Virgin Atlantic vs Virgin Australia airfare for Sydney-Hong Kong

7 replies

SaltyJ

Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards

Member since 06 Dec 2012

Total posts 157

Does anyone know why there would be a difference in fare price for VS flight SYD - HKG when bookin through Virgin Atlantic website compared to Virgin Oz website? Is it a bit like hotel/accomm websites where hotels release a certain number of "special fares" to booking websites? As a side note, if I book a SYD-HKG flight through VS with a VS flight number, would I still get FF and SC points through Velocity?

hutch

Member since 07 Oct 2012

Total posts 772

Airlines can only co-operate on pricing with approval of the appropriate regulatory/competition bodies. Therefore it is very common for airlines that interline and/or codeshare without joint ventures approved by competition authorities to have different prices. So Virgin Atlantic & Australia may be 'partners/friends', but do not (to my knowledge) have approval to co-operate on pricing.

The pricing can differ for various reasons, but as one example, some (not all) codeshare agreements involve the marketing airline buying a certain number of 'blocked' seats off the operating airline. Therefore the marketing airline, needs to price in order to sell all its seats and belly space (frieght). A similar situation occurs with Qantas/LAN (oneworld partners but no JV) and South African/Qantas (approval to codeshare on duopoly route - but must 'compete' on pricing).

I don't know enough about Velocity, so someone else will need to answer that.

moa999

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 02 Jul 2011

Total posts 834

Under a codeshare agreement certain 'fare buckets' (normally the cheapest ones) may not be available to partners.

On SYD-HKG vv. I have always found the VX code to be cheaper (often by a lot)

Merc25

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 29 Jun 2013

Total posts 317

I find Virgin Atlantic the better of the two ,especially with award flights, ie Virgin Atlantic award  Melb to Auckland in business class only  30,000 points return using their  partner Air New Zealand.this has to be the best business FF award across the ditch

Mont80

Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards Platinum

Member since 01 Jul 2013

Total posts 16

Hi Salty J. If you choose to fly VS you can attribute your miles to Velocity and earn status credits. http://www.velocityfrequentflyer.com/content/Earn/Airlines/PointsEarn/index.htm#virginatlantic

SaltyJ

Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards

Member since 06 Dec 2012

Total posts 157

Thanks Mont80. I am aware that ican attribute points to Velocity from VS, but wanted clarification if I could do so if it was both marketed and operated by VS?

iFLYflat

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 20 Nov 2012

Total posts 40

When using points, on SYD HKG Upper class, Virgin Atlantic points is much better value.

Virgin Atlantic is 40k points each way + ~$220 taxes

Virgin Velocity is 57,800 points each way + $xxx taxes

Ol647

Member since 09 Aug 2012

Total posts 21

VS is definitely better value when it comes to reward flights. 40k economy, 60k PE, 80k Upper class return!

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