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..?

 

[Wezza]

Can I ask which email address you had success with?

Their online form doesn't seem to be working

I used the online form, I had trouble also on my computer but managed to get it sent on my phone.

 

[Chicken]

Just an FYI - my colleagues and I have all redeemed our points for various gift cards, including JB Hi Fi and all orders have been "Pending" for over 10 days now.

The logistical side of this operation is completely flooded with these gift card orders. They are not really coping. The supply chain is trying to get enough people, need to print enough plastic gift cards, need to have new packaging materials to pack the cards. At times like this, try to get people to work, and order consumables, is not easy.

Notice how some posters here are redeeming hundreds of thousands of points per person. The companies contracted to send you these gift cards are normally set up to send 1 or 2 cards per person / order. Now, per order is a stack of gift cards, and they don't even have the packaging material of the right size for sending a stack of cards, instead of 2 cards. This is completely new to them.

So, give them time, just like giving time to factories making toilet rolls.

Don't ask me where I got this information from. Say anymore and I will be assassinated.

 

[theblank]

Most of it is in dedicated freighters or road for the big companies

where do you get that from? i work in a distrubtion business and whilst we got rid of Toll Priority years ago, they used commercial passenger flights a lot despite also having their own planes. Our new courier uses passenger planes exclusiively AFAIK. The vibe is there is plenty enough freight going around in passenger flights to create a demand.

as I mentioned in another thread - from a Hong Kong based pilot, he said the airlines cant rip the seats out of the grounded passenger planes fast enough because freight demand has gone through the roof.

 

[jase05]

where do you get that from? i work in a distrubtion business and whilst we got rid of Toll Priority years ago, they used commercial passenger flights a lot despite also having their own planes. Our new courier uses passenger planes exclusiively AFAIK. The vibe is there is plenty enough freight going around in passenger flights to create a demand.

as I mentioned in another thread - from a Hong Kong based pilot, he said the airlines cant rip the seats out of the grounded passenger planes fast enough because freight demand has gone through the roof.

The AP group is by far the biggest freight company in Australia and the bulk of their air freight is via their own aircraft and designated QF freight aircraft. They do send some freight via JQ and QF passenger flights. Toll and TNT have their own freighters aswell.
There is plenty of freight still currently but if flights do drop off it just means more will be funneled through the road network

 

[Must...Fly!]

There will still be plenty of time critical freight around but I doubt the increase in volume will present a materially strong opportunity for VA and QF, but some ad-hoc flying with full bellies of freight would be likely.

I suspect rail will see a pretty strong increase in freight as well

 

[Tiki]

I only had 82k Velocity but after reading this thread I decided to send them to SQ. Most of my Velocity points come from Flybuys, a few from the NAB Visa. I figure I can always send more from Flybuys after the Covid issue is over if VA survives. But I have more confidence in SQ surviving and my future travel plans include Turkey, SIngapore and Indonesia so they will be used when the bans are lifted.

 

[blacksultan]

Which c c would you use for that? Or are you talking about buying something on the SQ website?

Can you really do that?

 

[Chicken]

Can you really do that?

No.

SQ has a hard expiry, from the date your point (THE point) is earned, it's valid for 3 years.

 

[roddo12]

I was looking for a thread like this. I just moved my 190k points over to krisflyer. Does that mean they expire 36months from now or from when I got them from my amex card?

 

[get me outta here]

Currently, they expire 3 years from the day they appear in your SQ account.

 

[Bibendum]

Has anyone received the gift cards ordered yet..? I’m about to pull the trigger on 400k on jbhifi gift cards...

 

[blacksultan]

Currently, they expire 3 years from the day they appear in your SQ account.

But they can be extended for a short while for a small payment.

 

[Chicken]

Has anyone received the gift cards ordered yet..? I’m about to pull the trigger on 400k on jbhifi gift cards...

Wait a bit if you can, the logistical side of sending cards is pretty bad at the moment.

 

[Clause]

I have around 1m in velocity points and at this point am getting nervous. Seems people just bite the bullet and transfer all of it to SQ? How's their redemption like for a non-status owner in KF side of things? Is it the same?

 

[Chicken]

Seems people just bite the bullet and transfer all of it to SQ? How's their redemption like for a non-status owner in KF side of things? Is it the same?

I have been with SQ for a few years, I'm nobody, and seat availability is much better than QF especially for popular airports.

 

[Dr Ralph]

Has anyone received the gift cards ordered yet..? I’m about to pull the trigger on 400k on jbhifi gift cards...

Mine still showing as 'processing'.

 

[farmboy]

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..?

I too had a lot of Velocity points. I have transferred them to Singapore Kris Flyer account. They can be used from there on the Star Alliance network which includes my main carrier, Air Ne Zealand.
There are three steps top doing this;
1. Set up a Kris Flyer account, quick and easy.
2. Link that account with your velocity account, also easy.
3. Transger your velocity points, easy but a bit difficult to find the button. It is way down the bottom of the 'airline partners' page.

 

[ozstamps]

Has anyone received the gift cards ordered yet..? I’m about to pull the trigger on 400k on jbhifi gift cards...

Putting aside the reality that gift cards are incredibly poor value - ($A1000 David Jones Gift cards is 188,000 points!) some of the Virgin retail partners - like JB HiFi and Kathmandu etc, I suspect will also be defunct businesses, along with Virgin, when this mess settles in 3 months.

If Virgin ever get around to issuing them.

Costs them real CASH money each one they issue. Despite what some here oddly seem to believe. DJ's do not donate these cards to Virgin!

As posts above have clearly shown, Virgin are in no hurry at all to issue them.

 

[Obi-run Kenobi]

Fair to say that nothing can be deemed safe at the moment. For those of you who have transferred into gift cards, good luck. Likewise to those (like myself) who have taken the gamble and transferred into SQ. For me, that felt like the better value and the lesser of two evils. Time will tell.

 

[get me outta here]

I have kept half with the VA and transferred some to SQ. When the current flight is cancelled I will have plenty for a first class return to a port far far away. I may rebook as far out as possible and then use the change fee to get dates even further out.