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Indonesia, especially Bali, is one of the most popular overseas destinations for Australians. In fact, eight airlines operate well over 200 return flights per week from Australia to Indonesia. But only two of those airlines offer lie-flat Business Class seating.
Qantas has lie-flat Business Class on its Airbus A330s. These fly on the Sydney-Bali, Sydney-Jakarta and Melbourne-Jakarta routes. If there is availability, you can use Qantas points to book Classic Reward seats on those flights – although finding seats to Bali is not easy.
If Qantas has no Classic Reward seats available, Garuda Indonesia is another good option. A member of the SkyTeam alliance, Garuda flies Airbus A330s from both Sydney and Melbourne to Bali and Jakarta. These planes have 24 fully lie-flat Business seats in a reverse herringbone layout, with direct aisle access for all passengers.
By all accounts, Garuda Indonesia’s long-haul Business Class is a very good product. Reward seats are also quite readily available to book using Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points, known simply as “Virgin Points”.
In fact, we’re currently seeing up to five Business reward seats available on some Garuda flights between Australia and Indonesia!
Please note that Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is a completely separate program to Virgin Australia’s Velocity Frequent Flyer. References to Virgin Points in this article refer to Virgin Atlantic points, not Velocity points. You unfortunately can’t redeem Virgin Australia Velocity points for Garuda Indonesia flights.
How to book Garuda flights using Virgin Points
It’s been possible to redeem Virgin Points for Garuda Indonesia flights ever since Virgin Atlantic joined SkyTeam in 2023. But until recently, you needed to call Virgin Atlantic to book reward seats on Garuda over the phone.
This changed recently. You can now easily search for award availability and book Garuda Indonesia flights directly on the Virgin Atlantic website!
You don’t even need to have a Virgin Atlantic Flying Club account to search for award availability. Simply open the “Advanced search” options when searching for flights on the home page of the Virgin Atlantic website, then “Show Price in Points”.
If you specifically wish to search only for Business Class options, you can also select “Upper Class” from the “Show Fares For” drop-down menu.
If seats are available, flight options should appear on the next page:
It costs 40,000 Virgin Points, plus taxes and carrier charges, for a one-way Garuda Business Class ticket from Sydney or Melbourne to Bali. A round-trip costs 80,000 Virgin Points.
The routes from Melbourne and Sydney to Jakarta are a bit longer than those to Denpasar, falling into a higher distance band on the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club award chart. A one-way Garuda Business award seat on the Jakarta routes costs 60,000 Virgin Points, plus taxes & carrier charges.
If you’d like to travel beyond Bali or Jakarta, you can also book onward Garuda connections on the same ticket. However, as Virgin Atlantic Flying Club prices award flights as individual segments, you’ll need to pay the sum of the miles required for each leg.
Ironically, this actually means that flying from Sydney or Melbourne to Jakarta via Denpasar costs fewer miles in Business Class than taking the direct flight!
How to get Virgin Points in Australia
You can of course earn Virgin Points by flying with Virgin Atlantic and its partner airlines. But if you live in Australia, the two easiest ways to earn large amounts of Virgin Points are by transferring points from Amex Membership Rewards or buying them.
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is a transfer partner for American Express Membership Rewards in Australia. You can transfer most types of Amex Membership Rewards points to Virgin Atlantic at a 2:1 rate. An exception is Amex Membership Rewards Gateway points earned with an Amex Explorer or Amex Essential card, which unfortunately cannot be transferred to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.
These cards earn Amex Points transferrable to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club…
- Card Name
- American Express Platinum Edge
- Earn
- 1
- Signup Bonus
-
No current signup bonus
- Annual Fee
- $0 in the first year, $195 p.a.
- Read more
- Read the guide
American Express Membership Rewards Points on everyday purchases
- Card Name
- American Express Platinum Card
- Earn
- 2.25
- Signup Bonus
-
150,000 bonus Membership Rewards points
Apply by 25th Jun 2024
- Annual Fee
- $1,450 p.a.
- Read more
- Read the guide
American Express Membership Rewards (Ascent Premium) Points on everyday purchases
You can also buy points from Virgin Atlantic for GBP15 (~AU$29) per thousand, at full price, plus a GBP15 (~AU$29) transaction fee. The cost is reduced if you buy points during a promotion. For example, from 7-31 March 2024, Virgin Atlantic is offering 20-70% bonus points on purchases.
During that recent promotion, you could have bought 320,000 Virgin Points (including a 70% bonus) – enough for four round-trip Business Class tickets from Melbourne to Bali – for around GBP2,850 (~AU$5,526).
The taxes and charges on a return Melbourne-Bali award on Garuda are $417. In total, with these costs all taken into account, this means you’d be paying around $1,800 per round-trip Business Class ticket to Bali. That’s considerably less than the regular airfare.
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