Velocity Frequent Flyer Gold and Platinum status comes with lots of benefits when you fly with Virgin Australia and its partner airlines.
The perks continue on the ground. Velocity status also entitles you to complimentary partner status with your choice of hotel loyalty programs and car rental companies.
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Complimentary hotel status for Velocity members
As a Velocity Gold or Platinum member, you can instantly receive an equivalent status level with your choice of either the IHG One Rewards or Hilton Honors programs.
Velocity Gold members can choose between Gold status with IHG or Hilton. Velocity Platinum members can receive either IHG Platinum or Hilton Diamond status:
IHG One Rewards is the loyalty program of Intercontinental Hotels Group, which includes brands such as Intercontinental, Holiday Inn, Voco, Hotel Indigo and Crowne Plaza. As a Gold or Platinum member, you can receive additional benefits when staying at any of these hotels.
Here’s the full selection of IHG brands:
Hotel brands within the Hilton Honors portfolio include Conrad, Hampton Inn and DoubleTree:
Which program should you choose?
Whether Hilton or IHG status is better for you will depend on your travel patterns.
In general, most travellers would agree that Hilton offers better elite benefits. For example, Diamond is Hilton’s top tier and includes benefits like free breakfast, executive lounge access and room upgrades.
On the other hand, IHG may offer more properties (including cheaper options) in the destinations where you travel most.
IHG Platinum status also comes with some useful benefits like late check-out and early check-in (subject to availability), a welcome drink and room upgrades. However, IHG One Rewards reserves free breakfast as a Diamond benefit – which is a tier above Platinum. And hotel club lounge access is available with IHG only as a milestone reward for people who earn Platinum status by staying the required number of nights.
If you happen to have an American Express Platinum card, you may prefer to choose the IHG One Rewards status match because you can already get complimentary Hilton Honors Gold status through your card.
The American Express Platinum Card
- Card Name
- American Express Platinum Card
- Earn
- 2.25
- Signup Bonus
-
150,000 bonus Membership Rewards points
Apply by 14th Jan 2025
- Annual Fee
- $1,450 p.a.
- Read more
- Go to offer
American Express Membership Rewards points on everyday purchases
AFF Platinum members can find a full overview of hotel loyalty program benefits, pros and cons in Course 9 of the AFF Training.
Become a frequent flyer points expert!
Learn all the tricks to travel better, for less, with our Frequent Flyer Training courses. The first two courses are free for all AFF members.
Complimentary car hire status matches for Velocity members
In addition, Velocity Gold and Platinum frequent flyers can get complimentary status with either Hertz Gold Plus Rewards or Europcar Privilege.
These are the status levels you can obtain:
Our article on Hertz vs Europcar status has some more details about the benefits of both programs. A recent AFF discussion thread about the value of car hire status may also help to inform your decision.
How to claim your hotel and car hire partner status
To claim your complimentary premium car hire and hotel membership, log into the Velocity Frequent Flyer website and click on “My Benefits”.
You’ll then be able to select your preferred membership program.
If you already have an account with IHG One Rewards, Hilton Honors, Europcar Privilege and/or Hertz Gold Plus Rewards, you’ll be asked to enter your membership number. If not, Velocity will create an account for you.
You can also request your status match by calling the Velocity Membership Contact Centre.
How long does it take for your status to get upgraded?
After submitting your request, it could take a while for the partner program to process your account upgrade. The Velocity terms and conditions don’t specify how long it will take, but AFF members have reported it taking anywhere from a few days to a few months.
For example, multiple AFF members say it took 2-3 months for IHG One Rewards to upgrade their accounts, and they needed to follow up a few times.
If your status has not been upgraded more than 20 business days (excluding weekends and public holidays) after you submitted the request, you can call Velocity to get this expedited. (If you call earlier than this, Velocity will probably just tell you to call again after 20 business days have passed.)
How long do you get to keep your status?
You can claim complimentary hotel and car hire status once per lifetime as a Velocity Gold member, and once as a Velocity Platinum member.
It used to be the case that Velocity members could re-apply for a status match each time Gold or Platinum status was attained. So, some members would alternate their Velocity status level between Gold and Platinum and apply for a new status match each time. But Velocity closed this loophole some time ago.
You can choose to claim your match at any time while your Velocity status remains valid. You don’t necessarily need to do this immediately after becoming reaching Velocity Gold or Platinum status, so you could wait until the optimal time.
With each partner program, you’ll get to keep your status for a minimum of 12 months. After that, you would need to have met the usual requirements to renew your status with the partner hotel or car hire program.
However, many AFF members have reported that they’ve been able to keep their Hilton Honors status for the rest of the current calendar year, the following year and until March of the year after that. For example, if you applied for a Hilton status match through Velocity in April 2025, you should get to keep Hilton Gold or Diamond status until 31 March 2027.
There’s lots of discussion and useful tips about this on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum:
