Don’t Like the Velocity Status Changes? Use These Cards Instead!

Earlier this month, Velocity Frequent Flyer moved to spend-based status credit earning on Virgin Australia flights. From October 2025, to earn or retain Velocity status, you’ll also need to earn at least 50% of your status credits from VA marketed flights you’ve personally flown… and the status credit earn on partner airline flights is being slashed.

As a result of these changes, 77% of AFF members who currently hold Virgin Australia status say they will drop to a lower tier.

Alternatives to Velocity Frequent Flyer status

If you’re one of those people affected by the changes to Velocity status, you have a few options. Some of the obvious ones include…

• Spend more in order to retain your current status
• Maintain your current levels of spending/flying with Virgin Australia but drop to a lower status
• Switch your loyalty to Qantas (or another airline)
• Start crediting your Virgin Australia flights to a partner airline’s program, such as Qatar Airways Privilege Club, United MileagePlus or Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer

The latter option might not actually be a terrible strategy for some people. In fact, if you do a mix of flying on Virgin Australia, Qatar Airways and Oneworld airlines including Qantas, crediting your flights to Qatar Airways Privilege Club could actually be a great option.

With Qatar Airways status, you get to enjoy benefits when flying with Qantas (as both airlines are Oneworld members) as well as Virgin Australia. However, just beware that you might not earn any Qpoints on Qantas domestic routes that are also served by Virgin Australia.

Keep many of your Velocity status benefits with these three credit cards

If none of the above options sound all that appealing, there’s some good news. There are three more ways that you could keep some of your current Velocity status benefits, without actually needing to earn any status credits at all…

The HSBC Star Alliance credit card

The HSBC Star Alliance credit card is very popular with Australian frequent flyers because it offers an easy fast-track to Star Alliance Gold status.

It has no annual fee in the first year (usually $499), and if you spend at least $4,000 on the card within 90 days of approval, you’ll receive Star Alliance Gold status with your choice of seven airlines for at least a year. You can then maintain your status indefinitely without needing to do any flying, by simply spending on the card.

What makes this offer particularly interesting for Virgin Australia flyers is that several of the Star Alliance airlines which you can choose as your status airline are Virgin Australia partners.

For example, if you got Gold status with Singapore Airlines or United through the HSBC card, this will also give you reciprocal status benefits when flying with Virgin Australia, including:

• Virgin Australia Lounge access
• Priority check-in
• Priority boarding
• Additional baggage allowance

The American Express Velocity Platinum credit card

If the main benefit you value from Velocity status is lounge access, there’s another alternative which could cost you much less than the spend required to renew Velocity Gold.

Last year, American Express overhauled the benefits on its Velocity Platinum credit card. This card now gives you unlimited Virgin Australia Lounge access whenever you fly Virgin. The $440 annual fee on this card is less even than buying an outright Virgin Australia Lounge membership.

Plus, the Amex Velocity Platinum card gets you other benefits including two annual Virgin Australia Lounge guest passes, travel insurance, a free annual return domestic flight and the highest Velocity points-earning rate of any Australian credit card.

Holding this card would also qualify you to earn 25% more base points on Virgin Australia flights.

The American Express Platinum charge card

As a third option, the Amex Platinum card comes with Virgin Australia Lounge access for you and a guest whenever you fly with Virgin Australia.

The Amex Platinum card has a much higher annual fee, at $1,450 per year. However, this card also comes with heaps of other travel benefits including Priority Pass, Lufthansa and Delta airport lounge access, status with several hotel loyalty programs, and many travel credits and discounts. If you travel a lot, this card could be a very worthwhile investment!

In summary

If you like flying with Virgin Australia and want to keep your status benefits, but don’t want to potentially have to spend at least $4,800 each year to retain Velocity Gold status, it could make perfect sense to get either the HSBC Star Alliance, Amex Velocity Platinum or Amex Platinum card.

These are three of the best credit cards for frequent flyers. They unlock substantial benefits with Virgin Australia – even if you don’t fly or spend enough with the airline to earn status.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.