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Velocity Frequent Flyer is the loyalty program of Virgin Australia, the second-largest airline in Australia.
It’s easy to earn Velocity points in Australia and the program offers some great perks to its Gold and Platinum frequent flyers when flying on Virgin Australia. However, Virgin Australia flies to fewer international destinations than Qantas and has a smaller network of partner airlines.
If you’re new to Velocity Frequent Flyer, this guide will explain the basics of how the program works, how to maximise your points and how to earn elite status, helping you to enjoy more benefits when you fly!
Contents
Join Velocity for free
Unlike Qantas Frequent Flyer, it’s 100% free to join Virgin Australia’s Velocity program. Simply sign up on the Velocity Frequent Flyer website.
However, the Velocity program is officially only open to residents of the following countries:
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Papua New Guinea
- Fiji
- Cook Islands
- Vanuatu
- Tonga
- Solomon Islands
- Samoa
How to earn Velocity points
Once you’ve signed up, you can start earning Velocity points immediately! Points are the program’s currency and can be earned either from flying, or by spending on the ground with Velocity’s program partners. Later in this guide, we’ll look at the different rewards that you can redeem your Velocity points on.
Earning Velocity points from flying
Of course, you can earn Velocity points whenever you fly with Virgin Australia. You’ll earn 5 Velocity points per dollar spent on Virgin Australia flights.
You can also earn points when flying on partner airlines. Virgin Australia is not a member of a global alliance (like Oneworld), but it does have a handful of its own handpicked partners:
Qatar Airways became a Velocity partner in September 2022.
When flying with a partner airline other than Virgin Australia, the amount of Velocity points earned depends on the distance of the flight and your fare class, as per the tables for each airline on the Velocity website.
You can also earn 1-2 points per $1 spent on FlyPelican flights, and 2-5 points per dollar on Link Airways flights, although no other Velocity benefits apply and status credits are not earned on FlyPelican or Link Airways. (For more on status credits, see below.)
Earning Velocity points on the ground
There are also lots of ways to earn Velocity points without flying, especially if you live in Australia. Here are some of the ways:
- Credit cards
- Transferring points from Flybuys
- Shopping online through Velocity eStore partners
- Spending at 7-Eleven petrol stations & convenience stores
- Buying travel insurance from Cover-More
- Shopping at program partners including Snooze, Sendle or Looking4Parking
- Getting home-delivered meals from Youfoodz
- Buying from Virgin Wines or the Velocity Wine Store by Laithwaites
- Completing e-Rewards surveys
- Renting a car from Europcar, Sixt, Hertz, Thrifty or Dollar
- Booking a hotel through Virgin Australia Hotels (powered by Rocket Travel) or Agoda PointsMax
There’s a full list of partners on the Velocity Frequent Flyer website.
Flybuys is one of Australia’s largest loyalty programs, offering ways to earn points at Coles, Liquorland, Kmart, Officeworks, Bunnings Warehouse and lots of other retailers. Plus, by taking advantage of Flybuys targeted bonus offers, your Flybuys points can really add up quickly! You can transfer Flybuys points to Velocity at a rate of 1,000 Flybuys points = 500 Velocity points.
Credit cards are another popular way to earn lots of Velocity points through everyday spend. You can earn Velocity points by spending on a co-branded Velocity Frequent Flyer card (offered by American Express or Virgin Money), or by transferring your credit card reward points to Velocity.
Most Australian bank-operated loyalty programs offer the option to convert your points to Velocity points. If doing this, wait until May or November as Velocity usually gives at least 15% bonus points on transfers from credit card programs during these months!
You can also earn lots of bonus Velocity points by taking advantage of a credit card sign-up offer!
Velocity Points Booster
If you’re short of the Velocity points you need for a particular redemption, you can buy them directly through Velocity Points Booster.
Buying points this way can be quite expensive, with prices starting at $36 for 1,000 points. The average cost decreases as you buy more points, but we generally wouldn’t recommend buying large amounts of Velocity points using this method as it’s unlikely you’ll be able to get back more value than what you paid for them!
Keep your Velocity account active to prevent points expiry
Velocity Frequent Flyer points will expire if your account is inactive for 24 months.
The good news is that all you need to do, to prevent your Velocity points from expiring, is to earn or redeem at least one point every two years. Even buying a $2 coffee from 7-Eleven and scanning your Velocity card would be sufficient!
Read more: Easy Ways to Stop Virgin Australia Velocity Points Expiring
How to redeem Velocity points
There are two basic ways to redeem Velocity Frequent Flyer points – in the air or on the ground. Let’s take a closer look at both…
Ways to redeem Velocity points on the ground
The following non-flight redemptions are available with Velocity Frequent Flyer:
- Gift cards
- Products from Velocity Rewards Store
- Velocity Wine Store purchases
- Hotel bookings (powered by Rocket Travel)
- Car hire bookings (via Rocket Travel)
- Charity donations
Generally, the value you’ll get when redeeming Velocity points for one of these options is quite poor. As we’ll explain shortly, it usually makes more sense to redeem for flights or upgrades!
Ways to redeem Velocity points in the air
These are the five ways to redeem Velocity points in the air:
- Reward Seats
- Any Seat Rewards
- Points + Pay
- UpgradeMe Points upgrades
- Paying for Economy X (extra legroom) seat selection
Let’s look at these options in more detail…
Any Seat Rewards & Points + Pay
As the name suggests, Any Seat Rewards are available on every Virgin Australia flight. But the value is relatively poor, as this is effectively just converting your points to cash for any available retail airfare at a rate of around 0.6 cents per point. This is the same rate as you’ll get using “Points + Pay”, where you pay for some of your airfare using points.
One advantage of booking an Any Seat Reward or using Points + Pay is that you’ll earn Velocity points and status credits for your flight. That’s because these bookings are treated the same as a regular paid ticket.
Reward Seats
You can book Reward Seats on Virgin Australia flights, as well as for travel on 9 other partner airlines:
You won’t earn Velocity points or status credits on Reward Seat bookings, but these are generally much better overall value than Any Seat or Points + Pay bookings (especially if you’re booking Business Class). Reward seats cost a fixed number of points, as published in the tables on the Velocity website.
When redeeming Velocity points for Virgin Australia domestic flights, the number of points required varies depending on whether it’s a Tier 1, 2 or 3 reward:
This is the table that applies to redemptions on Virgin Australia international, Virgin Atlantic and United Airlines operated flights:
A different (slightly more expensive) table applies to reward seats on the other Velocity partner airlines.
As an example, it costs 17,800 Velocity points for a Tier 2 Economy Reward seat from Hobart to Perth, or 35,500 points in Business Class, one-way. This flight covers a distance of 1,875 miles, putting it in zone 3. When booking a Reward Seat, you’ll also need to pay any applicable taxes & Velocity carrier charges (in this case, $27.27).
Reward seats on Virgin Australia, Air Canada, Etihad, Singapore Airlines and United can be booked on the Virgin Australia website.
To redeem points for flights on Virgin Atlantic, South African Airways or Hawaiian Airlines, you’ll need to call the Velocity Membership Contact Centre during opening hours.
Upgrading Virgin Australia flights
UpgradeMe Points upgrades are also a popular and valuable use of Velocity points! You can redeem Velocity points to upgrade any Virgin Australia flight when booked on an Economy Choice or Economy Flex ticket. The number of points required is published on the Velocity website.
These are the rates applicable to domestic flight upgrades:
With Virgin Australia, UpgradeMe Points upgrades can be confirmed instantly if there is a Business Reward seat available on your flight at the time of submitting your upgrade request.
See our guide to upgrading on Virgin Australia for more details and some useful tips.
Which Velocity redemptions are the best value?
The graph below shows the average value of one Velocity point, depending on how it is redeemed. This is calculated based on the typical equivalent cash price of each reward, divided by the number of points used.
As you can see, the average value you’ll get for each Velocity point is significantly higher when redeeming for a reward flight or upgrade!
Velocity Frequent Flyer status
If you fly a lot on Virgin Australia, it could be worth aiming for Silver, Gold or Platinum Velocity status.
Velocity status comes with some unique and valuable benefits such as Fly Ahead, free Economy X seat selection and complimentary annual upgrades to use on Virgin Australia.
After joining Velocity, all members start out at the base “Red” tier. By flying with Virgin Australia and earning status credits, you can climb to a higher elite tier.
Benefits of Virgin Australia status
Here are some of the key benefits of each Velocity status tier when flying with Virgin Australia:
Velocity Silver
- 2x complimentary Virgin Australia Lounge passes
- Additional baggage allowance
- 50% bonus points
See our Velocity Silver status guide for more.
Velocity Gold
- Lounge access + 1 guest
- Priority check-in, baggage and boarding
- Fly Ahead (on Economy Flex & Business fares only)
- 75% bonus points
- Annual Economy Reward Seat guarantee for a family holiday
Velocity Platinum
- Lounge access + up to 3 guests
- Complimentary Economy X (extra legroom) seats
- Free seat selection on Economy Lite tickets
- 4x free annual Business class upgrades (can be used when booked on an Economy Flex ticket)
- Fly Ahead (on all fare types except Economy Lite)
- 100% bonus points
You can see a full list of status benefits on the Velocity Frequent Flyer website.
Velocity status benefits with partner airlines
If you have Velocity status, you can also access some reciprocal status benefits when flying with selected partner airlines. However, the actual benefits vary quite substantially depending on which airline you’re flying.
See our guide to Velocity status benefits on Virgin Australia partner airlines for full details.
How to earn Virgin Australia status
To upgrade to a higher status tier, you’ll need to earn enough status credits and fly a minimum number of Virgin Australia marketed flights within any 12-month period:
| Status tier | Status credits to attain | Status credits to renew | Eligible “VA” sectors required |
|---|---|---|---|
| Silver | 250 | 200 | 2 |
| Gold | 500 | 400 | 4 |
| Platinum | 1,000 | 800 | 8 |
Virgin Australia Economy Lite fares and reward seat bookings do not qualify as eligible Velocity sectors for the purpose of earning or retaining status.
Unlike Qantas Frequent Flyer, Velocity does not have fixed membership years. Your status credits remain valid for 12 months, and you’ll be upgraded once the number of status credits you’ve earned during the previous year reaches the threshold for earning status.
Once you’ve earned Velocity status, you’ll get to enjoy the benefits for 12 months. To renew your status for another year, you would need to earn enough status credits by your review date a year later.
How to earn Velocity status credits
Status credits are generally earned by flying with Virgin Australia and its partner airlines. But there are also a few ways to earn status credits on the ground.
Earning status credits for Virgin Australia flights
This is the amount of status credits you’ll earn for Virgin Australia flights, as per the Velocity Frequent Flyer website:
A different table applies to Virgin Australia international flights:
As you can see, you’ll earn significantly more status credits when purchasing a more expensive Choice, Flex or Business Class ticket. As the price difference between Lite and Choice fares is often just $10-20, it often makes sense to pay slightly more for a Choice fare. Economy Choice tickets also include checked baggage, seat selection and count as eligible Velocity sectors, which Lite fares do not!
Earning status credits on partner airlines
When flying with other Velocity partner airlines, you’ll generally earn status credits according to the following table:
| One-way distance (miles) | Discount Economy | Flexible Economy | Premium Economy | Business/First |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-750 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 |
| 751-1500 | 15 | 30 | 45 | 60 |
| 1501-3000 | 20 | 40 | 60 | 80 |
| 3001-5000 | 30 | 60 | 90 | 120 |
| 5001-8000 | 40 | 80 | 120 | 160 |
| 8000+ | 50 | 100 | 150 | 200 |
Earning status credits on the ground
In addition to flying, there are a few ways to earn extra status credits with Velocity’s partners on the ground. For example, you can earn 1 status credit for every $100 spent at Coles (up to 10 status credits per month) by linking your Flybuys and Velocity accounts.
You can also earn an extra 100 Velocity status credits each year for spending at least $50,000 on an American Express Velocity Platinum credit card.
Read more: How to Earn Virgin Australia Status
Family pooling
A unique benefit of the Velocity Frequent Flyer program is the ability to “pool” all of the points and status credits earned by members of the same household into a single “beneficiary” account.
Even if you don’t have family pooling set up, you can still transfer Velocity points to family members (and you can redeem your points to book flights for anybody). But by setting up family pooling, a parent taking their family on holiday could earn all the status credits picked up by their spouse and/or children, in addition to their own. This makes it a lot easier for one member of a family to earn status when travelling together.
Read more: Virgin Australia Family Pooling Guide
Transferring Velocity points to KrisFlyer
One other excellent feature of the Velocity Frequent Flyer program is the ability to convert points into Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles.
Velocity points can be transferred to KrisFlyer miles online at a conversion rate of 1.55:1, in either direction. You would need to convert at least 5,000 points at a time.
There are numerous reasons why it could make sense to convert Velocity points into KrisFlyer miles. For example, you might be able to use the KrisFlyer miles to book an award seat that isn’t otherwise available through Velocity Frequent Flyer.
Read more: How to Transfer Velocity Points to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
Want to learn more about Velocity Frequent Flyer?
If you’re new to the Velocity Frequent Flyer program, this guide will help you to get started with the basics. But if you really want to maximise the value you get out of the program, there are lots of useful tips & tricks on Australian Frequent Flyer’s Virgin Australia forum!
If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Australian Frequent Flyer Gazette to stay up-to-date with the latest frequent flyer news & deals delivered to your inbox for free each Monday & Thursday.
Finally, have a look at the Australian Frequent Flyer Training. Over 10 courses, their training program explains everything Australians need to know to maximise their frequent flyer points and travel better, for less. The training is easy to follow and packed with practical tips and tricks!
