Virgin Australia doubles up on flights to Europe with Singapore & Etihad

This is really exciting, and it gives the Australian passengers a real purpose now to save up their frequent flyer points on Virgin and gives a mega boost to their banking credit card partners.

Which makes a points earn and spend strategy now even more important.

Virgin customers now have a real ability to redeem their points for some valuable fligth rewards.

I just hope the fares for Business and First are more competitive as they appear to be based on the SQ - 'we are more expensive than anyone else' methodology. With QF and EK offering $8,000 return Business class fares to Europe, one would think SQ/VA would match it to be competitive. At the moment, this is not the case if you look at the Virgin website and try booking Adelaide to London return Business class for example - $12,000 +. That is a lot extra for a Singapore girl and a W I D E seat.

I think DME is operated 5 times weekly, not daily. Nice to see that more flights from BNE have been added to the list.

On a side note, hoping for the day that SQ decide to deploy the 77W on at least one of their 3 dailies to Brisbane.

Whilst it could give a boost to your mileage with VA, I agree that pricing will be key. Furthermore, I am eager to know whether somebody has any info on the ability to redeem award seats on SQ with VA miles. Even if they offer them as codeshare, i think it will be tough as SQ is very stingy releasing award seats to partners (Star Alliance partners do not get access to business class seats on proutes with upgraded seats). Unless VA will have the seats in their own inventory to offer as award, I see an issue redeeming (unless you intend to fly economy).

SQ62 SIN-DME is definitely only 5x weekly. I'm on that flight in 2 weeks time.

Two things to be said about the SQ/Virgin arrangement: when redeeming Velocity points SQ are astonishingly expensive: 600,000 required points Oz to Europe compared with 250,000 points on Virgin Atlantic or Etihad (First class on QF is less!)

Then if you leave from my homeport of Brisbane, SQ use a "regional" aircraft with awful angled 'wedgie' seats in a 2-2-2 - not the big wide things at 1-2-1 you see in the photo. Not nice on overnight from SIN, and an an outrageous point cost for the experience.

That's great news! This gives us a chance to fly further with more oppourtunities with our points. Their new frequent flyer program is really competitive and really good!

I think it's about time Virgin Australia expands its International Long Haul fleet. They only fly to two cities on 5 aircraft and it has been 5 years. John Borghetti should shift his focus on international routes as well, not just focussing on the domestic network.

Good job Virgin Australia!

Even more of a bonus for Brisbane passengers travelling to Europe, now they no longer have to stop in Singapore and Abu Dhabi, just Singapore.

I'm only interested in Asia from Brisbane but would prefer EK to Singapore and SQ on the return leg; I don't believe that's possible even under code sharing.

I am also interested to know whether my partner who is a UA frequent flyer can book a flight on a Virgin aircraft using an NZ or SQ flight number and get Star Alliance points

This is Great News.The last time I did a trip to Europe/UK was before these two Airlines partnered up which was in 2011.I flew Singapore Airlines but they were credited to Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus which is a joke for Australians unless they plan to use connecting Lufthansa flights between Singapore and Europe and talk about stingy at only 50% mileage.It was only thanks to a late 2009 Vietnam trip before that I got enough Miles for a set of Time Magazines 1 year 12000 points.This by comparison return gives me enough for either Domestic Travel on Virgin Australia or a lot of Shopping Vouchers.

I am disappointed in the codeshare arrangements. I haven't been able to select a seat or meal online, even with having a gold status on both airlines. Also tried to upgrade my seat, therefore bought a more expensive fare - SIA wouldn't because it was a VA flight (and we all know it is SIA) and VA wouldn't while it was a SIA operated flight. No way I could use my 150K miles for an upgrade. I think this is not a customer friendly code share and I seriously have to rethink what the best way is to get around this.