Redeeming on VA regional?

[eamond]

Hi all,

Sorry if this Q has been asked before.

Trying to redeem a ticket routing MEL-BNE-EMD, and was told by the agent that BNE-EMD can't be booked due to "separate carrier"

Is KF really that useless that we can't even redeem on Virgin Australia's wholly-owned regional partner, i.e. strictly mainline flights only? This is my first ever encounter in this kind of situations, as normally if I tried to redeem on, say, UAX or ANA Wings, there would be no problem at all.

Thanks

Mik

[KeithMEL]

There should be no difference. Since the rebrand of Skywest as VA, their flights have been migrated into VA's Sabre partition with new VA flight designators and should be treated the same as VA mainline, ie open to partner programs for redemption.

The regional wing of VA is a different entity called VARA (Virgin Australia Regional Airlines) Pty Ltd. It's no different from, say, VANZ based in NZ (operates Tasman services and other services out of NZ) but externally branded as VA with the same product offering etc. It's not even a sub-brand like ANA Wings or UA Express - the closest analogy would be "Jetconnect for Qantas." But whilst the VARA name is an internal reference and externally everything is branded Virgin Australia with the same customer proposition, VA is legally obliged to disclose the operating entity in reservation systems as VARA, which might be what's confusing the call centre agent. Have you tried ringing back to speak to another agent?

[eamond]

There should be no difference. Since the rebrand of Skywest as VA, their flights have been migrated into VA's Sabre partition with new VA flight designators and should be treated the same as VA mainline, ie open to partner programs for redemption.

The regional wing of VA is a different entity called VARA (Virgin Australia Regional Airlines) Pty Ltd. It's no different from, say, VANZ based in NZ (operates Tasman services and other services out of NZ) but externally branded as VA with the same product offering etc. It's not even a sub-brand like ANA Wings or UA Express - the closest analogy would be "Jetconnect for Qantas." But whilst the VARA name is an internal reference and externally everything is branded Virgin Australia with the same customer proposition, VA is legally obliged to disclose the operating entity in reservation systems as VARA, which might be what's confusing the call centre agent. Have you tried ringing back to speak to another agent?

Thanks for that, and that's what I figured as well. As I'm so busy today, I might try it tomorrow afternoon.

Cheers
Mik

[eamond]

Get another agent on the line today, and the ticket is issued without any problem in 8 mins.

Looks like some specific problem with the previous agent, haha.

Thanks very much for the help.

Cheers
Mik