Los Angeles to Sydney with Velocity Points?

[Dr Gonzo]

Hi everyone...just registered and this seems like a fantastic place...i have always collected ff points but never really used many of them to be honest

My question is... is it possible to use virgin velocity points to book a return (or one way) flight that originates in the USA and goes to Sydney? I know you can use velocity points to book on V Australia from Sydney to LA but i was hoping to do the reverse. I have a friend that lives in the USA and was hoping to bring her out on points with virgin or any of the partner airlines...

thanks guys

 

[ANstar]

It is possible - I cashed in points in SEP to fly LAX-SYD in J with VA. Was a great experience.

 

[Dr Gonzo]

It is possible - I cashed in points in SEP to fly LAX-SYD in J with VA. Was a great experience.

excellent! thanks mate...

do you remember roughly how many points it was return? im a gold member with about 75,000 points i think

and booking a reward ticket under another name is fine?

 

[ANstar]

I'm unsure about booking under another name - my booking was under my name.

 

[swylie]

do you remember roughly how many points it was return? im a gold member with about 75,000 points i think

and booking a reward ticket under another name is fine?

Hi Dr Gonzo,

There's a V Australia Velocity points redemption table on the Velocity site - According to that, you're looking at 94,000 points return economy... but I'm pretty sure you would be able to use a combination of points and cash to make up the difference.

It's a shame that there are $334 taxes payable as well as the 94,000 points (which you can pay with more points, or in cash) - it almost seems like better value to just buy a $1000 special fare and earn the pretty significant number of Velocity points and status credits which you'd miss out on if you booked using points...

There might be special fares which you can book using less Velocity points than are quoted on that web page, so I'd give Velocity call centre a call and see what they have available.

In terms of booking under a diff name - based on my experience making domestic bookings with Velocity points, the traveller needs to be yourself, or a relative (you can specify the relation, including de-facto partner, etc)

 

[odysseus]

It's a shame that there are $334 taxes payable as well as the 94,000 points (which you can pay with more points, or in cash) - it almost seems like better value to just buy a $1000 special fare and earn the pretty significant number of Velocity points and status credits which you'd miss out on if you booked using points...

Just a note on this - booking the special $1000 (it's probably about $1300+ atm) has the lowest non-zero earning rate around I've seen - only 0.25 of a point. Thus for a return trip your total earnings is only around the 3000 points mark, so turns out to be far from significant.

It still may be better to purchase instead of using points, but you won't gain much from it; it's just you may be able to find a better use for those points.

 

[swylie]

Good point odysseus.

I didn't really think of that as I have additional points/SC earn with Velocity Gold.

I'd personally say there's probably more efficient use of the points, but of course it's all subjective!

 

[Dr Gonzo]

thanks everyone...this has been very very helpful! i ended up getting her a premium economy seat on the way over for 70,000 points and paid for the same fare back and around $750

not bad i thought