How to Maximise Velocity’s Bonus Status Credits Offer (May 2021)

Virgin Australia is giving 20 bonus status credits on all eligible Virgin Australia flights when you activate the offer and book your flights by 2 June 2021.

With this promotion, you could earn enough Velocity status credits to renew Virgin Australia Gold status for a year for under $1,000!

This offer excludes flights booked in the cheapest “Getaway” fare category, which will not earn bonus status credits with this promotion. But any eligible flight booked in the Elevate, Freedom, Business Saver or Business categories will earn 20 bonus Velocity status credits on top of the usual earn.

Virgin Australia has confirmed that the 20 bonus status credits will be earned per flight. So, for example, you’d earn 40 bonus status credits on a return booking. You’d also earn 40 bonus status credits when booking a one-stop itinerary, such as Adelaide-Melbourne-Launceston.

This promotion covers all Virgin Australia marketed and operated domestic & trans-Tasman flights (which at this stage, is just to Queenstown) for travel until 19 April 2022. To take advantage of it, you would first need to activate the offer on the Velocity Frequent Flyer website, or the Velocity App under the “My Offers” dashboard. You can also see the Velocity website for the full terms & conditions.

This is the number of Velocity status credits you would normally earn for any domestic Virgin Australia flight:

For Economy class flights up to 750 miles in distance (e.g. Sydney-Brisbane) booked in the “Elevate” category, you would normally earn 15 status credits. With this promotion, that would increase to 35 status credits. So if you’re booking short flights in the “Elevate” fare category, this offer is actually better than double status credits!

Velocity status runs to maximise this offer

The key to maximising this promotion would be to book lots of cheap Economy Elevate fares, as the 20 bonus status credits applies to all fare types except Getaway and are earned on a per-flight basis. Itineraries with two or even three flights are even better!

As one example, you could fly from Melbourne to Gold Coast via Canberra on an Elevate fare for $182.70 one-way. This would normally earn 30 status credits, but with the bonus 20 status credits per flight, this increases to 70 status credits.

Don’t forget that you can also save 3-15% on Virgin Australia flights using promo codes. By using a discount code such as “CRV59”, the Melbourne-Canberra-Gold Coast Elevate fare reduces to $166.61. That’s a cost of just $2.38/status credit.

Here are a few more potential Virgin Australia status runs we found:

To earn Velocity Gold status, you would need to accumulate at least 500 Velocity status credits (and take at least 4 Virgin Australia flights) within 12 months.

With this promotion, you could earn 500 status credits by taking four return flights from Melbourne to Gold Coast (via Canberra) on Elevate fares at a cost of $1,333. Or, you could earn the 400 status credits needed to renew Gold status by taking only three round-trips on the same route for just under $1,000.

If you took advantage of the promotion earlier this year to extend your Velocity Gold or Platinum status until 2022 by booking one Virgin Australia flight, and your status is now locked in until 30 September 2022, keep in mind that only status credits earned in the 12 months prior to your review date will count towards renewing your status beyond that date. But you can still benefit from this promo by booking travel after 30 September 2021, up to 19 April 2022. Unless you’re already a Platinum member, any Velocity status credits you earn from this promotion before 30 September 2021 can also be counted towards upgrading to a higher status tier.

Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: 20 Bonus SCs on AU DOM & Trans-Tasman flights (book by 2 June 2021)

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.