Velocity Points a scam? [How to Optimise award search]

[serfty]

Jesus after reading this my head is starting to ache. i think I'll just stick with my excellent TA.......

Does your TA book awards for you? (I know there are service providers who will do this ...)

 

[Gold60]

Does your TA book awards for you? (I know there are service providers who will do this ...)

i think if i ever accumulate enough points, and by some strange miracle get any SC's, i will ask then.

i might get enough points together one day, but the chance of get any/enough SC's is unlikely, so i think it might all be something of a moot point ??

 

[blackcat20]

Its no wonder the average punter thinks swapping their FF points for supermarket vouchers is good value, when people here who are above average in airline knowledge struggle to find award seats. The seats are out there, but its knowing the ins and outs on where to look, how to search, when to look etc.

 

[Jack_OC]

Me too! Which is great for the likes of us....but I do feel for all the otherwise disgruntled customers that may not know about this site, or have the time to research.

Well, yes and no. If redeeming FF points for seats at the pointy end was easy, then ironically they would pretty much cease to be useful, as there would be way too much competition for the relatively small number of seats available. The only reason that any of us have a chance of getting great award deals is that there are literally millions of people effectively subsidising us by redeeming their points for Coles gift cards and the like!

i think if i ever accumulate enough points, and by some strange miracle get any SC's, i will ask then.

i might get enough points together one day, but the chance of get any/enough SC's is unlikely, so i think it might all be something of a moot point ??

You don't need SCs to book award flights!

 

[adampenrith]

While I would not say Velocity points are a scam - they are not very user friendly.

My partner and I do not travel as often as we would like to, but after setting our sights on a trip to the UK - we saved points whereever we could. Credit Card Feed, eportal, BP, Virgin mobile etc.

Finally our leave was able to be synchronised and in August of 2015 we went looking for May departure to London and a return from somewhere in Europe 6 weeks later.

Nothing on VA - unless we wanted to spend over a million points.

So over to SQ - bingo - found J seats on the day we wanted SYD LHR - and the day we wanted to return either out of FRA or ZRH.

Booked paid $1900 in fees and taxes.

The sad thing about this for Velocity is that we are now converts to SQ.

Will most likely continue to collect points with Velocity and convert to SQ as that seems easier in Australia.

Domestically we find that Virgin is not longer price competitive - so we are now flying Tiger. No points but for an upcoming family event the trip to from SYD to MEL - was about $200 cheaper on the budget that flying Virgin.
Now a 90 minute flight is not much longer than a city rail train trip from our home in the lower mountains to Sydney - and Tiger is ok.

I would never fly J for a short trip like that unless I have won the lotto.

Long term customer satisfaction should come before profits - if you look after your happy customer base the profits will come

 

[Jack_OC]

So over to SQ - bingo - found J seats on the day we wanted SYD LHR - and the day we wanted to return either out of FRA or ZRH.

Booked paid $1900 in fees and taxes.

The sad thing about this for Velocity is that we are now converts to SQ.

Will most likely continue to collect points with Velocity and convert to SQ as that seems easier in Australia.

I would be surprised if the powers that be at VA or Velocity would be too upset about this. Let's say you swap 135,000 Velocity points for 100,000 KF miles. Velocity have been already been paid for those 135,000 points (whether you earned them from flying, credit cards, BP or wherever - all of those businesses have to buy the points from Velocity). I'm not sure how much Velocity would make by selling 135,000 points (it probably varies), but as long as the total is more than what they have to pay for 100,000 KF miles, they are winning. And I'm pretty sure the system was designed to ensure that the cost of 100,000 KF miles to Velocity is always a fair bit less than what they earn from 135,000 Velocity points. If they can convince people to continue earning Velocity points (thus generating revenue for them), without needing to even make award seats available on VA, then I would say it's win win for them.

By the way, if you are not earning Velocity points by flying, I'm not sure if it's easier to earn Velocity points than SQ (KF) miles. Certainly not when it comes to credit cards - there are several cards that enable conversion of reward points to a range of programs, including KrisFlyer - e.g. American Express, Westpac Altitude, Citibank, etc.

 

[BriarFlyer]

I've learned a fair bit reading this thread

Same. AND managed to find an award seat I'd been unable to find as I'd not tried a one-way search. D'oh.

Thank you, Bean, for starting the thread and to the contributors, especially Mattg for the valuable tip!

 

[travelislife]

One other thing is people have become to accustomed to doing it all online these days and we all know how cough VAs website is. So sometimes it makes sense to pick up the phone.

 

[djchuckles]

I have about a million in my account at the moment and have probably spent close to that on rewards in the last 18 months. A couple of F trips to UK and back on Etihad, switched some to KF and booked Suites, J on Virgin to Abu Dhabi and a few domestic trips. Maybe I'm a bit more flexible (usually fly alone, and can be flexible with dates) but I've had some great value out of VFF

 

[Nathant123]

Our of curiosity how many kris flyer points roughly is required for a one way business sydney to heathrow lax or johannesburg if you're flexible on travel dates? I paid for a business upgrade to Africa a couple months back with Etihad and looking to do a similar trip in a years time yet I cannot find any reward redemptions to joburg from Sydney or Perth. Not even economy reward! Happy to flip em over to kris flyer but to my understanding they expire after a while if not used while the velocity ones don't so long as you keep earning them?

 

[Jack_OC]

Our of curiosity how many kris flyer points roughly is required for a one way business sydney to heathrow lax or johannesburg if you're flexible on travel dates? I paid for a business upgrade to Africa a couple months back with Etihad and looking to do a similar trip in a years time yet I cannot find any reward redemptions to joburg from Sydney or Perth. Not even economy reward! Happy to flip em over to kris flyer but to my understanding they expire after a while if not used while the velocity ones don't so long as you keep earning them?

A one way business saver award from SYD (or MEL/ADL/BNE) to Europe is 80,500 KF miles if booked online. The surcharges are pretty steep though - it depends on the destination (or origin if travelling back to AUS), and presumably exchange rates as well, but as examples I recently booked MEL-FRA and the surcharge was $440 per person and back from MXP-MEL was about $400. Coming back from LHR is a lot more expensive (double?) due to higher UK departure tax. Anyway, IMHO this is still a great deal - a return business class from AUS to EU for 161,000 KF miles plus about $850.

By the way - once you have a KF account, you can search availability and costs online - even if you don't have any KF miles, it still shows you all the available options.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Our of curiosity how many kris flyer points roughly is required for a one way business sydney to heathrow lax or johannesburg if you're flexible on travel dates? I paid for a business upgrade to Africa a couple months back with Etihad and looking to do a similar trip in a years time yet I cannot find any reward redemptions to joburg from Sydney or Perth. Not even economy reward! Happy to flip em over to kris flyer but to my understanding they expire after a while if not used while the velocity ones don't so long as you keep earning them?

To get to JNB from Aus QFF is your best bet. Good availaibity in J too.

As the flight is direct it stacks up pretty well against *A options which are all indirect. I did look at Krisflyer but could neversee seats. Whereas QFF was easy.

 

[Buzzard]

While I would not say Velocity points are a scam - they are not very user friendly.

My partner and I do not travel as often as we would like to, but after setting our sights on a trip to the UK - we saved points whereever we could. Credit Card Feed, eportal, BP, Virgin mobile etc.

Finally our leave was able to be synchronised and in August of 2015 we went looking for May departure to London and a return from somewhere in Europe 6 weeks later.

Nothing on VA - unless we wanted to spend over a million points.

So over to SQ - bingo - found J seats on the day we wanted SYD LHR - and the day we wanted to return either out of FRA or ZRH.

Booked paid $1900 in fees and taxes.

The sad thing about this for Velocity is that we are now converts to SQ.

Will most likely continue to collect points with Velocity and convert to SQ as that seems easier in Australia.

Domestically we find that Virgin is not longer price competitive - so we are now flying Tiger. No points but for an upcoming family event the trip to from SYD to MEL - was about $200 cheaper on the budget that flying Virgin.
Now a 90 minute flight is not much longer than a city rail train trip from our home in the lower mountains to Sydney - and Tiger is ok.

I would never fly J for a short trip like that unless I have won the lotto.

Long term customer satisfaction should come before profits - if you look after your happy customer base the profits will come

Having done City Rail from Faulconbridge to the airport many times I can understand why you are happy flying Tiger

 

[Bakks]

I too am confused by this. I recently signed up to Velocity given I am getting 250k bonus points, and wanted to use them for an Athens to Perth flight in August next year. I figured given the time until the booking I would be ok. But looking now at the latest date (15 July) a single economy fare is 258k points! This seems ridiculous?!

I thought based on this table https://www.velocityfrequentflyer.com/content/Redeem/Airlines/PointsTables/ I would be able to get business class for around 140k.

 

[blackcat20]

I too am confused by this. I recently signed up to Velocity given I am getting 250k bonus points, and wanted to use them for an Athens to Perth flight in August next year. I figured given the time until the booking I would be ok. But looking now at the latest date (15 July) a single economy fare is 258k points! This seems ridiculous?!

I thought based on this table https://www.velocityfrequentflyer.com/content/Redeem/Airlines/PointsTables/ I would be able to get business class for around 140k.

Thats an "any seat award", not a standard reward.

 

[Bakks]

Excuse my ignorance (new to Velocity) but how do I search for a reward seat? I selected "Use Points + Pay" and this was the only option that seemed to come up.

 

[Mattg]

Excuse my ignorance (new to Velocity) but how do I search for a reward seat? I selected "Use Points + Pay" and this was the only option that seemed to come up.

The search method is the same, but it will only show Reward Seats if they are available on all sectors searched. Try changing dates if you only see "any seat" awards.

If you're still struggling, try searching on the Delta website. It conveniently shows all availability over a five week period on one screen.

 

[Bakks]

The search method is the same, but it will only show Reward Seats if they are available on all sectors searched. Try changing dates if you only see "any seat" awards.

If you're still struggling, try searching on the Delta website. It conveniently shows all availability over a five week period on one screen.

Thanks, I'll give that a go.

 

[travelislife]

Thanks, I'll give that a go.

Or give them a call and ask them to do the searching.

 

[Jack_OC]

Or give them a call and ask them to do the searching.

Unfortunately, I think you also need to be prepared to accept that there might not be any availability via Velocity for this route. Flights on this route will have to be with partners rather than VA, and in my recent experience that does not bode well for availability through Velocity. And unfortunately, Singapore Airlines no longer flies to/from Athens, so you won't be able to book this route by transferring your Velocity points to KrisFlyer either.

Are you willing to consider getting a flight from Athens to somewhere else to connect with an SQ flight? For example, SQ has availability for next August from Istanbul to Perth in business, for just 53,125 KF miles + USD$292. You'd need to transfer ~72,000 Velocity points to get that number of KF miles, but it's still a lot less than you'd need if a seat was available through Velocity. And I assume you could get from Athens to Istanbul cheaply enough.