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..?

 

[TheInsider]

They seem to be available again.

And gone again, along with the David Jones ones!

 

[JinbaIttai]

pre covid what was the points redemption cost of say perth to eastern states or a biz class seat from here to a popular destination?

Some notes I have in a spreadsheet for tracking points:

21500-27700 per leg for PER->SYD Economy​
38800-57400 per leg for PER->SYD Business​
43000-53000 per leg for PER->DUD Economy​
75000-85000 per leg for PER->DUD Business (or 60,000 + $150/leg)​

 

[jakeseven7]

100% used. As have family and all our friends. Actually I lie I have 25 points left

Even if VA survives, their international will be gone for sure (not that you could EVER get a J seat on VAi anyway) and I suspect a long time before partner award flights get back up to pre corona capacity - so honestly I don’t really care - I’ll just pay.

VA points are super easy to earn back anyway so starting from 0 doesn’t worry me at all.

 

[cumagutsa]

Login. Click on 3 horizontal lines top left corner. Go to shopping online. Shop using points. Click on 3 horizontal lines top left corner and click on your name at top. Order status will show if pending or complete against each redemption. Click on view order if complete. There will be a tracking number on the shipping tab.

Geez. Probably the only place I didn’t look. Thank you for that.

 

[Bct]

Geez. Probably the only place I didn’t look. Thank you for that.

That's ok. I was confused initially.

 

[cumagutsa]

Perhaps we could do a poll. Did you transfer 100% points, 50% of points, no points. did you just buy phones and other things.

I transferred 50% to SQ new because that’s what I always do anyway.

95%used outa 740k. Iphone iPad gift cards etc

 

[Mexpirate]

Some notes I have in a spreadsheet for tracking points:

21500-27700 per leg for PER->SYD Economy​
38800-57400 per leg for PER->SYD Business​
43000-53000 per leg for PER->DUD Economy​
75000-85000 per leg for PER->DUD Business (or 60,000 + $150/leg)​

Perth to Eastern states capital cities was 17,800 economy, 35500 business one way plus taxes for a proper reward booking.

Got a business return PER-HBA end of last year on the a330, very glad to have experienced that now as i don't think we'll be seeing them again

 

[Brissy1]

As I understand it, VelocityFF is a separate entity to Virgin Australia. Sure, now wholly owned by VA since VA bought back the 35% it didn't own for $M700 last year. So it is (was) a net $2Billion company, even after liabilities (inc. my points!). Surely it's still worth something (+ve equity)? As an unsecuried creditor, would I accept 50c/$ for my debt to them (=gift voucher vrs economy reward)? Maybe because it's not worth as much to or without a cornerstone airline. But not 20c/$ (=gift voucher vrs business reward).
So I'll "Hold", and not "Cash In" (play Johnny Cash, The Gambler song now).

 

[Lomandriel]

Perth to Eastern states capital cities was 17,800 economy, 35500 business one way plus taxes for a proper reward booking.

Got a business return PER-HBA end of last year on the a330, very glad to have experienced that now as i don't think we'll be seeing them again

Thats a 150-200 in Westfield vouchers for 35k points. No wonder these redemptions are such a waste vs redemptions.

Was award seats internationally really hard to get previously?

Not sure to keep my anz rewards travel adventures cred card now. Gotta book a seat...expires juNe but new annual fee comes up soon... probably not worth it with no clarity on free virgin flights availability

 

[TheInsider]

As I understand it, VelocityFF is a separate entity to Virgin Australia. Sure, now wholly owned by VA since VA bought back the 35% it didn't own for $M700 last year. So it is (was) a net $2Billion company, even after liabilities (inc. my points!). Surely it's still worth something (+ve equity)? As an unsecuried creditor, would I accept 50c/$ for my debt to them (=gift voucher vrs economy reward)? Maybe because it's not worth as much to or without a cornerstone airline. But not 20c/$ (=gift voucher vrs business reward).
So I'll "Hold", and not "Cash In" (play Johnny Cash, The Gambler song now).

Not really sure you can become an unsecured creditor for loss of points. They haven't necessarily got a value.

 

[ols]

(play Johnny Cash, The Gambler song now).

Kenny Rogers version a bit more famous

 

[PhilG]

It's an interesting broadcast. His basic thesis - like mine - is that the rewards for cashing out are so slim that it's just not worth it - you might as well hold out in hope of valuable rewards and just accept you might lose it all. The only reason I transferred to SQ was because that's what I do with my Velocity points anyway.

I was concerned, though, that he described rewards in F and J as unicorns. Because, when the scheme is marketed to the public, it is done with a clear value proposition that if you collect enough points then you can swap them for tickets in premium cabins. For the man who designed a scheme to acknowledge that these rewards are unicorns suggests that the programs are being intentionally misrepresented to the public.

I may have dramatised the issue, but Premium cabin reward seats are harder to come by than lower value rewards, they are in every FFP. Not impossible, but generally you need to be more flexible on dates and sometimes even the route to get premium cabin seats. Many members don’t have this flexibility- especially families restricted to school holidays - which limits the ability to get premium cabin reward seats. This is especially the case for ultra premium cabins that most would not experience any other way.

 

[Scr77]

I may have dramatised the issue, but Premium cabin reward seats are harder to come by than lower value rewards, they are in every FFP. Not impossible, but generally you need to be more flexible on dates and sometimes even the route to get premium cabin seats. Many members don’t have this flexibility- especially families restricted to school holidays - which limits the ability to get premium cabin reward seats. This is especially the case for ultra premium cabins that most would not experience any other way.

Welcome and thanks for contributing.

 

[Mr H]

I may have dramatised the issue, but Premium cabin reward seats are harder to come by than lower value rewards, they are in every FFP. Not impossible, but generally you need to be more flexible on dates and sometimes even the route to get premium cabin seats. Many members don’t have this flexibility- especially families restricted to school holidays - which limits the ability to get premium cabin reward seats. This is especially the case for ultra premium cabins that most would not experience any other way.

Hi Phil. I am honoured that your maiden post is to reply to a post of mine.

I know premium cabin availability is scarcer than economy. I have redeemed twice in Y - EDI-LHR-ALG return with BA where the J offering amounted to an additional bag of birdseed; EVN-LHR-EDI with BD where there was only Y availability to get me home from a one way J redemption from EDI-LHR-GYD - and revenue tix from EVN were astronomically expensive.

But with *A redemptions, premium cabins have been generally available with a bit of creativity even just a few months out. This might mean travelling a day ahead or later than planned; it might mean flying with less popular airlines or connecting instead of flying direct, but it has been possible.

That's why I swap VA points into SQ.

And fortunately for me, I love Asia as a destination and have no interest in America; I am able to travel alone; I can be flexible with dates; and I see travel with a new airline or through a new connection point as a positive. I have been able to get value from points.

The situation with VA and QF is dire - availability into and out of Australia is woeful, especially in F. They give priority access to status holders (and I'm pretty sure that would be open to legal challenge), and premium cabin redemption on Transpac is almost non-existent.

If I were looking to fly my family through/to the US in school holidays and had collected points for many years in the expectation that I could just exchange points for flights (as implied in the redemption tables) I would feel very short changed.

After all, if I had collected coupons from iced lolly packets to redeem for a free pack, I would expect I could redeem at any time - I would not have to be the first customer of the day or be one of the supermarket's most spendy customers.

I think that's something that FF schemes will have to address at some point, whether voluntarily or as a result of court action.

Just some random thoughts inspired by a bottle of Pinot Grigio purchased from Velocity Wines

 

[Cryptarcadian]

All good for Velocity to survive, but what would you then purchase using points?? There wouldn't then be an airline to redeem on.

Yeah that would not be the ideal scenario. But the implication is that there would need to be some sort of travel reward incentive for the program to continue, whether that's airline partners of the program, or even just travel vouchers or something. But even if not, if you could still buy your JB gift vouchers or iPads then rather than now… at least you had a shot first at retaining value and seeing if VA survives first.

Of course, each person's risk assessment will (and should) be different, and depends on what value you think you'd get out of the points even if VA did survive. My own agonising over the decision comes from knowing that I did manage to use VA points to fly EY J to Europe, VA J to HK, and countless VA J domestic trips, so they were far from worthless to me.

 

[Rob.au]

How many gift cards did you receive in the one envelope? (e.g. did you order 5 days in a row and they just packaged it all into the one envelope or were they all ordered together before the '1 a day' rule came in place?

My order went in a few days before the '1 a day' rule came into place, so the whole thing was one transaction for me and they all came in the one envelope.

 

[neljelpoo]

My order went in a few days before the '1 a day' rule came into place, so the whole thing was one transaction for me and they all came in the one envelope.

ahh, makes sense, lucky! I still have over 750k points after ordering 8 gift cards

sweet, my jb gift card orders have just changed to complete! and tracking info. ordered 5 x jb gift cards on the 4th April, one after each other ( even with daily limits in place ) I did email the address in the original email asking about my order 2 days ago , not sure if that helped!

Thanks for your update! looks like it took them just over 14 days to even changing the order from pending to complete with tracking information. I'm surprised you got all 5 cards ordered through, maybe they're only capping it per order, but not coding it such that you can do multiple orders with single GCs in each? Anyone else have any anecdotal experience?

 

[coolkid101]

I've kept an eye on this thread since the first post and it's interesting to see the commentary as things have developed.

We went from "is it going to happen?" to "its ansett 2.0" and the fire sale has now well and truly gone into full swing with everyone cashing out cents on the dollar.

We've kept our almost 3mil in velocity, as we've got more than we can use in KrisFlyer. (I also expect a big devaluation in kf after this, with many people worldwide sitting on large banks of stable kf miles which also are one of the most popular ff currencies in the world and easily attainable especially for americans. I'd expect the deval to be like the AA one not too long ago, probably worse. We've kept enough for 3 years of travel in R/F at advantage rates)

FWIW we're gambling that virgin is going to be ok. I'm not going to cash out cents on the dollar.. It virgin comes through we have gained outsized value for a long time with velocity miles so I might be the odd one out on this thread. It seems like everyone has become a epidemiologist/public health expert regarding coronavirus advice, I think the same happens with the future of virgin.

 

[hydrabyss]

I've kept an eye on this thread since the first post and it's interesting to see the commentary as things have developed.

We went from "is it going to happen?" to "its ansett 2.0" and the fire sale has now well and truly gone into full swing with everyone cashing out cents on the dollar.

We've kept our almost 3mil in velocity, as we've got more than we can use in KrisFlyer. (I also expect a big devaluation in kf after this, with many people worldwide sitting on large banks of stable kf miles which also are one of the most popular ff currencies in the world and easily attainable especially for americans. I'd expect the deval to be like the AA one not too long ago, probably worse. We've kept enough for 3 years of travel in R/F at advantage rates)

FWIW we're gambling that virgin is going to be ok. I'm not going to cash out cents on the dollar.. It virgin comes through we have gained outsized value for a long time with velocity miles so I might be the odd one out on this thread. It seems like everyone has become a epidemiologist/public health expert regarding coronavirus advice, I think the same happens with the future of virgin.

The way I see it if people where cashing out before the shut down it would have given me reason for concern. But as far as I could tell Virgin where making hard decisions to cut costs and they are a profitable domestic airline and considering if you want to fly in the near future that will be your only option for some time.

One thing they should get some praise for helping the retail sector and would love to know how many points have been spent since this started.

 

[Bct]

The way I see it if people where cashing out before the shut down it would have given me reason for concern. But as far as I could tell Virgin where making hard decisions to cut costs and they are a profitable domestic airline and considering if you want to fly in the near future that will be your only option for some time.

Virgin made a loss last year and have come into this crisis with a very large debt level which is now far above their value. I have redeemed most of my points but do regret not redeeming them years ago for flights which would have been better value.