Flying Club vs. Velocity

[djchuckles]

Hi guys

So I'm about to receive 75k Amex Membership Rewards points and wanted to know whether I'm best converting them to Virgin Atlantic's Flying Club or Virgin Australia's Velocity?

Plus side for Velocity is I should be able to get the 20% bonus

I will be travelling back to UK once a year or so and will be using Virgin Australia quite regularly

Thoughts?

 

[markis10]

FC is great for car rental credits, I would put the points towards Velocity.

 

[djchuckles]

Thanks

I seem to remember that 1 Flying Club Point > 1 Velocity Reward Point when redeeming?

 

[djchuckles]

Separate question :

Can I use Velocity miles to do a miles upgrade on Virgin Atlantic?

 

[markis10]

Thanks

I seem to remember that 1 Flying Club Point > 1 Velocity Reward Point when redeeming?

Velocity SYD-LHR One Way

[h=3]Cabin Class:[/h] Economy
62,500 + Taxes[SUP]#[/SUP]


Premium Economy
93,800 + Taxes[SUP]#[/SUP]


Business
From 125,000 + Taxes[SUP]#


Virgin Atlantic Round Trip

[/SUP][TABLE="class: tableCopy inputTable"]
[TR]
[TD]Route [/TD]
[TD]Sydney (SYD) to London (LHR)
London (LHR) to Sydney (SYD)
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

[TABLE="class: tableCopy inputTable, width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="width: 28%"] Cabin[/TD]
[TD="width: 17%"] Miles[/TD]
[TD="width: 28%, align: center"]Travel Date From[/TD]
[TD="width: 27%, align: center"]Travel Date To[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 28%"] Economy [/TD]
[TD="width: 17%"] 105000[/TD]
[TD="width: 28%, align: center"]2 Sep 2011[/TD]
[TD="width: 27%, align: center"] Ongoing [/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

[anat0l]

Velocity will cost you 250,000 points for a return Business award, provided you fly any combination of airlines except for NZ (long haul) or SQ (not that you can do that right now anyway).

Flying Club will cost you 180,000 points for a return Business (Upper Class) award, but that's only on VS itself.

Both of them will allow you to fly one-way for half the points.

If you factor in the 20% bonus for sweeping points to Velocity, the "cost" of a Business return reduces to 200,000 points, now a "premium" of only 20,000 points above the Flying Club cost.

Doing the same thing for the other classes of travel:

[B]Class    Velocity  Flying Club  Adjusted  Difference
[U]r/t flt   Points     Points     Velocity    Amount  [/U][/B]
Business   250000       180000    200000       20000
Prem Eco   187600       126000    150080       24080
Economy    125000       105000    100000       -5000

So it turns out virtually cheaper to sweep to Velocity if you only travel Economy, but somewhat cheaper to sweep to Flying Club if you go in a higher class (albeit any services redeemed with Flying Club must be on VS flights or codeshares (e.g. SQ codeshares). With Velocity you have more choice, e.g. EY).

Finally, these are points only costs. I haven't considered points+pay options for either Velocity or Flying Club.



As for using your Velocity points to upgrade your VS flight, the answer is no.

 

[notzac]

Additionally, what's availability on VS like? That may factor in to a decision on which program to sweep the points to.
I've certainly noticed quite a bit of availability on EY, so you shouldn't have any problems with availability there.

 

[anat0l]

Additionally, what's availability on VS like? That may factor in to a decision on which program to sweep the points to.
I've certainly noticed quite a bit of availability on EY, so you shouldn't have any problems with availability there.

On VS it's as fickle as a sea maiden. But look far enough in advance (a handful of months) and you'll typically find good availability for almost anything you want, especially in Upper Class.

When you start looking just under 6 weeks before departure, availability tends to disappear quickly. Sometimes it's like you don't know what hit you.

Hot times for travel are always tough. I also have no experience with checking Economy or Premium Economy redemptions.

One thing useful to keep in mind for Flying Club is that redeeming SYD-LHR in one go is the same price as redeeming SYD-HKG and HKG-LHR as separate awards, except for the increase in taxes for making the separate booking (possibly).

Note that redeeming for Upper Class awards on VS does not entitle you to chauffeur service (you can use Flying Club points to pay extra for the service - a bit steep, though). I'm supposing that redeeming for a EY J award still gives you chauffeur service. Might be something to keep in mind (certainly, sounds like it'd be worth the extra 20k points needed).

 

[greenfish]

I just received a 20% bonus offer from Amex for Virgin Atlantic Flying Club - not sure if it is targetted or not. At any rate, cancels out the VFF 20% bonus.

See more of the world with more points.
What a great time to visit those places you've always wanted to. When you transfer your points to your Virgin Atlantic Flying Club account between 8[SUP]th[/SUP] August and 8[SUP]th[/SUP] October, you'll receive a 20% top-up on your miles. So for every 2000 points you transfer that is 2400 Flying Club miles to spend on travel, flights, hotels or upgrades[SUP]1[/SUP]. So get out the suitcases, it's time to see the world!

 

[k3nnis]

Yep I can confirm this also. I transferred from AMEX MR to VS Flying club a couple of days ago and today it credited into my VS account with the 20% bonus.

Cheers,
K.

I just received a 20% bonus offer from Amex for Virgin Atlantic Flying Club - not sure if it is targetted or not. At any rate, cancels out the VFF 20% bonus.

See more of the world with more points.
What a great time to visit those places you've always wanted to. When you transfer your points to your Virgin Atlantic Flying Club account between 8[SUP]th[/SUP] August and 8[SUP]th[/SUP] October, you'll receive a 20% top-up on your miles. So for every 2000 points you transfer that is 2400 Flying Club miles to spend on travel, flights, hotels or upgrades[SUP]1[/SUP]. So get out the suitcases, it's time to see the world!

 

[greenfish]

I've used these bonus offers to help fund two SYD-LHR returns on VS in J. Very nice flights, nice T3 and HKG lounges. You can also mix and match the segments depending on points - e.g. Y to HKG, J to LHR.

Watch the taxes though, really expensive LHR-SYD, cheap SYD-LHR. Another advantage of Flying Club is you can book each segment as a one-way. Are VFF allowing this too now? On partner redemptions last time I tried they required a return booking.

 

[futaris]

You can do a one-way redemption on partners with Velocity now. NB, with Virgin Atlantic, Air New Zealand and Malaysian you will have to call to check availability and redeem.

Etihad can be done online.

 

[greenfish]

Good that VFF are allowing one way awards, shame their long-haul partner redemption costs are so high.

You can check VS availability by creating a Flying Club account and doing a trial booking. It will check availability before the process stops due to lack of points.