Should I use my points to buy annual lounge access?

[IceMan007]

I've been considering joining the Virgin lounge for some time now, and since I've become a Silver member, I don't have to pay the joining fee. I've got around 22,000 points and if I was to use them, I'd pay only $150 for an annual membership instead of $300.

The way I see it, I can use use my points for 3 flights to Sydney (from Melbourne) at any time (+$20 with each trip) which is a better value for money.

Am I thinking about this correctly? Is it better to use some points + pay, or just save the points and pay outright for lounge access?

Cheers!

 

[TomVexille]

22k for a $150 saving is not good value.

 

[Dan_]

Are you likely to get to gold? If so and you are travelling. then it would be worthwhile to go the cash outlay. You can then get a pro rata refund when you hit gold and get it included.

 

[IceMan007]

Are you likely to get to gold? If so and you are travelling. then it would be worthwhile to go the cash outlay. You can then get a pro rata refund when you hit gold and get it included.

Yeah, I'm most likely to reach gold by November.

I'll go the paying option then, thanks!

 

[Buzzard]

Pay cash and save the points.

 

[Moopere]

22K=150$ saving = 0.68c/point redemption value. I'd not go for that myself. I generally value VA points at 3c each and try really hard not to part with them for less.

Domestic VA (& QF for that matter) lounges are not much chop and not even close to being worth the money asked for yearly membership in my view. If one is travelling enough to really get good use out of a membership then you'd likely hit gold pretty quickly anyway ... so I'd side with the poster above who suggests getting a refund when that happens (but make sure you still can ... these things change from time to time).

When you hit silver I think you got 2 lounge passes (?), I remember getting this when I hit Silver, I then got a Velocity Amex which provided a couple more and in the end, because of J flight redemptions I ended up not using 3 of the 4 passes because I hit gold quicker than expected.