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For the first time since April 2020, Virgin Australia Velocity members will finally be able to redeem their points for international flights from Tuesday, 2 November 2021. But reward seats will only be available on six partner airlines for the time being, and Velocity members won’t be able to redeem points on Air Canada’s flights from Australia.
From next Tuesday, Velocity members will finally be able to redeem their points for Virgin Australia international flights to Nadi, Bali and Queenstown. Redemptions will also be made available for travel on the following partner airlines:
- Virgin Atlantic
- Air Canada (except flights between Australia and Canada)
- Delta Air Lines
- Etihad Airways
- Hawaiian Airlines
- South African Airways
While this is good news for Velocity members, there are some notable omissions to this list. In particular, Velocity redemptions on Singapore Airlines are not yet returning. But this is likely due to Singapore Airlines continuing to block access to its award inventory for all partner airlines – not just Virgin Australia.
Regarding Singapore Airlines, the Velocity Frequent Flyer website says:
We are working closely with Singapore Airlines to plan for the reintroduction of Reward Seats and the ability for members to transfer Points between the Velocity and KrisFlyer programs.
Virgin Australia added Air Canada as a new partner in early 2021. While it’s great to see Velocity adding new partnerships, it’s disappointing that reward seats are not yet being offered on Air Canada flights from Sydney or Brisbane to Vancouver. These are the main Air Canada routes that Australians would be interesting in redeeming points to fly on! This is what Velocity says about this:
The ability for Velocity members to book Reward Seats between Australia and Vancouver is currently under review.
Reward seats will no longer be offered at all on Hainan Airlines, Hong Kong Airlines or Capital Airlines, in addition to the loss of Alitalia a fortnight ago. The partnership with All Nippon Airways is also currently “paused”.
“On behalf of the whole team, I want to thank each and every one of our 10 million members for their patience as we worked around the clock to negotiate some great deals for our members with some of the world’s leading airlines,” Velocity Frequent Flyer’s new CEO Nick Rohrlach said.
“I am thrilled to offer customers an extended network to hundreds of destinations across the world.”
From 2 November, Velocity members will be able to make Reward Seat bookings on the Virgin Australia website for travel with Virgin Australia, Etihad, Delta and Air Canada, as well as Singapore Airlines at a later date.
To book Velocity partner airline redemptions on Hawaiian Airlines, Virgin Atlantic or South African Airways, you would need to call the Velocity Membership Contact Centre on 13 18 75.
Velocity Frequent Flyer has also extended its Flexible Flying policy to cover international reward bookings, including with partner airlines, for travel until 31 December 2022. Under this policy, Velocity reward seats can be changed or cancelled with no fees.
Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: VA2.0 International Partners
