With almost 600,000 Virgin Australia Velocity points at their disposal, one member is planning a trip for two from Melbourne to New York. They would like to redeem their Velocity points to fly Business class, and seek advice on an itinerary to New York that offers good value.
Just wondering what is the ‘best’ way for my partner and I to get to New York in business class using my velocity points? We are fairly points poor, with about 420,000 at the moment. Both of us planning to cancel and renew NAB cards so lets say we have 570,000.
The shortest route would be to fly Virgin Australia to Los Angeles, then Delta or Virgin America onwards to New York. This is a good option as Virgin recently refurbished the 777 Business class cabin used on its flights to the United States. Virgin Business class to Los Angeles is now one of the best premium cabin products flying across the Pacific.
Quickest way is Reward Business to LAX and it’s quite cheap to fly Delta to NYC from there plus you’ll pick up some good SC’s and points in Delta comfort. Looking at the same thing myself next June.
As reward seats sell out quickly, our members recommend booking well ahead. Virgin Australia releases seats around 330 days in advance, so this would be the best time to start looking. To improve your chances of finding a reward seat, our members suggest searching for flights departing between Tuesday and Thursday. Flights from Brisbane also tend to have better availability than Sydney departures.
From Los Angeles, there are a number of options for onward flights to New York. Points-rich flyers could redeem their Velocity points for flights on Delta or Virgin America. But paid premium cabin flights in the United States are often relatively cheap. Paying for a flight also means that points and status credits are earned.
Alternatively, the Velocity points could be transferred to the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer program and redeemed for a US domestic flight. A Business class flight on United Airlines would cost 20,000 KrisFlyer miles, which is equivalent to 27,000 Velocity points.
I just looked into this. Convert your points to Krisflyer, then call up kris flyer and book a business class flight on UA LAX to JFK. It costs 20,000 KF points pp one way (so 80,000*1.35 VA points for both of your return).
Another left-field option would be to transfer the Velocity points to KrisFlyer, then to redeem them for Business class to New York on Singapore Airlines. Singapore flies to New York via Frankfurt, with connections available from most Australian cities. The total flying time would be a little longer, and the co-payment would also be a little higher. But these minor details would likely be forgotten after spending 30 hours flying in Business on one of the world’s best airlines!
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