Buying Velocity points

[AIRwin]

Up to 40% again:

Velocity Frequent Flyer Points Booster

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[drron]

Looked at it but still too expensive IMHO. A J award BNE to SIN would cost ~ $2800 when to buy it from SQ is $3007. And then you would get 5700 of miles for the $200 extra or just under 4 cents each. Much better.

 

[JackMiles]

Looked at it but still too expensive IMHO. A J award BNE to SIN would cost ~ $2800 when to buy it from SQ is $3007. And then you would get 5700 of miles for the $200 extra or just under 4 cents each. Much better.

Not great value, I agree, depending on your intended use. The data point I considered was buying 180K pts for ~$2500, which equates to 5 x J transcon @ ~$500 each, which is decent, although you can get those tix for ~$700 sometimes these days (and then get the points and SCs...).

 

[GCflyer]

Looked at it but still too expensive IMHO. A J award BNE to SIN would cost ~ $2800 when to buy it from SQ is $3007. And then you would get 5700 of miles for the $200 extra or just under 4 cents each. Much better.

Are you sure about your Maths on that?
(disclaimer - my Maths could be wrong as well....)

If buying 160k points for example at 40% off you pay $2246. At 67k each that would get you a return SQ J award (or x2 one way) plus the payment for fees/charges with 26k points to spare.

At this 40% off rate the points are costing you $14 for 1000 points.

At a points cost of 67k plus fees/charges out of Australia you are looking at under $1200 for an SQ J flight from the East Coast to SIN.

You are definitely saving quite a bit on the current SQ pricing which is more around the 3k mark one way and well over 4k for a return.

 

[drron]

Are you sure about your Maths on that? If buying 160k points for example at 40% off you pay $2246. That would get you a return J award (or x2 one way) plus the payment for fees/charges with 26k points to spare.

At this 40% off rate the points are costing you $14 for 1000 points.

At a points cost of 67k plus fees/charges out of Australia you are looking at under $1200 for an SQ J flight from the East Coast to SIN.

You are definitely saving quite a bit on the current SQ pricing which is more around the 3k mark one way and well over 4k for a return.

But 67K is the KF miles. I am only finding velocity awards at ~ 108000 points and only then within a week of release and lately only for a few hours after release so 126000 points often the best you can get.
If you want return flights paying SQ is the way to go.

 

[GCflyer]

But 67K is the KF miles. I am only finding velocity awards at ~ 108000 points and only then within a week of release and lately only for a few hours after release so 126000 points often the best you can get.
If you want return flights paying SQ is the way to go.

Ah ok that makes sense - I was basing it on a Velocity Point redemption pricing & value since this was a Velocity forum. If transferring the points to KF then the value proposition completely changes.

Unfortunately Velocity doesn't have the same availability as in previous years (especially for 'connecting' flights) and the new-ish carrier charges hurt, but if you can be flexible and book well ahead I tend to still have no major issues using my Velocity Points for SQ redemptions out of BNE. It makes more sense due to the ease of collecting points. (I save the Amex/KF miles for when I really need it!)

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Looking at the award chart this seems like a decent promotion. 160,000 miles sets you back $2246 with the current promotion. Using those points one could book business class between Sydney to Honolulu on Hawaiian. A return trip from Sydney to LA would 191K points in business class on United which could be bought for ~$2,600 AUD. Again, this is supposing you can find "saver" availability on United and Hawaiian. Perhaps flight prices have fallen since I booked my TPACs earlier in the year, but I reckon that's quite the bargain for travelling in business class.

-RooFlyer88

 

[ozstamps]

Again, this is supposing you can find "saver" availability on United and Hawaiian.

The devil is ALWAYS in the detail!

 

[kangarooflyer88]

The devil is ALWAYS in the detail!

That's true but generally you'll do the two activities together: looking for award availability on dates that suit you and purchasing said points. Yes it's a decent amount of homework but if you can pull it off, you can find substantial savings buying points and booking business saver awards.

-RooFlyer88

 

[ozstamps]

The 40% off promo window is TINY .. when (or IF!) you see Biz awards to USA it will be over most likely.

Remember 300 million Americans are AWASH with airline miles. Australia is foreign Dream Destination #1 for Biz Class awards. Always has been.

I was a United 1K for 15 years. Top UA Elites get special access to award buckets not available to non status members. They DEFINITELY get first pick - UA Global Services members can and do ask GS desk to FORCE inventory to be made available for them even if zero inventory shows. Those GS staffers can and do perform miracles every minute of every day. Here, Plats more and more get Bangladesh on the phone for simple things, they never can fix.

So for non UA Elites to get award Biz to oz - especially for 2 or more pax on same flights, is like winning Powerball odds most times. Economy seats - never an issue.

 

[The Flying Schwartz]

Ah ok that makes sense - I was basing it on a Velocity Point redemption pricing & value since this was a Velocity forum. If transferring the points to KF then the value proposition completely changes.

This last discussion has been helpful but I'm a little confused (I haven't purchased points or booked international reward seats before).

I've been looking at the promo in order to save some cash on a yet-to-be-determined trip in either late 2023 or 2024. My plan was to purchase some VFF points and hold there until ready to book SQ, then transfer the points to Krisflyer miles.

To test if the offer has value, I just looked at a one-way BNE-SIN leg in J (our actual flight will be to Europe or the US, using SIN as a stopover). Is my maths correct?

• Cash fare for the overnight flight is $3007.41 or KFF miles is 68,500 for the saver fare (still available in late 2023). (The dinner flight only had cash seats available or the full wack of KFF miles, the saver is waitlisted)
• I've multiplied this by 1.55 to get the number of VFF points required to transfer at 106,175 points.
• 110,000 VFF points can be purchased for $1,801.80. ($0.01638 / point)
• 106,175 VFF points would therefore be worth $1,739.15

Ignoring the taxes (which I forgot to note down) there's still a fair bit of daylight between $3007.41 and $1,739.15. I'm assuming this value would be similar for other legs. I agree if you can't get the saver fare (68,500 vs 90,000 KFF in this example) then the deal is less attractive or worse.

The above purchases don't get the full 40% discount so to squeeze a bit more I suppose I could buy 160,000 VFF points or more and keep the surplus points for another trip.

Other than the risk of the relationship between SQ and VA changing in the next year or two, are there any other risks with this approach? I'm assuming SQ has better award availability than VA on SQ metal? In any case, I'd simply hold the VFF points until ready for booking and go for whoever has the better reward seat.

Interested in thoughts/clarifications from the brains trust

 

[jase05]

This last discussion has been helpful but I'm a little confused (I haven't purchased points or booked international reward seats before).

I've been looking at the promo in order to save some cash on a yet-to-be-determined trip in either late 2023 or 2024. My plan was to purchase some VFF points and hold there until ready to book SQ, then transfer the points to Krisflyer miles.

To test if the offer has value, I just looked at a one-way BNE-SIN leg in J (our actual flight will be to Europe or the US, using SIN as a stopover). Is my maths correct?

• Cash fare for the overnight flight is $3007.41 or KFF miles is 68,500 for the saver fare (still available in late 2023). (The dinner flight only had cash seats available or the full wack of KFF miles, the saver is waitlisted)
• I've multiplied this by 1.55 to get the number of VFF points required to transfer at 106,175 points.
• 110,000 VFF points can be purchased for $1,801.80. ($0.01638 / point)
• 106,175 VFF points would therefore be worth $1,739.15

Ignoring the taxes (which I forgot to note down) there's still a fair bit of daylight between $3007.41 and $1,739.15. I'm assuming this value would be similar for other legs. I agree if you can't get the saver fare (68,500 vs 90,000 KFF in this example) then the deal is less attractive or worse.

The above purchases don't get the full 40% discount so to squeeze a bit more I suppose I could buy 160,000 VFF points or more and keep the surplus points for another trip.

Other than the risk of the relationship between SQ and VA changing in the next year or two, are there any other risks with this approach? I'm assuming SQ has better award availability than VA on SQ metal? In any case, I'd simply hold the VFF points until ready for booking and go for whoever has the better reward seat.

Interested in thoughts/clarifications from the brains trust

Check for availability on the VA website first.
BNE-SIN is only 67k VFF points and the last SQ flight out usually has ok availability. We recently redeemed 4xJ seats on SQ246 BNE-SIN

 

[kangarooflyer88]

The 40% off promo window is TINY .. when (or IF!) you see Biz awards to USA it will be over most likely.

You're quite right! It's not like you'll find a Polaris business award to SFO from AKL on Christmas Day, now that would be a real miracle:

 

[mt4789]

Can purchased points be transferred to Krisflyer? Any restrictions there? Obvs worth searching for availability on Velocity first.

 

[The Flying Schwartz]

Can purchased points be transferred to Krisflyer? Any restrictions there? Obvs worth searching for availability on Velocity first.

Yes, it's fairly recent. Here's the details

(edit: fixed incorrect link)

 

[drron]

I can see now my mistake. i was using the points only number not the lesser 67K plus $256. Makes it better but then checked out the velocity site and SQ site for availability. VA only had the 1445 flight at the minimum points BNE-SIN but SQ had 2 savers on every flight. This was at the limit of availability.
So I will stick to SQ for SIN and work out what other places to use velocity points.

 

[Notyourbag]

Did anyone bite on this deal?

 

[The Flying Schwartz]

Did anyone bite on this deal?

Not me, I held off because we'll likely churn to a VFF points credit card. Also the article on Aeroplan has piqued my interest in that scheme

 

[levelnine]

You're quite right! It's not like you'll find a Polaris business award to SFO from AKL on Christmas Day, now that would be a real miracle:

View attachment 307592

This is a very disingenuous reply. Christmas Day is one of the best days of the year for award travel precisely because no one wants to fly on Christmas Day. The other good one is New Year's Eve. It's the complete opposite of a miracle. It's like finding a soggy, half-eaten sandwich at the bottom of a trash heap and exclaiming 'how great is dumpster diving?!'. And it is not even a flight departing Australia!!

 

[Shinjetter]

Hey everyone,

I just received an email about point purchases. I usually churn credit cards so I think this is still quite somewhat expensive for 20,000 points. Just wanted to let you guys know and those that need urgent points to redeem a reward flight. Let's hope those INT J seats are back...

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