Velocity Frequent Flyer Points Boosters are a handy stop-gap measure for when you’re just shy of your next reward. Right now, you can buy more Velocity Points with up to a 40% discount.
Buying Velocity Points might make sense when topping up your balance for specific reward seat bookings on Virgin Australia, or a partner like Singapore Airlines or United. We also have a dedicated guide on how to buy Velocity Points if you’re new to this idea.
Up to 40% discount: what you need to know
| Offer expires: 28 July 2023 |
Velocity Frequent Flyer is offering up to 40% off purchased Points Boosters until 28 July 2023. This is one of the highest discounts we’ve seen, so it’s worth considering if there’s a redemption you can book right now.
(But it’s not as good as the previous 30% off Points + 30% off reward seat sale we saw back in April 2022).
This time around, the offer is tiered based on how much you buy per transaction:
- 1,000 to 15,000 points: 10% discount
- 16,000 to 50,000 points: 20% discount
- 60,000 to 100,000 points: 30% discount
- 110,000 points: 40% discount
Here are the key caveats:
- Each purchase must be a minimum of 1,000 points and a maximum of 250,000 points.
- A maximum of 250,000 points purchased per calendar year applies.
- The price per point varies. As you buy larger amounts, the cost per point decreases. Plus, the bonuses are tiered based on how much you buy. So keep this in mind!
- There’s no limit to how often you buy points, as long as you remain under the overall cap.
The value per point gets better as you buy bigger amounts. Say you purchased 30,000 points with a 20% discount: each point would cost you 2.1c. However, if you buy a maximum of 250,000 points with a 40% discount, that drops the per-point price to 1.4c each. Not too bad now.
We currently value Velocity Points at 1.80 cents each. Where possible, try to get more than that value-wise when you redeem your points.
Maximising this promotion for a huge discount
We generally recommend only buying points as a top-up, rather than getting the whole balance. But there can be cases where buying the whole amount needed for a reward can be handy.
For example, Sydney to Perth in Business Class usually costs:
- $1,209 one-way as a cash fare, or
- 35,500 points + $30.75 one-way as a reward seat
For a return journey, you’d need 71,000 points + $61.50. And you can buy 70,000 points for $1,146 with a 30% discount (we’ll assume you already have the remaining 1,000 points).
So you can secure that $2,418 return ticket for just $1,208 by buying points and redeeming reward seats. Note that reward seats don’t earn points and don’t count as ‘eligible sectors’ for Velocity status. But you’ve saved over $1,200, so that’s a fair trade-off.
It even works for international flights. Say you want to fly from Sydney to London in Singapore Airlines Business Class. Currently, you can find reward seats for 139,000 points + $473 one-way.
You can buy 140,000 Velocity Points for $1,966, after a 40% discount. That’s enough to book the one-way reward for a total of $2,439 including taxes. It’s even cheaper if you buy a maximum of 250,000 points for $3,510, after taking 40% off. You’ll need to bridge the remaining 28,000 points through other means to have enough for a return flight, but overall, there’s some good value here.
Just make that you have reward seat availability to book before buying points.
Note: Velocity Points expire after 24 months of inactivity in your account, so make sure to keep your account active by earning/redeeming points regularly.
Offer history
Sometimes Velocity offers a bonus and sometimes a discount. The 100% bonus deal back in October 2020 is the best we’ve seen to date. The latest 40% discount offer is better than usual.
| Month | Bonus (%) | Discount (%) | Lowest price per point | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 2023 | 40 | 1.40 | lowest price, tiered | |
| November 2022 | 40 | 1.40 | lowest price, tiered | |
| April 2022 | 30 | 1.64 | Also had 30% off VA reward seats | |
| November 2021 | 20 | 1.87 | ||
| October 2020 | 100 | 1.06 | ||
| February 2020 | 15 | 1.99 | highest price | |
| October 2019 | 20 | 1.87 | ||
| May-June 2019 | 20 | 1.95 | ||
| February 2019 | 20 | 1.95 | ||
| August 2018 | 15 | 1.99 | highest price | |
| April 2018 | 15 | 1.99 | highest price | |
| Average | 20 | 15 | 1.96 |
Summing up
Hot tip: ensure there is reward seat availability for the redemption you’re eyeing before you purchase the extra points needed! Then, it’s easy to buy the Velocity Points Booster and redeem it straight away.
In general, we don’t advise that you buy points speculatively in any program. But if you have your eye on that Singapore Airlines trip to Europe or that United flight to Los Angeles, then Velocity Points Boosters could help get you there.
For other ways to earn Velocity Points, check out this guide.
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I guess if you have already earned some velocity points it might stack up but if you are outright buying all the velocity points then there are cheaper options. You would still get a business class fare cheaper via velocity points but there are even better ways to get that fare if buying the points through those other programs.
The October 2020 maths in the table don’t look right for the 100% bonus offer (?).
Oh and your SYD-LHR one-way biz on SQ example seems to be completely messed up:
1. You only need to buy 140,000 points to have enough to cover 139,000 point redemption (not 150,000)
2. The applicable discount for that number if points is 40% (not 30%)
3. You’d be paying AUD1965.60 for the 140,000 points at 40% (not AUD2457 for 150,000 points at 30%: in any case the list price under the current promo is AUD2106 not AUD2457 for 150,000 points)
4. Total cost including cash copayment therefore AUD1966 plus AUD473, thus AUD2439 (not AUD2930)
Yes or no?
For return rinse and repeat (presumably using family pooling to avoid maximum point purchase limits) – your’e already purchasing in the highest discount of 40%.
Incidentally, your (dumb and misleading) point valuation of 1.8 cents is completely irrelevant when you clearly know how much you’ve paid for a point and you are recommending (sensibly) only to purchase for specific reward that’s available, thus you know the potential redemption value for those points.
In this case your’e suggesting that folk accept a minimum of about 30% return on investment (1.4 cents compared with 1.8 cent) – do you really think that’s a sensible goal?!
Alternatively, if you’ve paid 1.4 cents then simply decide whether the difference between that and the redemption value of the reward is sufficient to warrant the effort and risk (award snaffled up before you get back to it or ghost availability).
At a redemption value of 2.8 cents you’ve simply made a 100% return on investment.
Comparing, say, a 2.8 cent redemption value to the Point Hacks point valuation of 1.8 cents tells you nothing of substance (unless you need validation from folk who, apparently, can’t even get their own math right!).
Cheers
And if they re-introduce the transfer, it may be 1.55 Velocity : 1 KrisFlyer, which is not worth it with this current deal of 30% off Velocity points purchase?
Can anyone provide any advice on this?
Do you know anything to the contrary?
We have not heard anything regarding Velocity Points purchased through Virgin Australia’s Points Booster offering not being able to be used for reward seats. The only requirement is that points are purchased to redeem a specific Reward.
I’m a little confused about the purchase table comment. When I click through to the buy Velocity Points page, it does show amounts right up to 250,000 points in the table. Perhaps try a different browser?
Thanks for the reminder. This promotion was also offered in April of this year and I posted it on the Deals and Tips page of the Community section. Wasn’t sure how else to get the message out there.
IIRC you may purchase 50% of your current points balance, which is not the same as 50% of the points needed!
An important difference – for example, if you need 150 points for your redemption you would need to have an existing balance of 100 points in order to maximise the 50,000 point max allowable purchase, thus one third not one half of points needed for the redemption.
(That said, I’m not sure if VA would allow the two annual point purchase in quick succession – if you are able to do back to back purchases you could indeed double your points from a 100,000 pt starting point to a 200,000 point end point by making two 50,000 point transactions! You could theoretically even more than double your points if starting with less than 100,000 points!)
Do you know if I can use my velocity points to upgrade a person travelling with me also? I have enough points for 2 upgrades from Sydney to Abu Dhabi.
Thanks.