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In 2019, Virgin Australia launched a partnership with Expedia. You can normally earn 3 Velocity points per $1 spent on any hotel available through Expedia worldwide, by booking through the dedicated Virgin Australia Hotels website.
But until 18 February 2020, you can earn triple points – that’s 9 Velocity points per $1 spent – on all hotel bookings! During this promotion, some hotels are also offering discounts through Expedia.
To earn 9 points per dollar on hotels, you’ll need to book through the promotion website and enter your Velocity Frequent Flyer number at the time of booking.
If you’re a member of a hotel loyalty program, the main downside to booking through a third-party online travel agent such as Expedia is that you won’t be eligible to earn points or qualifying nights with the hotel’s own loyalty program. If you have status with a hotel chain, you also won’t be able to access your benefits during your stay unless you book directly with that hotel.
If you do decide to book through Expedia, the trade-off is the 9 Velocity points per $1, which is quite a generous offer. It costs 7,800 Velocity points (plus taxes and carrier charges) to book a one-way Virgin Australia reward seat from Sydney to Melbourne in Economy class. With this promotion, you would already earn enough Velocity points for a reward flight by spending $867 on hotel rooms.
The Velocity points take 6-8 weeks to credit
The offer terms & conditions state that it could take 6-8 weeks for the points to credit after your hotel stay.
Velocity Frequent Flyers has offered bonus points on hotel bookings through its partner, Expedia, in the past. When taking advantage of these previous offers, some AFF members say that they did have to wait quite a while for the bonus points to arrive. However, they did eventually get credited…
I used the Expedia to books several hotels in USA last November . I got the points in my Velocity account just last week. The fine print does warn you 6-8 weeks delay.
Over Christmas I had some 8 point bonus offer stays and only one I had to lodge a points claim but the rest came through, inc bonus, about 3 days after our stay. The one I made a claim on came through within 24hrs.
You can earn 3 Qantas Frequent Flyer points per $1 through Qantas Hotels, which is not currently offering any bonus points. If you’re a Qantas Business Rewards member, you can also earn an additional Qantas point for every dollar spent on hotels when travelling for business.
Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Velocity Hotels (Expedia)
