Virgin Australia’s Velocity Frequent Flyer program has today unveiled a huge range of changes. These will come into effect between now and October 2025. Although frequent flyers will likely welcome many of these changes, others might not be quite so popular.
The Velocity program changes include the introduction of lifetime Gold and Platinum Plus status tiers, new Reward Seat and upgrade pricing, and a reduction in the amount of points you’ll earn flying Virgin Australia.
Velocity is also changing the way members earn status credits, moving to spend-based earn rates on Virgin Australia and reducing status credits earned with partner airlines.
This guide contains an overview of the 2024 Velocity Frequent Flyer program update. Below, you’ll also find links to additional articles where you can find further details about some of the most important changes.
Contents
Changes to Velocity status credit earning
A major change is to the way Velocity members earn status credits. The attainment and retention thresholds aren’t changing, but the amount of status credits you’ll earn when flying Virgin Australia and partner airlines is.
There’s also a new requirement to earn at least 50% of the status credits needed for each status tier from Virgin Australia marketed flights that you’ve personally flown. This will come into effect on 1 October 2025, replacing the eligible sector requirement.
From 2 April 2025, Velocity members will no longer earn status credits on Virgin Australia flights based on the fare type and distance flown. Instead, Velocity will give 1 status credit for every $12 spent on most fare types. Economy Lite fares will earn at a rate of 1 status credit per $24 spent. These amounts will be rounded up.
On 1 October 2025, Velocity will also reduce the amount of status credits earned when flying on Virgin’s partner airlines.
Our separate article on the changes to Velocity status credits has the full details.
Changes to earn rates on Virgin Australia flights
From 2 April 2025, you’ll earn a base rate of 4 points per $1 spent on Virgin Australia flights. This is a 20% reduction compared to the current earn rate of 5 points per dollar.
However, if you’ve earned Velocity points with any eligible Velocity co-brand credit card within the past 12 months, you’ll still get to enjoy the current earn rate of 5 points per dollar after this change takes effect.
Velocity Silver, Gold, Platinum (and soon, Platinum Plus) members will still earn their usual status bonus points.
New Forever Gold lifetime status tier
In a recent survey, 58% of Velocity Platinum members ranked lifetime Gold status as the most attractive of nine potential new benefits Velocity was considering adding to its program. 82% ranked it in their top three.
Indeed, there has been lots of discussion and speculation on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum over many years about Velocity adding a lifetime Gold tier. Well, Velocity has listened!
Virgin Australia will launch a new “Forever Gold” status tier in October 2025, which you can read all about in our guide to Velocity Forever Gold status.
In my view, this is a really clever addition to the program because it gives Virgin’s most loyal frequent flyers something (other than Qantas status!) to aim for once they’ve already renewed their Platinum status for the year. And this isn’t the only thing Virgin is adding to reward its best customers…
New Platinum Plus status tier above Platinum
Velocity will launch a new tier situated above Platinum status on 1 October 2025 called Platinum Plus. A competitor to Qantas Platinum One status, Virgin’s Platinum Plus tier will offer benefits including:
- All current Platinum member benefits
- Access to Australian-based VIP phone service
- Highest priority recognition when booking and flying
- The ability to gift a companion Platinum membership (this replaces the existing companion Platinum perk)
- Fly Later (the ability to change to a later flight on the same route and day, up to 30 minutes before departure)
- Four complimentary Business upgrades that can be used with both Economy Choice and Flex fares
- Invitations to special events
- Additional perks which will be announced prior to launch.
To upgrade to Platinum Plus status, you’ll need to earn at least 2,000 status credits within a 12-month period. That’s double the amount needed to get Platinum status. However, at least 1,500 of those status credits would need to be on VA-marketed flights.
Changes to Reward Seat pricing
There’s some good and bad news when it comes to Velocity Reward Seat pricing.
The good news is that, from today, Velocity has reduced the lowest-available points costs for domestic Economy redemptions. These now start at just 5,900 Velocity points (plus taxes & carrier charges), down from 6,200 points.
But from 21 January 2025, Velocity will charge more points for some Economy redemptions on Virgin Australia. It will also increase the cost of selected reward flights on partner airlines, and raise the carrier charges on Singapore Airlines flights.
See our article on Velocity’s changes to reward flight pricing for the full details on all of this.
Higher points upgrade costs from Flex fares
From 18 November 2024 – that’s a month from now – Velocity will stop offering upgrades for a lower amount of points if you book an Economy Flex ticket. There will just be a single UpgradeMe Points cost when upgrading from either a Choice or a Flex fare to Business Class.
Other changes
Other changes the Velocity Frequent Flyer has announced today include:
- Removal of the Guaranteed Reward Seat benefit for Velocity Gold members
- Platinum members will need to earn at least 650 of the 1,300 status credits required to gift Companion Gold membership from Virgin Australia marketed flights
Why is Velocity making these changes?
Overall, these changes are likely to make it harder for most Velocity Frequent Flyer members to earn status unless they actually spend good money with Virgin Australia. Velocity is also incentivising more people to take out Velocity points-earning credit cards.
These are both things that are likely to make more money for the Virgin Australia Group in the long-term.
“Today’s changes to the Velocity program represent our focus and investment in areas that matter most to our members, like great value Domestic redemptions and being better recognised for loyalty,” Velocity Frequent Flyer CEO Nick Rohrlach said.
Rohrlach said that the lower lead-in reward seat pricing and new status tiers “are balanced by adjustments to other areas of the program to ensure we continue to have a sustainable, competitive and valuable proposition for members.”
Join the discussion on the AFF forum
In my view, many of the changes announced today make sense. In particular, Forever Gold and Platinum Plus are great additions to the program which I’m sure many AFF members will welcome.
Of course, any increase in the cost of redemptions isn’t great. But it’s been quite a while since Velocity made changes to upgrade or partner reward pricing and costs have gone up.
That said, there’s no doubt that some AFF members will dislike the move to more dynamic-style domestic Reward Seat pricing, and the fact that status credits will now be earned based on the amount of money you spend. The move to require at least 50% of status credits to be earned from Virgin Australia flights might also upset a few people.
The major US frequent flyer programs moved towards dynamic reward pricing and minimum spend to earn status over the past decade. Delta was the first, then other airlines followed. Most of those US-based programs now offer arguably much worse value to members. Hopefully the same thing doesn’t happen in Australia.
What do you make of these major changes to the Velocity Frequent Flyer program? You can share your thoughts and read the opinions of other Australian Frequent Flyers on our forum:
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