Will Velocity Reinstate Redemptions on Its Chinese Partner Airlines?

After Virgin Australia entered voluntary administration in April 2020, Velocity Frequent Flyer suspended all redemptions on partner airlines. Velocity brought most of these back online when Australia’s international border reopened in November 2021, following the COVID-19 shutdown period.

Since the pandemic, Velocity has also added redemptions on Air Canada, Qatar Airways, United and All Nippon Airways.

But reward seats on Hainan Airlines, Tianjin Airlines, Hong Kong Airlines and Capital Airlines were never reinstated, even though these are all still Velocity partner airlines.

At the time, Virgin Australia told us that talks with these airlines were ongoing and that, since China’s border was still largely closed at that point, it wouldn’t have an impact on Velocity members. But it’s now 2024 and there are plenty of Velocity members who would like to use their points on direct flights to China.

Tianjin, Hainan and Capital Airlines have resumed flights to Australia

China’s international border reopened a while ago, and three of Virgin’s partner airlines are currently flying to/from Australia on the following routes:

• Sydney-Chongqing (Tianjin Airlines)
• Sydney-Zhengzhou (Tianjin Airlines)
• Sydney-Haikou (Hainan Airlines)
• Melbourne-Haikou (Hainan Airlines)
• Sydney-Qingdao (Capital Airlines)
• Melbourne-Qingdao (Capital Airlines)
• Melbourne-Hangzhou (Capital Airlines)

You can still earn Velocity points and status credits with Hainan Airlines, Capital Airlines, Tianjin Airlines and Hong Kong Airlines. Velocity members with status also receive priority check-in, extra baggage and priority boarding when flying with any of these airlines.

But for more than two years, the Velocity website pages for three of these airlines have continued to say that international flight redemptions are “coming soon”. (An exception is the page for Tianjin Airlines, which no longer references redeeming points at all.)

Australian Frequent Flyer understands that Virgin Australia is looking at increasing redemption options for Velocity Frequent Flyer members as the Australia-China market continues to recover. But Virgin didn’t have any significant updates to share with us at the moment.

Changes in ownership

We’re not exactly sure what the hold-up is in reinstating redemptions on these four partner airlines. But it’s perhaps worth noting that the Chinese partner airlines’ parent company no longer owns a stake in Virgin Australia.

Before Virgin Australia went into voluntary administration and was ultimately bought by Bain Capital, HNA Group owned a 13% stake in Virgin Australia.

HNA Group also owned HNA Aviation, the parent company of Hainan, Capital and Tianjin Airlines. HNA Aviation additionally held a stake in Hong Kong Airlines. But HNA Group declared bankruptcy in 2021 and sold the HNA Aviation business to Liaoning Fangda Group.

Perhaps the multiple ownership changes could be complicating matters. But whatever the issue is, it hasn’t been bad enough for Velocity to suspend its partnerships with any of these airlines altogether.

It appears that Fortune Wings Club, the common loyalty program of Hainan, Capital, Tianjin and Hong Kong Airlines, continues to allow redemption bookings on Virgin Australia.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 80 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.