qantas multi tool, in case some one cancels or more seats open up.
Is there any recommendation on that? how often to check? times of the month that more seats may be allocated to points etc?
Again, greatly appreciate all your assistance, even though the end result was not achieved.
We’re doing a similar itinerary around the same time next year to Sweden and having a couple of nights in Bali (as there’s generally good availability for Qatar business class to Europe from Bali)
I had a quick search of the same sort of itinerary for your dates and have come up with the below:
Outbound: 155,000 Velocity Pts + $533 in taxes each
27/06/23 MEL 15:10 - ADL 16:05 VA231 BUSINESS
27/06/23 ADL 18:55 - DPS 22:50 VA113 BUSINESS
(Direct MEL-DPS flight available in Business on 19/06/23 but this might make the trip too long given how hard it is to find tickets coming home)
Couple of nights in Bali on the way over (this could potentially be avoided if you want but might make it into a 35+hr journey).
29/06/23 DPS 19:05 - DOH 23:40 QR961 BUSINESS
30/06/23 DOH 01:55 - CPH 07:15 QR161 BUSINESS
Return: 185,800 Qantas Pts + ~$650 in taxes each
14/07/23 GOT 12:40 - LHR 14:00 BA791 BUSINESS
14/07/23 LHR 16:05 - AMM 23:05 RJ112 BUSINESS
15/07/23 AMM 02:15 - BKK 15:15 RJ182 BUSINESS (also available 4th/11th/13th/16th)
20/07/23 HKT 22:20 - MEL 09:40 (+1) JQ18 BUSINESS (also available 13th/23rd)
You’d have to make your own way from Copenhagen to Gothenburg, and from Bangkok to Koh Samui, but hopefully gives you a feel of what sort of availability there is.
Best way to search is by leg on Qantas’ multi-city tool or just by sector in Virgin’s search.
Those are some good ideas, thank you.
Im trying to use the virgin websites multi city tool right now and im having a possible glitch - it wont accept bali, denpasar or DPS as valid searches. Ive also encountered a similar problem when looking for doha in the past on the qantas website as well.
Does anyone else get this issue and how do you resolve it?
alternatively, should I just be using the single trip booking tool? (seems a bit complex for a multi stop, couple of days between booking type situation)
OK, let me start by saying im in awe as to how you found these and pieced it all together! Thats some serious sleuthing going on, knowing what flights connect where, the routes available etc etc…
I plugged in the qantas flight home and it all worked as you said. Im completely amazed.
I also would love to know HOW you actually did that, as i want to be able to replicate that my self in the future but currently I just keep hitting dead ends and finding flights with very high points costs or charging business priced points for a flight that actually in economy.
My ears are wide open.
On a second note, I plugged in the Virgin flights from bali to CPH and found them, but they are 99,100 points per/p for economy only, just for that segment (the mel-adl-dps flights were 77,200 per/p in bus). I searched a few other dates around that and generally found the same thing. Did i miss something?
The Virgin multi-city search is domestic only, you can get around this by changing the city codes in the URL (might have to call them up to book but at least you can get an idea of points/taxes). Also there only seems to be business availability for the 7:05pm flight out of Bali. You should see Business is “241,300 Pts or 153,500 Pts and $523.62”, the first number is paying for the taxes/surchages with points but I usually do the second option (pay the minimum in points and the taxes/surcharges in cash)
Try this link (you can change the dates which are in MM-DD-YYYY format):
In terms of how I knew to search those cities for Qantas/Oneworld - I spent a lot of time struggling and learnt a lot booking my own flights (e.g. that while it would be one of the most convinient options for Scandanavia, I wasn’t able to find any Finnair business availability for Asia-Helsinki even on the day they’re supposedly released), so you often have to search the lesser known airlines of the alliance.
Now we have a better idea of dates, I think we have a few more options for business class.
On the way out I see some availability from Adelaide. You can add in a domestic flight on Virgin from Melbourne as well but that means an overnight in Adelaide because you won’t fly in early enough for your flight to Singapore otherwise.
139,000 Velocity points + $487 per person
22-Jun, Adelaide-Singapore-Copenhagen (Singapore Airlines)
Coming back, I love @happyflyer6 suggestions. Totally forgot Royal Jordanian exists and also flying to Bangkok is a great idea. I will just worn that Jetstar’s business class is not lie flat, but more of a premium economy style seat.