Velocity Members Lose Access to United Business Reward Seats

Until recently, redeeming Velocity Points to fly to the United States in Business Class was relatively straightforward. Virgin Australia partners with United Airlines, and United fairly consistently released Business Class award availability on flights to/from Australia in the weeks leading up to departure.

This doesn’t mean you could find a reward seat on every flight. But there were often at least a few options if you were prepared to book at relatively short notice.

For a while, it seemed too good to be true – and sadly, it was. That availability has now completely disappeared.

United has stopped releasing Business availability on Australian routes to partners

As of now, Velocity members don’t have access to a single Business Class reward seat on United Airlines between Australia and North America. And there haven’t been any available for more than two months.

It’s not because United’s flights are all full. Many have been going out with lots of empty Business seats lately. Instead, United is just no longer releasing any of those seats to partner airlines.

This doesn’t just affect Velocity, but all of United’s other partner airlines as well. So, you also can’t book any of those seats using points or miles from other Star Alliance programs like KrisFlyer or Aeroplan.

You can still book Economy reward seats from Australia to the USA on United, using Velocity Points. Just not in any other cabin.

Singapore Airlines is also restricting availability on some Australian routes

Separately, multiple people on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum have noticed that Singapore Airlines recently stopped releasing any Business Class reward seats to partner airlines on specific Australian routes.

At the time of writing, you cannot use Velocity Points to book Singapore Airlines Business Class on any of the following routes:

• Sydney-Singapore
• Melbourne-Singapore
• Perth-Singapore

You can still book Premium Economy rewards from Sydney or Melbourne to Singapore with Velocity Points, or Economy rewards on any route. But it seems Singapore Airlines is no longer releasing Business availability to any partner airlines on its Sydney, Melbourne or Perth services.

Velocity members still have access to plenty of Singapore Airlines Business Class availability from Darwin, Adelaide, Cairns or Brisbane to Singapore.

What is going on with United availability?

It seems United Airlines has made an internal and possibly permanent change to the way it releases award inventory.

Some US bloggers have noted that, while United is still releasing “Saver” award inventory on long-haul routes, it’s now only making these available to its own United MileagePlus elite frequent flyers and co-brand credit card holders.

In other words, if you have United status or a United MileagePlus co-brand credit card, you can still access the full suite of United’s “I” class award availability. But if you’re a regular MileagePlus member, or want to book through a partner airline program (such as Virgin Australia Velocity), you don’t.

If you don’t have United status or a MileagePlus credit card (which most Australians don’t have), you can still use United MileagePlus miles to book seats on most United Airlines flights. But the prices are rather exorbitant.

For example, you’d need a minimum of 200,000 MileagePlus miles (plus taxes) to book a one-way United Business Class flight between Australia and North America. On some flights, that amount is 300,000 or even 400,000 MileagePlus miles.

United’s different award fare classes

I’m about to talk about fare classes, and things are about to get a bit technical. Please feel free to move onto the next section if you’re not interested in these details! But for those who are, here’s a bit of an explanation…

For a United Business Class award to be available to book through a partner airline, United needs to release “I” class inventory. But the 200,000-mile awards that United is showing on its website are “JN” class awards. These, along with any United award that has a two-letter fare class ending in “N”, are only available to book through United MileagePlus.

On some flights, United is now releasing “IN” availability but not “I” availability. IN awards are only available to selected MileagePlus members, i.e. those with United status or a co-brand credit card.

In the example above, the Economy seats showing on the United website are available as “X” class rewards. This is what’s needed for an Economy reward to be available through a partner airline. So, the Economy seats shown above from Melbourne to San Francisco could be booked using Velocity Points.

You can still book *some* United Business/First rewards with Velocity Points

This seems to affect pretty much all of United’s long-haul routes – not just to/from Australia. But it’s not that United has stopped releasing any premium cabin reward seats to members of partner airlines.

For example, I just found this Velocity Business Reward on the Virgin Australia website on a random domestic flight from Atlanta to Washington DC departing at 5.30am:

This Business Reward is available through Velocity because United has released the seat as a “Saver” award in I class, and not only as a “JN” or “IN” award.

If you check the United website, you’ll notice that the 9.35am flight on the same route is also available to book as a United award – but it’s not I class inventory. So, you wouldn’t be able to book the later flight using Velocity Points (or any other type of points besides United MileagePlus miles).

This isn’t Velocity’s fault

To be clear, this isn’t Velocity Frequent Flyer’s fault. It has very little control over the reward inventory that its partner airlines choose to release. Or in this case, choose not to release.

And this doesn’t just affect Velocity. United and Singapore Airlines have both chosen not to make certain reward seats available to book through any of their partner airline programs, so members of programs like Aeroplan or LifeMiles are equally screwed.

Qantas Frequent Flyer also suffers from the same problem periodically. For example, a few years ago, Qatar Airways just decided to stop releasing most reward seats to Qantas members. Qantas frequent flyers suffer as a result, and Qantas can’t really do much about it.

That said, Qantas has the advantage of actually operating its own flights to destinations like the USA and Singapore. So, if one of Qantas’ partner airlines completely switched off the tap, Qantas could at least release more seats on its own metal.

Unfortunately for Velocity members, Virgin Australia doesn’t actually fly to many international destinations using its own aircraft. So it’s totally reliant on partner airlines releasing award inventory to Velocity members.

Access to attractive reward seats is one of a frequent flyer program’s biggest drawcards. When there are lots of seats available on partner airlines, it can make the program very appealing. But if those seats suddenly disappear, that reduces the value of the program’s points.

I feel a bit sorry for Velocity here, because they can’t really do much about it – short of lobbying its partner airlines or Virgin launching its own flights to the USA and Singapore.

Hopefully, this is just a temporary blip and those seats will come back online at some point. Fingers crossed!

What can you do?

With United long-haul premium cabin redemptions now effectively off-limits, one alternative option if you want to use Velocity Points for Business Class from Australia to North America is to fly Air Canada.

Velocity’s partnership with Air Canada

Air Canada is generally quite stingy with releasing Business availability to partners on its Brisbane-Vancouver and Sydney-Vancouver routes. But, at the time of writing, there are at least a few Air Canada flights from Australia to Canada with Business reward seats that you could book with Velocity Points.

All of these are for departures within the next few weeks, and we unfortunately couldn’t find any Business reward seats in the other direction.

Upgrade with United MileagePlus miles

Another option that an Australian Frequent Flyer member recently resorted to is to book an upgradeable Economy or Premium Economy ticket on United, and to try to upgrade that with a mix of United MileagePlus miles and cash. The number of MileagePlus miles you need to upgrade is far less than the 200,000 you’d need to book an outright Business reward ticket.

You can buy MileagePlus miles at a reasonable price, or transfer points to United from Star Alliance Rewards or Marriott Bonvoy.

Convert Velocity Points to KrisFlyer miles

If you want to fly Singapore Airlines Business Class from Sydney, Melbourne or Perth to Singapore, and don’t want to connect via another Australian city, one option is to transfer Velocity Points into the KrisFlyer program.

Singapore Airlines is still releasing Business Class seats on these routes as KrisFlyer Saver awards. You’ll end up paying more Velocity Points overall, as you lose some in the conversion process. But at least you’ll have access to the seats.

You’ll also save a bit of cash using this method. Unlike Velocity, Singapore Airlines doesn’t add carrier charges when you use KrisFlyer miles to book an award seat.

Use another Velocity partner airline

If you want to fly to northern Asia, consider redeeming Velocity Points to fly All Nippon Airways (ANA) on its Sydney-Haneda or Perth-Narita routes. ANA still has some Business availability for travel dates either within the next week, or for next year.

And if you want to fly to Europe, consider using Qatar Airways instead of Singapore Airlines.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket!

More broadly, this is a good reminder of why it’s a good idea to collect points with multiple frequent flyer programs, rather than putting all your eggs (or points) in one basket.

Different loyalty programs are good for different things. And what might be a great program for your needs today might suddenly become useless, or significantly devalue its points, in the future.

If you’re collecting points via credit cards, having a flexible points currency like Amex Membership Rewards points is a great strategy. This way, you can simply transfer your points to whichever airline program offers the best value and availability when you want to redeem your points.

Until 21 October 2025, AFF readers could even get 130,000 bonus Amex Membership Rewards points with a new American Express Explorer credit card. This is an AFF & Point Hacks Exclusive offer.

The Amex Explorer card has a $395 annual fee, which is offset by benefits including a $400 annual travel credit. To earn the sign-up bonus points, you would need to spend at least $4,000 on eligible purchases on your card within the first 3 months, and not have been the primary cardholder of an Australian Amex card in the past 18 months.