How many points will I earn

[The Rok]

Either I am blind or the airlines dont publish distances but I would like to know hom many points I will earn for an upcomming trip. All my domestic trips are easy, 7 Points & SC for each dollar spent.

I have a flight in April booked in full with V-Australia. Perth - Sydney - Abu Dhabi - Dublin - Abu Dhabi - Sydney - Perth.

Perth - Sydney with Virgin Blue
Sydney - Abu Dhabi with V-Australia
Abu Dhabi - Dublin with Etihad

All booked on one ticket with V-Australia and I am Velocity Gold.

How many points/SC will I earn. I understand it is based on miled flown, but do airplanes have tachos I can see? Am I supposed to guess it?

Is there a Virgin pilot on here who can clock it next time he does that route

 

[antycbr]

You can work out mileage between different points using the great circle mapper:
Great Circle Mapper. It might vary ever so slightly from airline to airline, within +/- 20 miles or so. To find out PERth to SYDney you'd go PER-SYD in the Paths box on the webpage. For your one way trip PER-SYD-AUH-DUB click here

A lot depends on whether your flights are booked as codeshares.

If you're on a codeshare flight on V Australia from PER-SYD (flight number is then you will earn based on the VA table. If you're on a flight such as VA552 (actual flight DJ552) which connects to VA29 to AUH you will earn on the VA table as specified here, based on the terms and conditions of codeshares on Virgin blue domestic flights. The distance from PER-SYD-AUH is 7,492 miles.

V Saver = 0.5 * Distance * 1.4 (for the 40% Gold bonus)
0.5 * 7492 * 1.4 = 5,244 points.

I'm not sure about earning on the AUH-DUB flight which is 3,696 miles. If it's booked as say EY45, it will earn based on the Etihad table with a 50% Gold bonus - for economy it would be 1 * 3696 * 1.5 = 5,544 points.

Its confusing as to whether VA codeshare flights on EY metal earn at the EY rate, or earn at the VA rate. According to the Terms and Conditions section here where the operating carrier isn't Virgin Blue, Pacific Blue or Polynesian Blue, earning would be at the Etihad table, but I think it needs clarification.

 

[medhead]

Airline distance for points earning are based on the great circle distance. Use either www.gcmap.com or google Mileage monkey to get online calculators. Best way is to use the airport codes to input a route and get the distance

In mileage monkey I normal use the xONE validator and tick ignore errors. Once you click on Go scroll to the bottom to find the distances.

 

[The Rok]

Per - Syd VA552
Syd - Auh VA29
Auh - Dub VA7045

and basically the same on the way back. My understandin is that the whole trip is based on VA rates.

 

[antycbr]

My understanding is that the whole trip is based on VA rates.

I would think so too. Please report back what you end up getting!

 

[The Rok]

Based on the info supplied above, I work it out to be 13,229 miles each way.

Thats 13,229 + 13,229 * 1.4 = 37,041 points & SC.

I will post when I get back in April. That will take me to Gold for another 12 months.

 

[antycbr]

Based on the info supplied above, I work it out to be 13,229 miles each way.

Thats 13,229 + 13,229 * 1.4 = 37,041 points & SC.

I will post when I get back in April. That will take me to Gold for another 12 months.

Provided that you are on a full economy or above ticket - if you're in something less than full, you'll only earn a fraction of that. Hope you retain gold!

I am booked on SYD-AUH-LHR return in September, but that's all on EY flight numbers and operating carrier so no confusion.

 

[The Rok]

I have another 5 PE flights from Per - SYD and Per - Mel so I wil retain it anyway I think.

 

[Martin J Cowling]

Thank you for those answers. I want to check something myself.

I have Mel-Lax RET booked in premium economy with Gold status
= 7921 points x 2 = 15 842 x 1.25 = 19, 802
I presume the 40% bonus points is on the base points ie on 15, 842 not 19 802. This would be 6336. Total points earnt is therefore 26 139. Am I correct?

I am confused as to SC earning. I know Gold earn a 40% bonus on points BUT do you also earn it on Status Credits?Is that also subject to a 40% bonus? Would SC earnt also be 26 139 SC ? Or is it 19 802 SC?

Thanks for the answers in advance!

 

[allitsab]

It stacks. ie miles*booking class bonus*status bonus = points. points = status credits, as status credits are subject to the same bonuses.

At least, that's how they've accrued for me.

 

[Martin J Cowling]

It stacks. ie miles*booking class bonus*status bonus = points. points = status credits, as status credits are subject to the same bonuses.

At least, that's how they've accrued for me.

Thank you!

 

[The Rok]

Thought I would update this for those that are interested.

Sydney - Abu Dhabi, Premium Economy

Velocity Red earned 9383 Points & Status Credits
Velocity Gold earned 12,385 Points & Status Credits

Abu Dhabi - Dublin, Economy (EY Code Share)

Velocity Red earned 3,684 Points & Status Credits
Velocity Gold earned 5,526 Points & Status Credits

So that gave me, a Gold member 17,911 Points & Status Credits in each direction, not bad..

That will put me on track to about 140,000 Status Credits in this membership year. Looks like DJ Status Matching me was a good little earner for them...

 

[antycbr]

Thanks for confirming that - I have SYD-LHR in September so will be very similar to you in status earn. I think I'm on track for 65,000 SC this year, again the gold match is paying off for DJ.

 

[Misha]

Morning all,


Mods: if this needs to be moved to another thread please shift away


I am looking at sometime this year heading off to Asia for a long weekend. Issue is, (and I blame this forum completely) in the past I would have purchased the best deal on an airline that I trust. Now of course I am looking at ways of maximising my points earnings.

Ideally I would like to get to any major Asian hub. BKK, HKG, SIN, KUL, it doesn't really matter - I like the idea of REP for a holiday but really depending on where I fly into I will decide where to move on to from there

So due to my preference for the Virgin Australia group (can I say that yet? ) I am looking at airlines like VA (obviously), Etihad, Malaysia, etc etc etc that have FFP partnership.

What would people suggest be the best way?

For example, VS into HKG is only a set amount of SC right? Etihad no longer have bonus points for Gold (or do they)? Malaysian offer the worst points for cheaper tickets.... and on it goes. Someone suggested VB to Perth and then PB to HKT. I don't see that earning more points than flying straight to BKK? Though admittedly I am sooo bad at points calculation; one needs a Bachelors in FFP to get the nuances.

From people's experience or general knowledge (and without doing any unnecessary research) are the any obvious suggestions for me?

If it would work out better on *A I would be happy to go with Thai (need the points!) (even SkyTeam as I joined due to this bloody site again!) but obviously prefer Virgin Group. I am not opposed to flying in all silly directions to get there either. (Bearing in mind we are talking about 4 nights or so so can't travel for two days!).

Most likely I would go economy (premium economy is my preference but not always available) though would also consider reasonable J travel too.

Any thoughts/suggestions/comments are most appreciated.

Cheers,

Misha

 

[ChrisFlyer]

I am looking at airlines like VA (obviously), Etihad, Malaysia, etc etc etc that have FFP partnership.

I haven't flown to Asia enough to be able to offer you too much useful advise here, but just something to be aware of - any flights on Malaysia Airlines (or one of the subsidiaries) between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore aren't eligible to earn Velocity points... I found that little gem hidden down in the fine print on the bottom of the Malaysia Airlines page on the Velocity site...

 

[notzac]

Thank you for those answers. I want to check something myself.

I have Mel-Lax RET booked in premium economy with Gold status
= 7921 points x 2 = 15 842 x 1.25 = 19, 802
I presume the 40% bonus points is on the base points ie on 15, 842 not 19 802. This would be 6336. Total points earnt is therefore 26 139. Am I correct?

I am confused as to SC earning. I know Gold earn a 40% bonus on points BUT do you also earn it on Status Credits?Is that also subject to a 40% bonus? Would SC earnt also be 26 139 SC ? Or is it 19 802 SC?

Thanks for the answers in advance!

Replying to an old post I know, but I have an answer for this .. as a Velocity Gold member flying whY+ MEL-LAX return, you'll earn 13086 points and status credits each way (for a total of 26172 points and status credits). How this is calculated I know not; I can't make the math work no matter how I try. One of the things that I'm hoping will turn up as part of the Velocity revamp is a decent points/status calculator for both earn and burn.

 

[notzac]

Might as well post this here rather than starting a new thread; one of the problems booking a VA flight in whY is there's no easy way to tell what fare bucket the fare falls in to, so trying to work out what sort of mileage and status you'll earn is a bit of a nightmare. Just like QF, the booking engine part of the site is based on Amadeus, so the fare bucket information is actually there if you're prepared to go hunting through the source code. Here's how:

1. Start at the VA website, select the origin/destination/dates, click Find Flights
2. Select the flights you want, click Book Now
3. On the "Your Itinerary" page, right click and choose the option for viewing the page source (each browser calls it something different)
4. In the window that opens up, scroll down (keep going .. it's a long way down) until you get to where it talks about flight details (you'll see "Departing Flight - xx_ to xx_") .. scroll just a little further until you see:
   

   [color=green]<!-- determine the class for the ailine icon and insert airline code in airlinesInLegend for legend -->[/color]

   (sidenote, I'm pretty impressed by the software programmers' speling capabilities.. )
5. Next, you'll see a javascript link with an array that reads as follows:
   

   <a href="javascript:popFLIF('date and time', 'origin', 'destination', 'marketing carrier', 'flight number', 'operating metal', 'fare code');"  class="transportation method and operating carrier">

   To give you an actual example:
   

   <a href="javascript:popFLIF('201106120235', 'AUH', 'LHR', 'VA', '7011', 'Airbus Industrie A340-600', 'Q');"  class="flight ey">

   That is for a flight on EY metal (an A340-600) from Abu Dhabi to London Heathrow on the 12th of June, 2011 at 2:35 am, sold by VA as flight 7011 in fare class Q (and thus only eligible for 0.25 points and status credits per mile flown -- yuck!)
6. Keep scrolling down; there's one of those javascript links for each flight in the itinerary

Hope this helps someone

Hi people from VA that might be reading this, please please please add the fare class to the information displayed when searching for fares on your website (maybe even with a link to the Velocity earning table page for that carrier)! Would definitely make working out which flights to take a bunch easier.

 

[The Rok]

Well, maybe they will. As of this morning you can choose your seats online. I just logged into my booking on the Virgin website and it gave me the choice of seats to choose, this was not there yesterday.

It wont allow me to choose the Dub - Auh though, as that is a EY codeshare, only the VA flights.

Neat, its about time too.

 

[notzac]

Neat, its about time too.

Amen to that! Can you do up a quick screenshot? It would be interesting to see if VA are restricting the better seats to Silver/Gold. It'd also be interesting to see from the perspective of someone with status from a partner carrier .. i.e., do they get (online) access to good seats as well?

 

[The Rok]

I am on the ipad so a screen dump is out of the question. I am in PE and I had a choice of any seat in the cabin,including bulk head rows. It did have a baby icon in the outer bulk head seats but I could choose them.