Is it Time to transfer/withdraw points from Velocity?

[Bibendum]

Hi All,

I need some advice from the brains trust on this forum.

I, like many on here, have hundreds of thousands of points sitting with velocity. With the current COVID-19 situation and virgins financial position I’m concerned that if the airline was declare bankruptcy points may disappear..

What’s the likelihood of this happening and should I withdraw my points by purchasing gift cards to get some cash value at what I have..?

am I making a mountain out of a mole hill.. or is there a real threat to my velocity points been wiped out..?

 

[Lomandriel]

That's a pleasant surprise. Might be worth one or two of those westfields then. Costs equivalent of 109 vs 100 for jb hi fi though.

Find it very odd. i told my parents to redeem theirs and they can only see kogan or good guys and not jb hi fi. i can only see jb hi fi though and have never seen kogsn or good guys. Plus online i see others saying there's only $20 jb left. Yet i have 50 or 100 options. Are they capping who can orfer what gift cards to moderate demand?

 

[jakeseven7]

No need to take my word for it. Just try it out for yourself. You will be pleasantly surprised.

Looking forward to it - thank you very much!

 

[Scr77]

Hi ,If i book a flight using velocity points with Etihad ( as far into 2021 as i can go ) and its a Ey flight number not a VA what's everyones opinion if it will be honoured if things so horribly wrong with Virgin..Cheers

Pls see post 467

 

[mooki24]

I have 1,000,000 Points I have accrued over the last 5-10 years. I have pretty much not redeemed a point in the past.

I had hopes of continuing to save these points to fund family travel in the coming 5 years as my infant gets a little older, I guess this is now at real risk.

I’ve probably also left it to late to redeem the points easily and understand the process will be difficult to offload so many points for gift cards, 1 per day.

I guess I either very regrettably bite the bullet and burn them on an expensive laptop or something (that I don’t need) and on sell it, or leave them where they are and hope to hell they survive.

Either way, it‘s sad time.

I'm in a similar situation. Have about 600k points which I've been saving over many years to fund a big Europe trip for next year. I'm devastated.

Is the best option to cash out for gift cards?

 

[Scr77]

“How safe are your frequent flyer points?” Is about to be on 7news.

i doubt they will say “Not very!”

 

[Scr77]

I'm in a similar situation. Have about 600k points which I've been saving over many years to fund a big Europe trip for next year. I'm devastated.

Is the best option to cash out for gift cards?

Unfortunately, you really have missed the boat on a safer haven. Virgin’s demise is not certain, but it cant hurt to try and use your points on whatever you can.

 

[Dr Ralph]

Really? That is highly misleading then - I got a card last week (won a prize) and it clearly states can only be used at Westfield!

These issues are well known and have been discussed on AFF for some time. In short, use Westfield gift cards anywhere.

 

[Mr H]

“How safe are your frequent flyer points?” Is about to be on 7news.

i doubt they will say “Not very!”

Your points are probably safer than ever - since there's no longer any danger of redeeming them!

 

[Scr77]

“How safe are your frequent flyer points?” Is about to be on 7news.

i doubt they will say “Not very!”

The only new “news” in the segment, is that Qantas are looking at ways of offering more classic rewards seats when we are allowed to travel.

 

[SOPOOR]

Shareholders pass up chance to recapitalise Virgin – Reports – Australian Aviation

australianaviation.com.au

Finance experts could explain in more detial

 

[Bct]

Mine stills says pending, however when i click on the individual orders there is a couple of tabs
Order Information | Invoices | Shipments
when i click on shipments it gives me a shipment numbers and says qty shipped as 1

What device are you using? I can't see tabs on PC, phone and tablet.

 

[jonboixxx]

Jeez really scrap pickings haha. So besides getting a coffee machine it seems the gift cards are still better than redeeming for items directly. Although to redeem multiple gift cards would take some time (1 a day limit). At this rate I can't believe I'm considering just redeeming for a dyson v8 animal lol. Never used a handstick...or dyson... has anyone gotten one? We have a normal bosch vacuum so it seems like a waste of 155k points, but gosh there isn't much else out there that's practical.

Got the mrs to logon and she was shocked to have 130k+ points too. Now redeemed for a food processor and nespresso machine lol. Takes 14 days to process/deliver it says... so praying that it gets through to harvey norman in time.

I ordered 12 cases of wine for my new cellar from Laithwaites, which didn't seem like bad value in the circumstances. It's still pending as well as the daily cards for 5 family members from the 4th. Not sure I'll see any of it. Luckily 2M to SQ before the stoppage and most still held in AMEX, Dragon, ANZ. It'll be interesting to see how these points vaults deal with value moving forward.

 

[jonboixxx]

Yeah I worry about this as well
I had 360k to redeem
I did a stack of JB 100's but didn't want to do the entire lot with JBHIFI incase they deny most of them due to the loop hole
Ended up getting a kitchen aid mixer... Hurt like a mof_ to redeem that, but i guess it made sense to spread the risk around??

Mixered feelings?

Post automatically merged: Apr 15, 2020

I just can't do it - because I bought the mrs a kitchen aid mixer an dalready gets used. I looked at the sony soundbar, the dyson vacuum, the smeg coffee machine, and even the canon camera gx9 mark 2 or whatever it was. All are comparable if not cheaper by buying it at jb hi fi - and that's the online price without even bargaining or getting a special. So I'm tempted to just tough it out and slowly do one day at a time gift cards.... if they come then not only can i buy the same items at jb hi fi (so no rushed regret on a kitchen aid or something) - but hopefully get them cheaper.

The only thing worse than redeeming points on these are if jb hi fi goes under... fingers crossed they are too big to fail at this stage...

JB is smashing it. If they go down, everyone does.

 

[Bct]

What device are you using? I can't see tabs on PC, phone and tablet.

I am assuming the tabs appear when shipped. I have redemptions back to 05 Apr and still all pending. So is there no business as usual when having a trading halt on the ASX?

 

[Bct]

I am assuming the tabs appear when shipped. I have redemptions back to 05 Apr and still all pending. So is there no business as usual when having a trading halt on the ASX?

I am having a bad night, found the tabs on my phone, all my 11 orders over the last 10 days have shipping numbers. LOL. Will see what happens.

 

[Bct]

Hoping that means that they have in fact shipped and should receive shortly.

Wondering if people only ordered last couple of days shows this or not?

I have a shipping number from a gift voucher redeemed two days ago. Very much doubt it is on its way.

 

[mooki24]

Unfortunately, you really have missed the boat on a safer haven. Virgin’s demise is not certain, but it cant hurt to try and use your points on whatever you can.

Please excuse me while I go throw up.

.. then log back on and buy gift vouchers

 

[Lomandriel]

Well I certainly hope the news isn't covering this too much - mass panic of uninformed mums and dads cashing out gift cards will (selfishly) cause a headache for the rest of us haha. That said - the best practice would be to bail if your worried about losing everything entirely.

Well, I'm gutted i shifted my amex to velocity before closing it - but hopefully today's gift card 'eventually' comes. If it goes into administration i wonder if they'd honour anything in the queue from pre admin - mainly as the points have disappeared, so they'd have to reverse everything etc?

Mrs redeemed for a coffee machine so hopefully she gets goods at least, even if my gift cards don't arrive.

That reminds me - qantas hasn't even refunded our 24 march flights. Wondering if qantas devaluation would occur - was saving up for another round the world trip after our last one in feb-march (ruined by covid 19 at the end) - but might reconsider cashing out now before we suddenly see Qantas on the news... =/

 

[Lomandriel]

JB is smashing it. If they go down, everyone does.

I hope so! Given others have confirmed that the Westfield is an EFTPOS card I'm thinking of just paying the extra 2000 points to get access to all eftpos retailers that will accept (im assuming woolies, coles, myers, good guys etc.) rather than just Jb Hi Fi.

That said at this stage I just want to get my points cashed out and hope it gets honoured... fingers crossed.

 

[ff-jr]

On the point of Westfield Gift Cards, they operate on Eftpos payment rails and while they aren't currently restricted for use with specific vendors, this could occur down the line. Note that some retailers do also refuse Westfield cards at POS as they choose to not participate in the program.

The higher point redemption rate for Westfield cards is to cover an activation fee ($2.95 at retail).