r/VelocityFrequentFlyer

Hello! I’ve attempted to purchase many nonstop international trips using points throughout the past few years.

I’ll find a direct departure flight for 45,000 - 49,000 points, but then there are absolutely no decent return flights.

I’ve tried booking flights both a year early (to the day) and within a few months away. I’ve tried changing the destination. It doesn’t matter.

For example, if I book a round trip flight from California to Sydney, it’s 45,000 points for a nonstop flight to Sydney and no nonstop flights back to CA. The best I can do is 85,000 points with a layover. However if I just do a one way from Sydney to California, there’s a nonstop flight for over 300,000 points. 🙃

I don’t see many people complaining about this. Is there a better way to do this? I’m constantly just buying my tickets instead of using velocity points. I don’t have the patience for Velocity.

Thanks!

Hey all I'm flying business to Perth soon and was wondering if anyone knew how many meals/snacks are included? I usually fly to Adelaide frequently and get a meal on an hour long flight.

Looking to get Brisbane to Europe next year for summer and know that it’s going to be a highly contested market for business reward seats.

I’ve come to terms with transferring my Velocity points into KRIS miles as the seats are available earlier and with more availability.

I’ve been watching knowing that I want seats coming up shortly (next 2 weeks). However it seems Singapore are loading their reward seats as waitlisted from the get-go.

Has anyone seen this as a thing? Now, thinking about locking down Singapore to Europe, as that seems to be very available and then waiting to do Brisbane to Singapore through Velocity points when they become available. Has anyone done something similar or am I being silly with points? Would probably do Brisbane to Singapore in Economy then business Singapore to Europe. I’m platinum, does that let me pick good seats in economy?

I travelled to Darwin and I thought I had a window seat. I thought I must’ve forgotten. However this has caused me to pay attention for my return flight to Brisbane on Saturday. Check-in shows I have been changed from 14 which has extra leg room to seat 20. I am sure I paid extra for seat 14. Will check when I get home. I called virgin and they say I have seat 14. Why does the check in say I have seat 20. Am I being lied to on the phone?

I’m flying to Europe next month, have Velocity Gold and booked Choice tickets. I can choose seats for the Melbourne to Doha leg but not onwards to Paris and not the return leg (I can do this on Qatar website). I’ve also been able to request an upgrade and been waitlisted for Melbourne to Doha but not the other flights. I spoke to on live chat who said I can’t choose seats as not a Virgin flight (they all have VA code numbers) -does anyone know if can request seat upgrades via Qatar? I’ve seen mixed opinions online. if waitlisted, what are the chances I’ll actually get the upgrade?

Dear members , need help. I have got 580 k points . We are a family of 2 adults and 2 kids. We would like to go to Japan next year between March April.

Is it’s doable to travel on premium Economy ( nice to have business class though) . Is it’s doable ? Is there a free third party app / website we can use to search for reward seats ?

Could you please shed some lights ?

Hey, does anyone have any advice on how to access the virgin app when I I don’t know my virgin number and I’m not sure what their customer service services like on the phone so any advice please would be great. I just want to know that they’re actually gonna pick up.

Hey guys has anyone used them or a similar business? I have 580k Velocity points and have a wedding in Vegas after the big footy weekend next year Pretty flexible with dates and travel time before and after Hell I would even go multi city as long as I'm lying flat! Whats the best way to find and book reward seats please and thank you

Flying from MEL > DOH business soon, but then had to get an economy flight from DOH > ATH. About an 8 hour layover. Given I’m not sure our baggage would be checked all the way through and we might have to clear customs, get it , and then check back in - what are the option if we can’t check in until 3 hours prior…!?
If we don’t take check in luggage can we just stay in the lounge? If we take it, can we somehow get into a lounge early?

I've just arrived back home after flying business (first time) return to Europe and wanted to provide some info which may be helpful in the future for those who in a similar situation. I say this, because I myself tried to find info regarding my situation and there weren't many posts.

Not related to Velocity: Booked my initial flight (MEL-AMS via HK) via Cathay, using the AMEX 2:1 conversion (in Nov, prior to the devaluation).

Return flight:

First leg - Athens - Doha (economy flight, booked directly via Qatar)
Second leg: DOH - Melb (business, booked via Velocity using points).

Information on luggage:

I had previously read here, that Qatar should be able to connect your itinerary during at least check-in, so that the luggage goes all the way to the final destination. Unfortunately, this was not the case for me. Prior to my travels, I had called Qatar support twice and was unsuccessful, furthermore, during check-in at Athens, they were also unable to do the link. At this stage, I was advised that I needed to pick up my luggage and re check in at Doha. This was a tad annoying, as my layover was ~10 hours, and that meant that I would need to wait until check-in opened (3-4 hours prior to departing time), but figured I'll explore Doha with their transit visa.

When I arrived in Doha, I decided to give it another shot at the transfer desk (located as soon as you get off the flight). I explained the situation and luckily they managed to give me my (business) boarding pass for the next flight and advised that they've sent an email to get both luggage (partner and I) picked up and retagged to Melbourne. Unfortunately, my partners luggage arrived and mine didn't =(. I have an Apple Airtage in my luggage, so as soon as the plane touched down in Melbourne, I checked my AirTag, and yep was still in Doha lol. As I write this, my luggage is currently on its way on another flight and hopefully delivered soon!

Information on Al Mourjan Garden business lounge access:

I previously read that if your Velocity booking is J class, you should have access to Doha's lounges (including both Al Mourjan's lounges), however sometimes your access can be initially refused at the Al Mourjan lounges, due to them assuming your ticket was an upgrade and not a full redemption. Furthermore, I also read that if your ticketed as U class, you won't have access to these lounges (this part is true, based on Qatar's website).

In my specific case, my initial ticket was U class, BUT, Qatar had randomly changed my flight to another (earlier in the day) about a week after my initial purchase (and hadn't advised me of this lol) and this new ticket was J class. When this initially happened, I called Virgin support as Virgin still had me ticketed for both return flights. They were the ones who advised that my initial flight no longer existed and the new one (which departed earlier on the same day) was the go ahead.

I had no issues accessing the Al Mourjan Garden lounge - and thoroughly enjoyed it. We basically spent 7ish hours there, and it was great (I managed to get a quiet room with a 6 hour time limit).

As a side note, during my second phone call to Qatar support, I did ask them the question of whether my ticket was U or J class (as I was curious to what their systems showed) - once they confirmed it was J class, I asked them if I had access to Al Mourjan Garden lounge. After a long hold, they came back and said I don't have access because I was flying with a partner airline. There was no point in arguing, as I figured I'll give it a shot irrespective when I arrived to Doha.

Things I learnt to apply next time (if that ever happens) for:

1. If the flights are unable to be connected (for luggage) purposes, pray that it all goes smoothly or do the manual pick up and re-check in.
2. AirTags are totally worth it.
3. Semi-regularly check that flights are still the GO, because they can change without notice (as was my case), luckily I was already checking every now and then.
4. Qatar's phone support are nice, but not the best with providing accurate information - so for things like lounge access, take it with a grain of salt (which I had previously read)
5. Qatar Q-suite is something special, and definitely enjoyed it way more than Cathay business (however that was nothing to sneeze at it either).
6. Moving forward, I'll definitely look at business redemption for long haul flights, and of which you land in complete different time zone, but, if I'm landing in a similar time zone, I don't think it's worth it (for me at least). For example, Melb - Tokyo is about 10 hours flight time, but the time zone itself is either 1 or 2 hours time difference. I loved that I was able to sleep from my HKG - AMS leg, and even though we landed at 7am, I was able to hit the ground running, because I was fresh

Side note: Doha airport is stupidly massive, I couldn't believe how big and how many retail stores they have - it was so cool!

Hi team,
Flying to northern europe from brisbane.
Is there any way i can use my platinum status to my advantage?

Ideally more leg room or any lounges i would have access too?

Or am i better off just finding the cheapest flights i can?

Hey Guys!

My carry on bag had to be gate checked as it was overweight.

I've never had to worry about my carry on being overweight as Virgin never checks but they did this time. Oh well!

However, on my return flight a few days ago, the flight was quite empty and I was one of the last people on. Nobodys bag was weighed but mine was and had to be gate checked!

For those who know anything about aviation systems, have I been flagged or is this a coincidence? :P

Just got off VA1 SYD–DOH and learned something pretty wild about Velocity upgrades.

VA’s site says Platinum on Economy Choice/Flex can upgrade to Business on VA1–29 with points, “subject to availability”. Had my upgrade denied and tried to find an answer why, as I could see there are at least 6 seats available. Got told everything, from 'can't upgrade on a choice fare', to 'its a codeshare', to 'I checked in too early'. They even tried to gaslight me that there was no seats available.

After ranting on the phone for a while, what I was told is that there are only about six Business reward seats per flight, total. Those six can be used for outright reward bookings or points upgrades, and that’s it. Even if the rest of the J cabin (~24 seats) is empty, they won’t open more than those six for upgrades.

If those 6 rewards seats are booked 11 months in advance, the only possible way to get an upgrade via points after purchasing a cash ticket is for one of those people who booked a reward seat cancels, not if there are empty seats available.

So in practice “subject to availability” doesn’t mean “if there’s a spare J seat”, it means “if one of six hidden reward seats is free”, which is a very different benefit to what most people would read from the VA's website

Has anyone actually had a points upgrade clear on VA1–29 after purchasing a cash ticket?

Just been on the phone to velocity customer care and did not get a proper answer so thought I would ask you all on here .

I was 9 SC short of moving over from silver to gold .

Flew a couple of weeks ago and got 25 SC for me and 25 SC for my wife ( pooled to my account )

They show up on my account BUT as I only needed 9 points to achieve gold I presumed that the other 41 points would carry over into the gold which it didn't .

I basically earned 50 points I only needed 9 to go up from silver to gold and then I started on zero.

Not sure where the other 41 points went to .

Customer service were struggling to understand what I was telling them.

Can anyone confirm if this is correct ?

I am currently bidding on a flight (departing in 5 days) and have an upgrade in which I submitted a month ago. It still shows as "offer submitted", but I was wondering if it will notify me if I am outbid, or if I will just have to wait until 3 hours before my flight?

I couldn't really find any information on this, and the live bidding doesn't seem to have kicked off....

It is a long flight, so having the upgrade to business would be amazing!

I'm seeing business class return for 142000 pts

Solid use of points or save more for Perth to Heathrow with Qatar business class?