How to Spend 10,000 Velocity Points

There are lots of things you can do with Virgin Australia Velocity points. From upgrading Virgin Australia flights to booking international Business Class flights, the possibilities are endless.

You’d need 67,000 Velocity points to book a Singapore Airlines Business Class ticket from Melbourne to Singapore. Or, it costs 114,00 Velocity points for a Qatar Airways First Class flight from Perth to Doha (plus taxes & charges) – to give just two examples.

But even if you just have a small balance of Velocity points, you can still use them for valuable rewards! The loyalty program’s slogan is “Velocity means fast”, referring to the speed at which you can both earn and burn points – and it holds true.

For example, a Virgin Australia Economy Class flight from Melbourne to Sydney starts from just 6,200 Velocity points. Or, you could upgrade a Virgin Australia flight to Business Class from just 4,900 points.

In this article, find out exactly what you can get for 10,000 Virgin Australia Velocity points or less!

How much is 10,000 Velocity points worth?

Frequent flyer points don’t have a fixed value, as it depends on how you redeem them.

For example, you could get a $50 gift card for around 10,000 Velocity points. That gives your Velocity points a value of 0.5 cents each.

But you could instead redeem 6,200 Velocity Points + $70 for a Perth-Kalgoorlie flight that normally costs $209. With that redemption, your Velocity points are effectively worth 2.24 cents each – or more than four times as much!

Things you can get for 10,000 Velocity points

Here are 10 ways you can spend 10,000 Velocity points, in order from most to least value…

Book a reward flight on Virgin Australia

You can use Velocity points to book reward seats on any Virgin Australia flight, subject to availability, except the routes between Perth and Christmas/Cocos Islands.

Velocity uses tiered pricing for reward seats on domestic routes. On routes under 600 miles, such as Melbourne-Sydney, Sydney-Gold Coast or Perth-Kalgoorlie, it costs between 6,200 and 9,900 Velocity points for an Economy reward seat. (In addition, you just need to pay the taxes and carrier charges.)

You can book reward seats on the Virgin Australia website. Just select the “Use Velocity Points” option when searching.

Look for flights marked with “Reward Seats available”. If the number of points showing is much higher than expected, there are probably no reward seats on the flight you want. When this happens, Velocity will show you “Any Seat” redemption pricing which is based on the cost of the airfare and is usually much more expensive.

For 9,400 Velocity points, you could also book a Tier 1 reward on any Virgin Australia domestic route between 601-1,200 miles. This includes routes like Adelaide-Brisbane, Brisbane-Cairns and Melbourne-Gold Coast.

Book a reward flight on any partner airline

As well as booking Virgin Australia flights, you can use Velocity points to book flights with most of Velocity’s other international partner airlines:

With 10,000 Velocity points (plus taxes), you could book any available reward seat on a Virgin Australia partner airline on a route under 600 miles.

For example, it costs 7,800 Velocity points + $15.50 to fly United Airlines on a short route such as Los Angeles-San Francisco.

It costs 10,000 Velocity points (plus taxes) to book a short flight on partner airlines such as Etihad, Air Canada, Singapore Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Qatar Airways or South African Airways. For example, you could spend 10,000 Velocity points on a Hawaiian Airlines flight between any of the Hawaiian islands.

Note that you’d need to call Velocity Frequent Flyer to redeem points on Hawaiian Airlines, Virgin Atlantic or South African Airways.

Upgrade a Virgin Australia flight

For 10,000 Velocity points, you can upgrade from an Economy Choice fare to Business Class on any Virgin Australia flight up to 600 miles. This can be a very valuable use of points as there’s typically a large price difference between Economy and Business Class fares.

This is the full domestic upgrade table:

If you’re booked on an Economy Flex fare, you can even upgrade on a longer domestic flight such as Sydney-Darwin for under 10,000 points.

You can also upgrade from Economy Flex to Business for under 10,000 points on any Virgin Australia international route under 2,400 miles in distance. This includes flights to Queenstown, as well as Adelaide-Bali.

You can see the full upgrade costs on the Velocity Frequent Flyer website.

With Virgin Australia, upgrades can be confirmed instantly if a Business Reward seat is available on your flight. If a Business Reward seat is not available, you can still waitlist for an upgrade.

Pay for Economy X seat selection

If you’re flying with Virgin Australia, you can also use Velocity points towards Economy X seat selection. These are extra legroom seats towards the front of the plane and in the exit rows. As an Economy X passenger, you also get access to priority boarding and dedicated overhead lockers.

Economy X seats are available for free to Velocity Platinum members, or for an additional charge for everyone else. You can pay for this fee using either money or Velocity points. The cost varies depending on the route you’re flying.

Get $75 towards a Luxury Escapes booking

With Velocity Frequent Flyer’s new partnership with Luxury Escapes, you can both earn and redeem Velocity points for Luxury Escapes bookings, including discounted luxury accommodation packages.

If you choose to redeem Velocity points towards a Luxury Escapes deal, you’ll get $7.50 off your booking for every 1,000 Velocity points redeemed. You must redeem at least 5,000 points. So, if you used 10,000 Velocity points you’d get $75 off your booking – giving your points a value of 0.75 cents each.

Order wine from the Velocity Wine Store

When you order wine from the Velocity Wine Store, you can choose to pay with money, points or a combination of both. If you used 10,000 Velocity points towards a wine order, you’d get a $62.50 discount.

Get $60 towards a hotel or car rental booking

You can redeem Velocity points towards hotel or car hire bookings via Rocket Travel. You can use Velocity points to pay for part or all of any booking, and 10,000 Velocity points would get you $60 towards an accommodation or vehicle rental booking.

Get $59.80 off any Virgin Australia flight

Even if there are no reward seats available on a flight you wish to book, you can still use Velocity points to cover part or all of the cost of any commercially available airfare. This is known as a “Points + Pay” redemption.

For every 10,000 Velocity points that you use towards a flight booking, you’ll get around $59.80 off your flight.

Redeem at the Velocity Rewards Store

You can use your points to purchase a wide range of merchandise including fragrances, sunglasses, electronics and appliances. With 10,000 points, you could get around $53 worth of products from the Velocity Rewards Store.

With 10,000 points, you could also get a gift voucher worth around $50 from the Velocity Rewards Store.

Get $51.50 off at Myer

Myer accepts partial or full payments in Velocity points when you shop on the Myer website. 10,000 Velocity points would get you a discount of around $51.50 off your Myer shopping.

Need more Velocity points?

Just short of the Velocity points that you need for your next reward?

There are lots of ways to earn Velocity points in Australia. For example, you could:

• Convert points from Flybuys or an Australian credit card rewards program
• Shop at 7-Eleven
• Fly with Virgin Australia or any of its partner airlines
• Shop via the Velocity eStore
• Hire a car from Europcar, Thrifty, Hertz, Dollar or SIXT
• Book a hotel through Virgin Australia Hotels
• Complete surveys with e-Rewards
• Buy wine from Virgin Wines or the Velocity Wine Store

Those methods will all help you to accumulate your Velocity points balance. But if you want to earn a lot of Velocity points, one of the easiest ways is with a Velocity points-earning credit card. You could even earn up to 120,000 Velocity points from a single credit card sign-up offer!

If you have a family member with Velocity points, they could also transfer some to you.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.