Any tips on booking Sydney to LA for June 2017 in Business Class using Velocity Points?

Hi. I am wanting to book reward seats with Virgin Australia Business Class for June 2017, flying Sydney to LA. However when I search for flights on the Virgin website, the points required to redeem are above the 1 million mark! Any tips on when I should be looking at booking? I am wanting to leave around June 18, however am flexible by a few days either side.

The bad news is you’ve pretty much missed your chance. June is one of the most popular times to fly to the US and all airlines release very few award seats. People literally sit at the computer at midnight one year in advance (i.e. June already gone) waiting for the AUS-US seats to be released so they can book them. Sometimes airlines randomly release large chunks of award seats so you might get lucky, but I’d say your chances are very slim.

Wow, that is very annoying! Would there still be award seats available in economy or premium? Or do they all book out as soon as they are released?

I see 1 business seat on 15 and 16th via Singapore Airlines. On economy, still quite a few options for 2.

I agree with theothergatsby, people do book as soon as they are release, esp flights to US and in business. With just a handful of business reward seats per flight, doesn’t take much to be sold out. Worth taking note next time.

I flew on Virgin business on a Sunday this August, booking only ~4 days in advance for approx 180,000 points return. I suggest Virgin release more seats nearer the time as it is clearer to them that they won’t sell seats on the open market. If you can risk waiting I’d suggest doing so.