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You can redeem Velocity Frequent Flyer points for flights and Business Class upgrades with Virgin Australia. You can also spend your Velocity Points on hotels, wine, shopping at Myer… and lots of other things.
But the best value way to redeem Velocity Points is by booking Business Class reward seats on Virgin Australia’s partner airlines. This guide explains why, and how you can maximise the value of your points with Virgin Australia’s loyalty program!
Contents
The different types of Velocity Frequent Flyer redemptions
There are lots of ways to use Virgin Australia Velocity points, both in the air and on the ground.
The main ways to redeem Velocity Points on flights include:
- Reward Seats on Virgin Australia
- Reward Seats on partner airlines
- Any Seat rewards
- UpgradeMe Points upgrades on Virgin Australia flights
- Economy X seat selection
And these are the main ways you can use Velocity Points on the ground:
- Gift cards
- Products from the Velocity Rewards Store
- Wine
- Online shopping with Myer
- Luxury Escapes bookings
- Hotel bookings via Rocket Travel
- Europcar car rental bookings
What are the best value ways to use Velocity Points?
The value of one Velocity Point depends on how you spend it!
These are the typical values you could get with different types of redemptions:
Redeeming in the air is the best value
It’s abundantly clear from the above chart that you can get much better value for your points when redeeming for Reward Seats and upgrades! By comparison, redeeming points on the ground for products or gift cards provides relatively poor value.
There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, the non-flight rewards are provided by third parties and it costs Velocity Frequent Flyer real money to provide those rewards. Secondly, those rewards are not capacity-controlled.
Velocity Frequent Flyer, which is owned by Virgin Australia, can afford to offer better value when you redeem for Reward Seats or upgrades because the airline controls the supply of those rewards. Airlines generally only make Reward Seats and upgrades available if the seat would have otherwise flown empty. So, the marginal cost to the airline in providing these rewards is quite low. But the value to the customer – compared to the cost of buying a ticket or upgrade – is high.
The trade-off is that you can’t book Reward Seats on every flight. You may need to be flexible to find availability.
Spending Velocity Points on non-flight rewards
Other than letting them expire, you’ll get the worst value for your Velocity Points when redeeming them for gift cards, or products like kettles or toasters.
As an example, you could redeem 10,051 Velocity Points for a $50 Coles gift card:
Alternatively, it costs 10,000 Velocity Points to upgrade from an Economy Choice fare to Business Class on a flight from Sydney to Brisbane. That redemption has a nominal value of $382, being the fare difference between Economy Choice and Business:
Clearly, getting 3.82 cents per point worth of value from that upgrade is better than getting 0.5 cents per point with a gift card. That said, not everyone necessarily wants to use their points to fly – and the availability of upgrades is limited.
Which are the best value non-flight rewards
If you don’t wish to use your Velocity Points in the air, the best value redemptions on the ground are with Luxury Escapes. When you redeem Velocity Points towards a Luxury Escapes package, you’ll get 0.75 cents of value per point. That’s 50% more value than redeeming for a Coles gift card.
The next-best ground option is redeeming with Virgin Wines, where you’ll get $62.50 of value for every 10,000 points redeemed.
Any Seat & Points + Pay flights
Reward Seats usually offer the best value when redeeming points. But airlines generally only release a limited number of Reward Seats per flight.
If you want to use your Velocity Points to book a flight that doesn’t have any Reward Seats available, you can book any available seat on any Virgin Australia marketed flight as an Any Seat reward. You can also pay part of the cost of any cash airfare booked on the Virgin Australia website using Points + Pay.
In both cases, you’ll get around 0.6 cents of value from each Velocity Point.
Velocity Reward Seats
Velocity Reward Seats aren’t available on every flight, but are much more valuable as they cost a fixed number of points.
For example, have a look at these two flights from Cairns to Brisbane:
On the 1.50pm departure, only Any Seat redemptions are available and cost a lot more points. But Velocity Reward Seats are available in both cabin classes on the 4.40pm departure. You can tell because the Virgin Australia website has marked this flight with “Reward Seats available”.
On the Virgin Australia website, select the “Use Velocity Points” option during the booking process to search for flights available using points:
You can book Velocity Reward Seats on Virgin Australia and nine other partner airlines. Here’s the full selection of airlines:
How many Velocity Points you need for a Reward Seat
The tables on the Velocity Frequent Flyer website show the number of points you’d need to book a one-way Reward Seat. The cost is based on the distance and airline/s flown on the airline/s used.
There are four different Velocity redemption tables:
- Virgin Australia Domestic flights
- Virgin Australia Short-Haul International & Trans-Tasman flights (including VA flights to Japan and itineraries including both domestic & international flights)
- Flights on United Airlines & Virgin Atlantic (these are the same price as Virgin Australia international flights)
- Flights on all other partner airlines
When booking a standalone Virgin Australia domestic flight in Economy, the cost varies within a range based on the demand for that flight.
Velocity Carrier Charges
In addition to the points and third-party taxes, you’ll need to pay carrier charges when redeeming Velocity Points on Virgin Australia, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways or Singapore Airlines. These charges apply on a per-sector basis and go directly to Velocity Frequent Flyer.
The exact amounts are published on the Velocity website. For example, it’s $11 per Virgin Australia domestic flight or USD90 (~AU$137) for a Business Class reward on Singapore Airlines from Australia to Singapore.
Why you should pay the taxes & charges with money
Velocity Frequent Flyer gives you the option to pay the additional taxes & carrier charges using either money or points. We suggest saving your points and using money to cover these charges.
That’s because the cash cost is simply converted to points at the same rate of 0.6 cents per point that applies to Any Seat and Points + Pay redemptions.
You can get good value on Virgin Australia Reward Seats
You can get quite good value by redeeming your points on Virgin Australia. For example, you could pay just 6,200 Velocity Points + $70 for a one-way Economy flight from Perth to Kalgoorlie that normally costs $285.
Or, you could redeem 23,500 Velocity Points + $126 for a one-way Business Class flight from Brisbane to Port Vila, Vanuatu that otherwise retails for $791.
But Virgin Australia doesn’t operate long-haul international flights to places like the USA, India or Europe. This is where its network of partners comes in very handy.
Get supersized value with Reward Seats on partner airlines
But you can get the most value when redeeming for premium cabin flights on Virgin’s international partner airlines! Finding award availability can be a bit tricky, but there are plenty of seats if you know where to look.
For example, you could redeem 191,000 Velocity Points + $166 for a round-trip United Business Class trip from Sydney to San Francisco:
That’s clearly much better value than paying the regular commercial airfare for the same flights!
Compared to the commercial ticket price, you’d be getting almost 9 cents out of each Velocity Point with that United booking. Most redemptions won’t get you quite that much value, but it shows what you can do by redeeming on Virgin’s partner airlines.
Another great value Velocity redemption is Etihad First Class. Unfortunately, you can only book Etihad Business and First Class seats using Velocity points within 30 days of departure. But if you’re able to book less than a month out, you can sometimes find Business Class flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Abu Dhabi.
There’s also lots of Business and even some First Class availability from Abu Dhabi to destinations in Europe. Etihad offers First Class from Abu Dhabi to Geneva, Paris and London, as well as New York.
A First Class seat on this Etihad flight from Abu Dhabi to Geneva would cost $8,528… but it could be yours for just 78,000 Velocity Points and $531:
If you want to fly to Europe, you can redeem Velocity Points on Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines or Etihad Airways. If you’re flexible enough and book well in advance, you’ll often find Business availability on Qatar Airways or Singapore Airlines.
You can also regularly find Premium Economy availability on Singapore Airlines out of Sydney and Melbourne.
If you’d like to fly to India, Singapore Airlines availability is also hard to beat.
And if you’d like to fly to Japan, you may be able to find Economy and Business Reward Seats on All Nippon Airways (ANA). This airline often has availability on its seasonal Perth-Narita route between November-March. And if you’d like to fly from Sydney to Haneda, you’ll often find Business reward seats within a few weeks of departure.
Other useful Velocity partner airline redemptions include Perth-Johannesburg on South African Airways, as well as Sydney-Honolulu and Auckland-Honolulu on Hawaiian Airlines.
Overview of Velocity partner airline redemption options
Here’s a summary of the cabin classes you can book using Velocity Points, as well as some other helpful information:
| Airline | Cabin classes available | Notes |
|---|---|---|
 | Economy & Business | |
 | Economy, Business & First | You can often find SYD-HND availability in Business within a month of departure |
 | Economy, Business & First | Business/First available only within 30 days of departure |
 | Economy & Business | Call Velocity to book; best availability to/from Australia & NZ is when booking 1-6 months out |
 | Economy, Business & First | You can often find First Class availability from Perth to Doha and Paris |
 | Economy, Premium Economy & Business | |
 | Economy & Business | You can often find PER-JNB availability in Business; call Velocity to book |
 | Economy & Business | Best availability to/from Australia is when booking within 1-3 months of departure |
 | Economy, Premium Economy & Business | Call Velocity to book |
Upgrading to Business Class
You can upgrade Virgin Australia flights to Business Class, as long as you’ve booked a ticket in Economy Choice or Economy Flex. Virgin Australia will even confirm your upgrade instantly if there is a Business Reward seat available on your flight – as there with the Sydney-Melbourne flight we looked at earlier:
The Velocity Frequent Flyer website shows the number of points you’ll need for an upgrade.
See our guide to Virgin Australia upgrades for more details!
Redeeming points for Economy X seats
Another way to use Velocity Points is to upgrade to an Economy X seat. You’ll get a seat with more legroom, as well as priority check-in and priority boarding.
When doing this, Velocity will simply convert your points to cash at a rate of 0.8 cents per point to cover the seat selection fee.
Converting Velocity Points to KrisFlyer miles
You can do even more with your Velocity Points by transferring them to the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer program! Singapore Airlines is part of Star Alliance, so you can redeem KrisFlyer miles to book flights across the entire Star Alliance network.
With KrisFlyer miles, you’ll also get access to more award seats on Singapore Airlines (including First Class availability) and have the opportunity to upgrade Singapore Airlines flights.
You’d need to transfer at least 5,000 Velocity Points at a time, and transfers take place at a 1.55:1 conversion rate in both directions.
Need more Velocity Points?
If you’re a little short on the points you need for your next reward, you can buy Velocity Points. But a cheaper way to earn lots of points is with credit card sign-up offers! You could earn 100,000 Velocity Points (or even more) from a single credit card sign-up!
See our list of the best current Velocity credit card offers.
Great Credit Cards for Earning Virgin Australia Velocity Points
- Card Name
- American Express Velocity Escape
- Earn
- 0.75
- Signup Bonus
-
No current signup bonus
- Annual Fee
- $0 p.a.
- Read more
- Read the guide
Velocity Frequent Flyer Velocity Points on everyday purchases
- Card Name
- American Express Velocity Platinum
- Earn
- 1.25
- Signup Bonus
-
60,000 bonus Velocity Points
Apply by 26th Jun 2024
- Annual Fee
- $375 p.a.
- Read more
- Read the guide
Velocity Frequent Flyer Velocity Points on everyday purchases
You can learn about more ways to earn Velocity Points in our Frequent Flyer Training! Our unit on earning Velocity Points is available for free to all logged-in AFF members.
Learn more about redeeming Velocity Points
Our Frequent Flyer Training courses also have lots of tips on using Velocity Points, as well as earning status with Virgin Australia, earning and burning points with other loyalty programs, and lots more! If you’re new to the frequent flyer points game, it’s definitely worth checking out.
There’s also lots of discussion on Australian Frequent Flyer’s dedicated Virgin Australia Velocity forum. If you’re new to the Velocity Frequent Flyer program and want to ask a question, check out our Virgin Australia Newbie Questions Thread.
Having trouble finding and booking reward seats?
Our Frequent Flyer Concierge is here to help!
