Can you help me understand the following:
QFF:
how much to redeem flight from MEL to SYD via both qantas and jetstar.
VIRGIN:
how much to redeem flight from MEL to SYD via virgin.
Which one has best/more availability?
A Qantas Classic Award from MEL-SYD rtn in economy will cost 16,000 points plus about $70 in charges. Or you can book with points only to remove the $70 cash component, not sure exactly how much that would come to but i think it would be about 22,000. I think it's the same whether with Qantas or Jetstar. Availability is generally good as long as you book in advance.
With Virgin, an award from MEL-SYD rtn in economy will cost 13,800 points plus about $20 in charges or 16,800 using points only. Again, availability is good.
My plan was to swap to velocity and transfer all my membership points from amex and citibank into velocity points. then fly from MEL to KOREA via singapore airline partners. ANy ideas on how many points it is? I think this may be a waste of points if it is greater than 75k points.
Sorry to harp on about travel class, but are you looking for business or economy? If business, you would be better transferring your Amex and Citibank points to Krisflyer for this flight. But as Cove pointed out, if economy, a KrisFlyer award is probably not worthwhile. The cost for Saver awards (booked online) from MEL-SIN-ICN return would be:
- Economy: 63,750 KrisFlyer miles plus approx $750
- Business: 131,750 KrisFlyer miles plus approx $850
The latter is great value, as those flights would cost $5,000+ if booked by cash, so you're saving $4,000+ for 131,750 points. However, you could book the economy fare for ~$1,300, so in that case you're only saving $550 for 63,750 points. In other words, you get at least 4 times as much value from the points by using them for the business fare. In practice, this allows a lot of us to travel in luxury that we would not otherwise be able to afford!
I don't know what the cost would be to book these flights with Velocity points, but you can work it out on their website.