Hi All,
Hoping to get your guidance please. I currently have close to 700k points split about 50/50 between Amex CC points and Velocity points. Looking a potential trip to Europe in Oct’26. So can you please advise how best I leverage these points to secure a BC fare round trip. Open to Oatar or Singapore or Qantas or Emirates. Open to suggestions to other airlines too. Thanks in advance.
Regards,
veeparam
Hello and welcome @veeparam – you’ve come to the right place!
A few questions to get started:
How many people will be flying?
Where do you live?
Where in Europe would you like to go?
How flexible are you regarding dates, destinations etc?
From what you write you have more than enough points to fly one person to Europe and back in Business class. You may not have enough points for a return flight for 2 people. But let us know your answers to the above questions and we’ll go from there.
Thank you @sixtyeight
To answer your questions:
Two adults traveling
Reside in Melbourne
TBC. Thinking of avoiding Heathrow /Charles De Gaulle (Former given it’s pretty hectic nature and the latter, I’ve been there and it is such a maze… ). So considering alternatives - from where we could catch the speed rail like TGV or similar to reach Bordeaux.
Encouraging to hear we can try BC for 1 person. Alternatively, open to mixed cabin class e.g. BC on the longest sector, and then Prem.Eco on the short haul sector.
With dates, the whole trip will move to Nov (recent update, so will be good to use that as for planning + we need to be in Bordeaux between 6th to 10th, don’t have any flexibility with that)
Thanks again,
Regards,
veeparam
Since you already have a large stash of Velocity points, and AmEx points convert to Velocity at a good rate, in your situation you should focus on getting to Europe using Velocity points. Velocity’s major partners are Qatar and Singapore; going via Japan on ANA might also be a possibility.
Go to the Virgin website and see what’s available. If there’s a suitable flight, book it immediately. Don’t assume that something better will come along later. Flying into Heathrow or Paris really isn’t a big sacrifice. If that’s where the availability is, it would be unwise (in my opinion) to not take it.
Given you may well not have quite enough points, you could try the following strategies (or some combination of them):
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Fly Business class one way, and Premium Economy the other way.
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Fly Premium Economy to/from Singapore, and Business the rest of the way.
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Pay for flights to somewhere in Southeast Asia, and then use points to fly Business Class the rest of the way (there will probably be greater availability on Qatar from places such as KL, Bangkok, etc than from Australia).
Please let us know how you go!
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@sixtyeight Thank you for those tips. I’ll explore options and will keep you posted.
Regards,
veeparam