Virgin Australia and Virgin Atlantic have put flights on sale under their codeshare partnership, which will allow guests to travel between Australia and the United Kingdom under the one booking.

Both Hong Kong and Los Angeles are hubs under the arrangement, with Virgin Australia providing domestic connections in Australia.

Virgin Atlantic offers up to three daily services between London Heathrow and Los Angeles, with a daily service to Hong Kong.

Both routes are operated on its Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, the newest aircraft in its fleet.

Virgin Australia operates up to 18 flights per week between Australia and Los Angeles on its Boeing 777-300ER fleet.

It also offers daily services between Melbourne and Hong Kong and will be launching daily flights between Sydney and Hong Kong on 2 July 2018 using its A330-200 aircraft.

Eligible travellers will enjoy reciprocal lounge access and the ability to earn points and status credits with either airline – but there are a few issues to be aware of before booking flights.

In Hong Kong, only business class passengers travelling to London (and not Velocity gold and platinum members) will have lounge access, as Virgin Atlantic doesn’t operate a lounge there, relying instead on the third party Plaza Premium lounge.

This won’t be an issue at LAX, where Virgin Atlantic’s Clubhouse will be accessible to elite Velocity members, and they’ll also have lounge access at LAX and Hong Kong on the return trips.

You should also know that there will be a long layover in Hong Kong when travelling to the UK, with Virgin Australia’s Melbourne flight landing at 8.10 am and the Sydney flight at 5.40 pm. Virgin Atlantic’s London flight takes off at 11.55pm. Melbourne travellers may wish to use the day to explore Hong Kong.

There’s no such issue to contend with on the return trip from the UK to Australia via Hong Kong. Virgin Atlantic’s flight lands in Hong Kong at 4.55pm, with Virgin Australia’s Melbourne flight departing at 6.10 pm or 7.15 pm depending on the day, and the Sydney flight taking off at 7.50pm.

In relation to LA, travellers from Australia will have layovers of 6-9 hours, while on the return leg it will be a more manageable (but still lengthy) 3-5 hours.

Flights are now available to be booked on www.virginaustralia.com and www.virginatlantic.com, though my quick search on Virgin Australia’s site threw up some odd results – possibly a few bugs to sort out there.

If you want to use Velocity Points to book, you can’t do so on the Velocity website unfortunately.

Your best bet is to search for seats from Australia to Hong Kong/LA on the Velocity website and then do a separate search for seats from Hong Kong / LA to London on the Virgin Atlantic website (easy to do directly on the homepage).

Note down the dates and flight numbers with seats available, and call Velocity to book on 13 18 75.

You can also use Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles to book (Virgin Atlantic being a transfer partner for some American Express cards issued in Australia).

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Twice in the past few months I’ve used Velocity Points to book business class seats with Etihad – a great use of points – but both times my search for seats on the Velocity website came up empty, despite the fact many were available.

I always double check online search results for precisely this reason. You simply can’t rely on the Velocity website (and sometimes other airlines’ websites) to be accurate.

I’m sure many Velocity Frequent Flyers who tried to book Etihad business class seats recently gave up after doing the online search. That’s a shame, because it’s possible the seats were available.

Here’s an example of how misleading the Velocity website can be.

I just did a search for two business class award seats from Melbourne to Abu Dhabi in mid-September, and the results show Etihad reward seats as being “sold out” every single day. But there is an option to book an “any seat” award for over a million points, which is crazy!

The same search on Etihad’s website shows two business class award seats being available six out of seven days that week, with two daily flight options on some days (look at the “GuestSeat” column in the search results – these seats are also available to airline partners, including Virgin Australia).

The cost of these seats when booked through Velocity is 104,000 points plus taxes per person.

As I alluded to in the example above, the easy way to check if Etihad award seats are actually available is on Etihad’s website itself. Simply go to this page and do a flight search, ticking “miles” as your payment method.

You don’t need to be a member of Etihad’s frequent flyer program to see the results, even though you’ll be prompted to log in. Just click the “proceed without logging in” button and the results will come up.

To book these seats, all you need to do is call the Velocity contact centre on 13 18 75. Booking has been a breeze when I’ve had to call them recently.

If the call centre agent tries to charge you a phone booking fee, make sure you ask for it to be waived as you weren’t able to do the booking online and shouldn’t be required to pay.

Etihad business class award seat availability is usually quite good, including on popular routes to Europe – which makes this a great use of Velocity Points, but do note that the taxes and fees are hefty.

Oh, and FYI: there’s no option to search for or book Etihad first class seats on the Velocity website. Simply follow the process above to look for availability on Etihad’s site and then call Velocity to book.

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Qantas Frequent Flyer members can now use their Qantas Points to make redemption bookings online with all oneworld partners through qantas.com.

Previously, Qantas Frequent Flyers had to make reward seat bookings with Japan Airlines (JAL) by phoning the Qantas contact centre, but now they can do so online. This capability was already in place for all other oneworld partners.

JAL flies from Tokyo to Sydney and Melbourne, with comfortable seats and top-notch service in business class, which I’ve reviewed.

JAL’s network stretches across 70 destinations in 20 territories, which makes Tokyo a useful hub for Australians travelling to Europe, Asia and North America. First class is available on some routes.

JAL releases award seats 330 days out (i.e. today seats were released for 9 March 2019) and it’s also know to make last-minute space available (i.e. in the next one or two weeks).

The oneworld alliance includes Qantas, Japan Airlines, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, LATAM Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways, Royal Jordanian, S7 Airlines and SriLankan Airlines, plus some 30 affiliated airlines.

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It’s all happening in Perth.

Just as two of the three major Middle Eastern airlines are set to increase capacity to the WA capital (with Qatar Airways upgrading its daily flight to an A380 and Emirates going all-A380s with its two daily flights) the third big gulf airline, Etihad Airways, has announced it’s pulling out of Perth altogether.

Perth is one of two cities to be cut from Etihad’s route network (the other being Edinburgh) as the airline struggles to get back into the black following years of huge losses.

The airline’s last flight from Abu Dhabi to Perth will depart on 30 September 2018, while the final Perth-Abu Dhabi flight will take off on 1 October. The airline will no doubt be in touch with affected passengers.

This is bad news for Velocity Frequent Flyers, as Etihad provided a solid option for redeeming Velocity Points to the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere – and award seat availability from Perth was very good.

In other news, Qantas looks set to make further waves in Perth. Fresh from launching its London service last month, the airline appears to be planning flights to Johannesburg from later this year.

No official announcement has been made yet, but a draft schedule was briefly filed that suggests there will be four services per week starting in December. The flights would be operated by an A330, likely with the the well-regarded business suite on board. Stay tuned for more news on this front.

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