There is currently an excellent Virgin Australia sale to Hong Kong, with cheap flights available from both Australia and New Zealand. Until Monday 3 December, you can book Virgin Australia flights from Melbourne to Hong Kong for as low as $481 return!
You can bring the price down even further to $465.95 return by using a Virgin Australia discount code. The code HNV39 appears to work.
But it’s only slightly more expensive to fly all the way from New Zealand to Hong Kong (via Sydney or Melbourne). Virgin Australia flights from Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch to Hong Kong are currently on sale for as little as $510 (NZD542) return. That’s an extra $29 to add on the flights across the Tasman.
The Virgin Australia sale to Hong Kong covers departures from Australia or New Zealand between 19 February and 30 March 2019, or from 1 May to 6 June 2019.
There is a weekend surcharge of $25 for any flights between Melbourne or Sydney and Hong Kong leaving on a Saturday, or $50 for Sunday Hong Kong departures. These fares include two free checked bags of up to 23kg each.
If you’re booking one of these great fares out of New Zealand, you are entitled to one free stopover in either Sydney or Melbourne. (However, you would need to pay the Australian arrival and departure taxes, which do add some money to the price.) A second stopover is also permitted for an extra $100. Here’s an example:
If you live in Australia, you could use this fare to go to New Zealand twice with a trip to Hong Kong in the middle. You’d then just need to purchase positioning flights between Australia and New Zealand at the very start and very end of the three trips.
You can earn Velocity Frequent Flyer points and status credits for these flights at the “long-haul” rate. As the flights book as Getaway fares, you’ll earn 30 status credits for each leg between Australia and Hong Kong. You’ll also earn 15 status credits for any trans-Tasman flight under 1,500 miles (e.g. Auckland-Sydney) or 20 status credits for routes above 1,500 miles (e.g. Auckland-Melbourne). This does not include any extra status credits that you may be able to earn as part of the current Velocity double status credits promotion on flights between Australia and New Zealand. Meanwhile, Velocity points are earned at a rate of 50% of the miles flown.
As an example, you’ll earn at least 100 status credits and 6,233 Velocity points for a round-trip from Auckland to Hong Kong via Melbourne. (Not bad for a fare of $512!)
Alternatively, you could almost earn enough miles to complete a Delta SkyMiles status match challenge with a trip from New Zealand to Hong Kong. You would earn 12,466 Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQM) with a round-trip from Auckland to Hong Kong via Melbourne on Virgin Australia. You’d need 12,500 MQM to complete a Gold status challenge with Delta and unlock SkyTeam Elite Plus benefits.
Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: VA AKL-HKG NZD545 return
