Will Virgin Australia serve caviar, and other questions

Virgin Australia flights to Doha will take off in June 2025, with tickets tipped to go on sale as early as next week.

Sydney, Brisbane and Perth will be the first to launch, with Melbourne following in November.

These will officially be Virgin Australia flights, and even carry the same flight numbers as the long-ago axed Virgin 777 services to Los Angeles.

But the planes, the crew, the meals, the inflight entertainment – basically the whole shebang – will be supplied by Qatar Airways, which has also applied for a 25% stake in Virgin Australia.

(And yes, Qatar Airways also remains a ‘partner’ of Qantas via their shared membership of the Oneworld alliance.)

So while the dust is settling from this seismic shake-up, it leaves quite a few questions up in the air – no pun intended.

The VA flights will feature Qatar Airways jets, crew and catering...

How much will tickets cost?

You’d have to think Virgin Australia would launch its new flights with some cracking deals and promotions for both business and economy class.

But as a yardstick for standard non-sale pricing, at the time of writing and looking ahead to June-July 2025, one-way Qatar Airways fares to Doha were around $7,000 one-way in business class and $2,000 in economy (with plenty of movement either side, depending on which date you fly).

Obviously almost everyone on these Virgin Australia flights to Doha will be continuing beyond Doha – mainly to destinations in the UK and Europe – but pricing to Doha provides a consistent benchmark.

Booking with Velocity Points

You can expect Virgin Australia will unlock a lot of Reward Seats which can be booked using Velocity Points.

Once the flights go on sale, those with plenty of Velocity Points and flexibility in their travel dates should be ready to pounce.

However, it’s not yet clear how many Velocity Points will be needed for these flights.

At the time of writing, Virgin’s table for Velocity Reward Seats covers only domestic, trans-Tasman and ‘short-haul international’ routes.

Qatar Airways sits on the same ‘partner’ table as Singapore Airlines and the soon-to-be-ditched Etihad Airways, but if those same rates apply you’ll be looking at:

• Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne to Doha – 104,000 points in business and 56,000 points in economy
• Perth to Doha – 78,000 points in business and 42,000 points in economy

Will these Virgin Australia flights feature Qsuites?

Virgin Australia says its new Doha services will all take place on Boeing 777s “configured with between 354 and 412 seats”.

Hopefully all of the new VA 777 flights will feature Qatar Airways' Qsuite business class.

Qatar Airways flies multiple versions of the 777. While all of the  354-seat variants boast the private business class Qsuites, some 412-seat models also have the Qsuites while others still carry the previous generation angled business class beds in a dated 2-2-2 layout.

However, you’d expect Virgin Australia and Qatar Airways would be eager to the showcase their partnership, competitive world-class product and the benefits of competition – all of which would put the Qsuite centre-stage. 

Will Virgin Australia serve caviar?

Despite the VA flight numbers these will essentially be Qatar Airways flights, right down to food and drink – and a recent upgrade to Qatar’s business class dining saw the launch of a caviar service.

Will Qatar Airways' business class caviar service find its way onto these VA flights?

Available on the ‘dine on demand’ business class menu, passengers enjoy 15 grams of Baeri caviar imported from the Caspian Sea, complemented by slices of silky Balik-style smoked salmon plus accompaniments of crème fraîche, finely-chopped chives, crumbled hard-boiled eggs and a lemon wedge.

Will those indulgent, salty yet buttery-rich black pearls appear on the Virgin Australia flights to Doha? We’ll know soon enough...

Which lounges will these Virgin Australia flights use?

Lounge access ahead of international flights remains a bit of a mixed bag for Virgin, but the airline is likely to tap into Qatar Airways’ current lounge partnerships.

These see Qatar’s premium cabin passengers and Gold and Platinum frequent flyers sent to the Air New Zealand lounges in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth, and the independent Marhaba Business Lounge in Melbourne.

On flights from Australia, Qatar Airways sends most passengers to Air New Zealand's lounge.

Of course, Virgin Australia has now re-established its relationship with Air New Zealand so this might open up the AirNZ lounge for Virgin’s Doha-bound travellers headed out from Melbourne.

It should also be noted that as of April 2025, the revamped American Express Velocity Platinum credit card will no longer include two single-entry American Express Centurion Lounge passes per year.

As for Doha, a Qatar Airways spokesperson has confirmed to Executive Traveller the following lounge arrangements will be in place for the Virgin-operated flights:

• business class passengers will be directed to an Al Mourjan lounge
• Velocity Platinum frequent flyers in economy will find a home at the Qatar Airways Platinum Lounge
• Velocity Gold frequent flyers in economy will be directed to Qatar Airways’ Gold Lounge

Qatar's excellent Platinum Lounge at Doha will welcome Velocity Platinum frequent flyers.

Qatar Airways’ lounges outside of Doha are generally reserved for business and first class flyers, with the exception of a dedicated frequent flyer lounge at London Heathrow.

However, there’s always some partner lounge option in place for frequent flyers.

The Doha fast-track to Velocity status?

Virgin Australia’s previous flights to Los Angeles enabled many Velocity members to effortlessly reach and retain their status, especially in business class.

The new Doha flights could offer the same silver bullet for Velocity Gold, Platinum or Platinum Plus.

Under Velocity’s controversial move to spend-based status earning, travellers earn one status credit for every $12 of their airfare.

If that same rate is applied to the new Doha flights, then based on Qatar Airways’ pricing as detailed earlier, a $7,000 one-way business fare would net just over 580 Status Credits.

That would catapult you from a standing start of zero to a Velocity Platinum hero with one return flight, or straight to Velocity Platinum Plus with two return flights.

Even a $2,000 one-way economy fare would earn around 166 Status Credits, so a return flight is within cooee of retaining Velocity Gold.

And that’s just between Australia and Doha – it doesn’t take into account any earning for onwards legs to the UK or Europe.

There’s no doubt the lure of lifetime Velocity Gold will prove a powerful pull for Virgin loyalists when each VA flight to or from Doha will seriously close the gap to the required 12,000 status credits.