Virgin Australia has 8 Business Class seats on all Boeing 737-800, Boeing 737-8 and most Boeing 737-700 flights.
Flying with Virgin Australia and want to upgrade to Business Class? You have three main options:
- Upgrade using Velocity Frequent Flyer points (UpgradeMe Points)
- Bid for an upgrade using Virgin Australia’s UpgradeMe Premium Bid auction
- If you’re a Velocity Platinum member, you can get four annual complimentary upgrades (UpgradeMe Platinum)
If you have lots of Velocity points, using them to upgrade can be great value. And if you’re a Platinum member, those free upgrades are one of the great perks of Virgin Australia status.
If you would prefer to save your Velocity points, Virgin Australia’s UpgradeMe Premium Bid program can also be a surprisingly affordable and effective way to upgrade. On shorter flights, minimum bids could start from as little as $50.
Please note that you cannot upgrade from an Economy Lite or Economy Reward Seat ticket using any of these methods.
Our detailed guide explains how to upgrade your Virgin Australia flight using any of these methods…
Contents
UpgradeMe Points
Upgrades are a popular use of Velocity Frequent Flyer points. You can request a points upgrade when managing your booking on the Virgin Australia website. (This is also where you can place an upgrade bid offer.)
Here’s how this works…
How many Velocity points do you need for an upgrade?
The tables on the Velocity Frequent Flyer website show the number of points you would need to upgrade from Economy Choice or Economy Flex fares to Business Class. The amount depends on the route.
These are the amounts of Velocity Frequent Flyer points you’d need to upgrade on domestic routes:
| One-way flight distance (in miles) | Example route | Upgrade from Economy Choice or Flex |
|---|---|---|
| 0 – 600 | Sydney-Gold Coast | 10,000 |
| 601 – 1,200 | Adelaide-Brisbane | 17,500 |
| 1,201 – 2,400 | Melbourne-Perth | 30,000 |
And this is what a Velocity points upgrade would cost on international routes:
| One-way flight distance (in miles) | Example route | Upgrade from Economy Choice or Flex |
|---|---|---|
| 601 – 1,200 | Brisbane-Port Vila | 12,000 |
| 1,201 – 2,400 | Sydney-Nadi | 16,000 |
| 2,401 – 3,600 | Melbourne-Bali | 24,000 |
| 3,601 – 4,800 | Cairns-Tokyo | 40,000 |
To check the distance of any flight, you could use the mileage calculator on the Velocity website or a third-party tool like Great Circle Mapper.
When does Virgin Australia process points upgrades?
The great thing about upgrading with Velocity points is that Virgin will confirm your upgrade immediately if there is Business Reward seat availability on your flight.
So, before booking your flight, simply check if there is a Reward Seat available in Business Class. If there is, you could book an Economy Choice or Flex ticket and then immediately upgrade to Business with Velocity points.
Alternatively, if there aren’t currently enough Business Reward seats, you can waitlist for an upgrade.
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UpgradeMe Platinum
Velocity Frequent Flyer Platinum members get up to four annual complimentary upgrades from Economy Flex fares to Business Class.
You can redeem these for yourself and/or anyone else travelling with you on the same booking. (You don’t have to upgrade everyone on the booking. But upgrade only yourself at your peril if you’re travelling with your spouse or boss! 😉 )
To redeem one of your four free Velocity Platinum upgrades, there would also need to be Business Reward Seat availability on your flight. If there is, you can call the Velocity Membership Contact Centre, and they’ll process your upgrade on the spot.
You can also request an upgrade in the Virgin Australia Lounge up to 40 minutes prior to departure. Obviously, this is only possible if there are unsold Business seats available on the day of your flight.
Virgin Australia UpgradeMe Premium Bids
Virgin Australia UpgradeMe Premium Bids don’t have a fixed price. That’s because you can name your own price!
You can bid for an upgrade on the Virgin Australia website up to six hours before departure.
There will be a slider showing a minimum and maximum upgrade bid amount.
Minimum bid amounts vary per flight. On the Sydney-Melbourne route, for example, you could expect to be able to bid between around $80 and $350 per passenger for an upgrade. (If there are multiple passengers on your booking, you need to request an upgrade for everyone.)
On longer routes like Brisbane-Adelaide, the minimum bid could be a little over $100.
Unlike when upgrading using Velocity points, you won’t find out whether your request has been successful straight away. If Virgin accepts your bid, they’ll notify you by email (and charge your credit card) no later than 3 hours before the flight’s departure time. If the airline rejects your offer, you will not pay anything.
You can only bid for an upgrade on Virgin Australia flights where the ticket is issued by Virgin Australia and isn’t a codeshare service.
What’s included when you upgrade on Virgin Australia?
If successful, you’ll get to sit in Business Class and get all of the usual on-board Business Class service on your flight. This includes a comfortable leather seat, a meal and drinks on board.
You’ll also have access to priority check-in, priority boarding, priority baggage and full use of the Virgin Australia Lounge if there is one at the airport where your flight departs. (These are located in Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra.)
It normally costs $65 to purchase a single-entry lounge pass. So clearly, if you can upgrade your flight for as little as $70 and get lounge access included with your Business Class ticket, that’s better value!
You’ll also receive the higher Business Class baggage allowance of up to 2x 32kg checked bags. But when upgrading via an UpgradeMe Premium Bid, you may not be able to check-in online or select a seat in advance.
You’ll only earn Velocity points and status credits for the Economy fare type you originally booked.
How much should you bid for an upgrade on Virgin Australia?
If you’ve decided to try bidding for an upgrade in an UpgradeMe Premium Bid auction, you can of course offer any amount you like within the range provided. However, if there are more people bidding for an upgrade than the number of empty seats available in the Business Class cabin, higher offer amounts are more likely to be accepted.
While price is likely the main factor in deciding who to upgrade, it’s not the only consideration. According to section 3.8 of the UpgradeMe terms & conditions, successful offers may be allocated based on any number of the following selection criteria:
- The amount of the offer
- The cabin class of the original booking
- Your Velocity Frequent Flyer status
- The number of seats available in the next cabin class
- The number of people in the booking
- The success rate of previous upgrade offers
So, what’s the ideal amount to bid? This is where a bit of “game theory” comes into play!
Some people choose to bid slightly higher than the minimum amount. The logic behind this is that most people would bid the minimum, so offering even $5 above the lowest bid could place your bid higher than somebody who made a low-ball offer while not dramatically increasing the cost to you.
Personally, I find it useful to wait until closer to the departure date before placing a bid. Then, a few days before the flight, I’ll check to see how many Business Class seats are still available for sale on my flight. If there are still plenty of empty Business seats, the minimum bid amount could suffice. But if the premium cabin looks quite full, you might need to make a higher offer.
Resources to help you decide how much to bid
You can check to see the number of seats available using a service like ExpertFlyer, keeping in mind that Virgin Australia has only 8 Business seats on its Boeing 737s. Or, simply search for different amounts of Business Class seats on your flight on the Virgin Australia website, and see how many seats you need to search for before the cabin is shown as “sold out”.
If in doubt, you could ask someone to check ExpertFlyer for you by posting on AFF’s dedicated Help Desk thread.
You can also discuss Virgin Australia UpgradeMe Premium offers and find out whether other AFF member offers have been successful (or not) on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum:
