Get In Before Velocity Increases Reward Seat Prices on 21 January 2025

You’ve got until 20 January 2025 to lock in Velocity Reward Seats at the current prices before many of them become more expensive.

Virgin Australia’s loyalty program announced the changes to Reward Seat pricing on 17 October 2024, as part of the major Velocity Frequent Flyer program overhaul it announced.

As part of these changes, Velocity has already slightly reduced the minimum points required for domestic Economy redemptions. But it gave three months of notice before increasing the points required for many other redemptions, including on partner airlines.

Book now to avoid the price increase

If you’d like to get in before the amount of points you’ll need to book a Reward Seat increases, you have until 20 January 2025 to book at the current prices. You can redeem your Velocity points to book flights up to 330 days (around 11 months) in advance.

There is just one catch you need to be aware of if booking a Reward Seat on a partner airline. If you book on or before 20 January 2025, you will not be able to make any (voluntary) changes to your ticket after 21 January 2025. Instead, you would need to cancel your original ticket for a refund, and make a new booking priced according to the new points redemption table.

Also, just a note about Etihad Airways. You can continue to use Velocity Points on Etihad Airways reward bookings until that partnership ends on 1 June 2025. In fact, you can even use your Velocity points to book Etihad flights up to 330 days in advance – even if the travel date is after June 2025. However, Etihad typically only releases Business and First availability to Velocity members around 30 days prior to departure, so that’s only useful if you want to book Economy Class.

Old vs new Velocity Reward Seat pricing

You can see the full suite of old and new Velocity points redemption tables on the Velocity Frequent Flyer website. But to make it easier for you to compare, we’ve combined the old and new pricing into our own charts.

There are different charts for different types of redemptions. Here’s the full list:

Virgin Australia domestic

Here are the ranges of points that you might need to pay for a domestic Economy Reward Seat on Virgin Australia, before and after the recently announced changes:

There are no changes to domestic Business Class rates.

Virgin Australia international (except to/from Doha)

There are also no changes to Business redemptions on Virgin Australia short-haul international flights. But there are some very minor increases to Economy rates on routes up to 4,800 miles:

United & Virgin Atlantic

Comparing the old and the new rates on United and Virgin Atlantic rewards is a bit complicated because Velocity is changing the way it divides up the distance-based zones from 21 January 2025. So, we’ve broken down the chart even further, to clearly show the old and new pricing on redemptions covering any distance:

Most redemptions are becoming more expensive, except on a small selection of niche routes between 4,801-5,000 miles such as Houston-London (which you can now finally book on the Virgin Australia website!).

One other positive is that the maximum distance you can fly on these (and other partner) airlines, on a single Velocity reward ticket, has increased from 15,000 to 20,000 miles.

Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways & Etihad

Here’s the old vs new Velocity redemption table pricing for Reward Seats on Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways or Etihad:

The above chart will also apply to Virgin Australia long-haul flights to and from Doha, which will become available (at the higher rates) from 21 January 2025.

All of the Premium Economy, Business and First rates are increasing, as well as some in Economy. However, some Economy rates are not changing for redemptions on these airlines.

Singapore Airlines carrier charge increase

Unfortunately, Velocity is also increasing its carrier charge applicable to Singapore Airlines redemptions on 21 January 2025. These are the new prices, which are in US Dollars but converted to AUD at the time of booking:

ANA, Air Canada, Hawaiian Airlines & South African Airways

To make matters even more complicated, Velocity has spun off ANA, Air Canada, Hawaiian and South African onto their own redemption table. On this chart, prices are going up across the board.

Here’s the pre vs post-January 2025 Reward Seat pricing on these partner airlines:

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.