Half the battle with frequent flyer points is finding the seats you want for your trip and using your points for your ideal travel goal.
In this introductory guide, updated for 2020, we look at how to search for Virgin Australia ‘award’ availability (awards are the seats made available to frequent flyer members to book using their points).
We also explore what’s worth knowing when trying to redeem points for awards for travel on Virgin Australia – fees, policies and some other tips.
Searching and redeeming Velocity points through the Virgin Australia website
Velocity Points are one of the few points currencies you can use on Virgin Australia flights, and as a result there aren’t too many ways to search for availability other than looking at the Virgin Australia website.
You’ll need to select the “Use Points + Pay” checkbox on the site, and helpfully, you can search without being logged into your Velocity account.
From here, you’ll then get a day by day view of availability for a week around your chosen date, and it’s easy to flick through different days to see what’s available.
You want to ensure you are looking for the lower cost ‘Premium Reward’ (for Premium Economy) or ‘Business Reward’ (for Business Class):
The ‘Any Seat’ prices to the right is essentially exchanging your points at a fixed rate for a paid airfare, which, unless you have millions of points, is not going to be a usable option for most people.
Using Delta as a more flexible search alternative
You can also search for Virgin Australia award availability on Delta.com. Select “Shop with Miles” and “My dates are flexible” (if that suits) for maximum results.
On the results that show, you can then tweak to a five-week view. As of November 2019, I couldn’t find many Virgin Australia international Business Class award seats through Delta, but there are plenty of domestic reward seats (below).
What’s the earliest you can search for award seats on Virgin Australia flights?
The Virgin Australia booking calendar ‘opens’ 330 days from the current date – I believe either at midnight or in the early hours of the morning AEST.
With Virgin’s historical issues around international award availability, there’s no guarantee that award seats will be made available on long-haul international flights at 330 days, but domestically and for short haul, you will usually find them at this time.
Of course, seats can be made available at any time prior to departure, not just from 330 days away – so it’s worth checking back on award availability every so often in case you didn’t find seats for the first time around.
As a tip, if your travel plans are flexible or last minute, Virgin Australia often releases reward seats in the last week leading up to the flight, even on long-haul international flights in Business Class.
For example, searching for Brisbane to Los Angeles on 1 December 2019 shows Premium Economy and Business Class availability on 3, 4 and 5 December.
Guaranteed award seats for Gold and Platinum members
A unique feature of Velocity is their ability to open up Economy award seats for Gold and Platinum members, upon request. This is called the “Economy Reward Seats Guarantee for an Annual Family Trip”.
If you’re booking anytime up to six months before a trip, just call up Velocity and ask them to look into this for you.
Taxes and fees for booking Velocity award tickets
Velocity charges you taxes on top of the points you’ll pay, and these are usually pretty reasonable, especially compared to the competition.
You are offered the chance of paying the fees using cash or even more points. Using points to offset taxes is always a bad deal – you’ll be getting less than 1c per point value. If you are points-rich then you might prefer to do it, but otherwise, I wouldn’t.
If you decide to use a card to pay the accompanying fees, a fee applies regardless of what the amount is. These fees are capped at $11 for domestic journeys and $70 for international journeys.
| Percentage | |
|---|---|
| Debit card | 0.410% |
| Credit card | 1.024% |
For all Virgin Australia, Etihad and some Delta redemptions, a Carrier Charge will be applied, based on the length of the flight and the class of service.
Etihad redemptions using Velocity points have carrier charges set at $50 USD in Economy, $205 USD in Business and $300 USD in First Class, per person and per flight.
All Virgin Australia flights have a carrier charge ranging from $3.50 for a domestic economy flight (increasing to $10 from 8 January 2020) to $230 for a Business Class flight to Los Angeles. Similar rates apply to Delta’s Australia-Los Angeles flights. These are all charged per person and per flight.
If you make your booking over the phone for Virgin Australia-operated flights, you’ll be charged an extra $35, or 4,500 points per person for domestic and international short-haul, and $60 or 7,500 points per person for international long-haul and partner bookings. These fees can be waived if your itinerary can’t be booked online for whatever reason.
Cancellation and change policies and fees for Velocity award bookings
If you find availability that might work for you, my advice is always to lock it in when you see it in case someone else snags the seats you were after.
Points redemption bookings are much more flexible than most paid tickets, and Velocity is no different – it will cost you $35 or 4,500 points per person to cancel a domestic booking, or 7,500 points or $60 per person to cancel an international booking.
Furthermore, if your booking is to/from or includes the US in any way, you can cancel your award booking up to 24 hours after you made it without any penalties applied – call the call centre to do this. That’s in the terms here.
The full list of fees and policies for Velocity award bookings are here.
If you do decide to cancel a ticket booked using Velocity points, you’ll need to do that no later than 24 hours before your departure time.
If you want to change anything more than the date or time of your flights, then you will be charged the same fee as a cancellation. Essentially you are cancelling your existing flight, and booking a new one.
Other useful information
Using the call centre to make your booking
The Velocity call centre are generally staffed by a helpful, well-informed team who can do all the research you need over the phone with them. You can get a hold of them at 13 18 75 in Australia.
My preference is to do my own research online so I know I have exhausted as many options as possible to find the seats I want on the dates that will work for me.
However, you could equally call them and brief them on your requirements, and see what they come back with. If you go through and make the booking with them, you’ll, of course, be charged the fees outlined above.
Making a Velocity points booking with an infant under 2 years old
Velocity only charge you for the additional taxes and fees for a lap infant (with no seat) on international flights, and no additional points. For domestic flights, there’s no additional charge at all.
Children are charged at a full adult rate (in terms of the cost of the ticket in points). If you want to book a seat for a child under 2 years old, you’ll be charged the adult rate (in points) too, but this can’t be booked online.
You’ll need to call the call centre (other Point Hacks contributors have done this a few times and it’s never as simple as you’d hope) and have them do this for you, and they should waive the call centre booking fee as it can’t be done online.
Read our guides on travelling with infants and children below for more information:
- Travelling with children and infants domestically
- Travelling with children and infants internationally
Will I be able to upgrade a Velocity points redemption ticket?
Put simply, no, you can’t upgrade any points redemption tickets using more points.
Do you earn points or status credits on Velocity redemptions?
Again, no – not unless there’s a specific promotion running that offers this and you book within the terms of that promotion.
What luggage allowances do you receive with Velocity points bookings domestically?
When booking domestic Economy flights, you’ll get a minimum of a single piece of 23kg luggage included as a Velocity ‘red’ member with no status. For silver and above, your status benefits for luggage will be respected on award seats.
For flights to the US, you’ll get 2 pieces of luggage at 23kg, and to Abu Dhabi, one piece at 30kg.
In case this changes, the current checked baggage policies are here.
Summing up – making Velocity points redemptions
I find that searching availability through the Virgin Australia website is simple enough that I don’t often need to turn to Delta, but it’s useful to know it’s there in case you do need to more wider-ranging date searches.
I think Velocity’s cancellation fees and policies are very reasonable, and I much prefer being able to pay cancellation fees in cash, instead of points (unlike Qantas). I hope this helps to get you started with using your Velocity points!
Thanks for this great article – I use and recommend your site all the time. Wondering if you have an option for me. I am trying to get over to Vegas for a 50th next year in May.. I have over a million points in Virgin at the moment but as reward seats are all exhausted, a seat in “The Business” is costing 650,000. I also have Platinum Status do you know if I pay for a full Freedom Economy fair can I then upgrade with points to business for a cheaper alternative or does that only apply if there are reward seats available.
This is clearly the ‘Any Seat’ pricing. Given you are a Platinum, if you do purchase a Freedom Economy (or Premium Economy Saver), then you are able to upgrade. Make sure to check the Premium Economy pricing too, as sometimes there is a very small difference in cost, and in those scenarios, it is best to purchase Premium Economy Saver, as you lock in Premium Economy and get the higher points and status credits attached.
But the upgrade inventory is based on award seat inventory (ie Z class). Velocity is known to only release Business awards (and upgrades) only a few days before departure date on most of their long-haul routes.
I believe the way that the Velocity website is set up, it doesn’t allow for award search functionality from all origin points outside of Australia. Example, you can’t search from Paris, but you can from Los Angeles one-way.
If you book a one way international flight paying cash you normally end up paying the full return price anyway.
Suggestions? I have been trying to book BNE to LAX but the cheapest I can find is 180,000 points per way economy 330 days outs and no reward seats
Thank you for posting this article – this is very helpful.
I have been trying to book business class tickets using my points; Melbourne – Singapore on Virgin’s website. However every time I do a search, it seems that there are no business class options, just economy. Around 35000 points (one way) + $80. Is this normal that Virgin doesn’t offer Business tickets for flights operated by Singapore airlines? Would you recommend I book economy then apply for an upgrade using my points? Is this even possible?
Same problem when looking for flights to Manchester – no business class options by flights operated by Ethiad or Singapore airlines.
Thanks for your help / comments.
Cheers,
Cedric
We have flown return to the US as a family several times in years gone by using points to secure business class seats. As you said we have previously, on the dot of 330 days out, logged in and secure one way and done the same some weeks later to secure the return leg.
This year, has been different. Virgin did not release any seats 330 days out and still have not released any some 3 weeks later. We check twice a daily. Do you know what’s changed with Virgin? Do they release the seats to gold or platinum members first?
We called Virgin Velocity Customer Service and asked if the rules have changed and they were cagey and not forth coming with information. They said they “didn’t know if anything has changed”. Which clearly it has.
After spending years building our Velocity Points we are not sure about continuing with Virgin’s system as clearly the goal posts have moved and they are not telling their members.
Anyway I hope you have found something out.
Kind regards,
Lili
I haven’t looked for availability from LAX-Australia on VA in a while, but decided to this morning. Searching Velocity, Delta and Expert flyer I don’t see one open seat. Nada. VA use to open seats up 1-10 days out, but nothing as of now. I’m guessing this is a function of 1) Sumer in Australia 2) Demand for the new business class on VA – or a combination of the both.
Have we entered a new period were any award ticket on VA from America to Australia or back is going to be very difficult or impossible to redeem?
any way to search via Delta, select a VA flight and use VA points (or transfer them to Delta)?
Looking at VA direct website is 2/3 times more points than Delta is suggesting. (90,000 vs 280,000 for SYD-LAX return)
Am I comparing apples with oranges on total points?
Yes, this is how you can look for availability to use Velocity points – can’t transfer them to Delta though, but Delta’s results for Virgin Australia flights should match what Velocity is offering as well.
SYD-LAX return in Business is 95,500 Velocity points one way in Business Class for a Reward Seat, not an Any Seat. Need to ensure you are looking for the cheapest reward seats on Virgin Australia within their website.
Would it make any sense to transfer the points over to Krisflyer (We have about 450,000 between us)? Or just move to Qantas and use the points? What a way to treat your loyal customer base!!! x(
Cheers
Is there something special about reward flights to Hawaii?
I have Virgin America points. Looking at flying SYD-ZQN, if I see Economy Reward on the VA website avail, will I be able to book that flight with my Virgin America points?
I am new to this and determined to get myself and husband a free business class flight. I had a question, how am I supposed what each destinations average points should be? The only thing on their website is zones which gives very vague rough ideas. For example, Brisbane to Cook Islands Return Business Class, is the standard points pricing at 99,000 points return or is it usually lower? How can I find this information out when working out what destination to go and when to book?
Thanks 🙂
I have tried multiple different routes and cannot find a single rewards seat!
Is there an easy way to find cheap flights on points.
I have searched around Dec 16 and the points are significantly higher than the base points requirements, is there any website/way to easily find cheap points options without just inputting numerous different date combinations.
Is there a way to tell /do you know what Virgin Australia’s ‘Business Rewards’ translates to on a Delta flight?
Virgin Australia’s Velocity phone support team does not know.
Thank you.
Tom