I can find lots of tables with outright flight redemption points for velocity but I can’t find any table that outlines how many points it takes to upgrade to different seating levels.
Looking to upgrade to 3 business class flights from Adelaide to Europe (either UK or Italy) in 2021 and don’t have enough points for outright purchase yet so just trying to do some pre-planning on how many I’ll need to upgrade from either economy or premium when it does come time to book.
I am one flight to China (I’ve started to do this every couple of months for work) away from Velocity Platinum and currently have around 200k points (nowhere near anything currently I know) and trying to formulate a plan whether to try and status match with Singapore and then pump all future travel into KrisFlyer account and use Velocity points to get to Singapore and then use KrisFlyer points (which I will hammer) to arrange the Singapore to Europe legs.
If you could provide some more informatoin as to what flights you would want upgraded that would be great. I’m assuming you are wanting to upgrade Singapore Airlines’ flights to Europe?
Yeah.
I was thinking of using Velocity points to fly direct Adelaide to Singapore with Singapore Airlines/Virgin (I think they are joint coded but run by SA) by booking a return trip just Adelaide to Singapore by booking through Virgin.
Then I was thinking of getting a return trip from Singapore to London or Rome (if the taxes are super high) via Singapore Airlines but I’m open to flying into anywhere in Western Europe if its either cheaper or easier to access the business class seats. From there we can catch a small flight to wherever we decide to start our trip.
It isn’t until July 2021 (planning on doing Wimbledon and the British Open golf with a 3 week tour of Italy to see in-laws in between those sporting events) so I’m currently using next July as a guide.
If you’ve got the points by next year, the best way would be to outright redeem Velocity points for those award seats but as always, business class seats to Europe are few and far between. If Velocity doesn’t show seats available, Krisflyer might have more seats. In that case, you can also transfer to Krisflyer at a 1.55:1 ratio.
For upgrades, the only way to upgrade a Singapore Airlines flight is to transfer your Velocity points to Singapore Airlines Krisflyer at a 1.55:1 ratio. Be careful though because not all economy fares are eligible for upgrades (the cheapest fares often don’t count). Plus, you have to factor in the amount of points you need to upgrade compared to how many Velocity points you’ll spend outright redeeming the flights. To calculate how many Krisflyer points you need to upgrade, check out this official upgrade calculator.
Thanks for the advice.
That’s why I was thinking booking the return trip to Singapore using Velocity and then trying to build up my KrisFlyer account and then using that to upgrade (or outright as you suggested) between Singapore and Europe. Not sure I’ll have enough but I’m reading your guides and am trying to formulate a plan. Hence me asking 18 months out from the trip.
On a side note, I found the outright redemption and upgrade price table from Singapore Airlines and have printed and highlighted my aim as a visual daily reminder but does Virgin have anything similar that I can easily work out what the points damage will be for an upgrade? For example, is it worth upgrading a premium economy to business and if so, how much does that cost. Looking at the velocity website, I found a table but not super sure if I’m looking at the right thing.
For your ADL-SIN flight, look at International Short Haul 2401-3600 miles. I’m assuming you could upgrade this flight even when it is operated by Singapore Airlines. Give Velocity hotline a call to confirm.
I’ll certainly give them a try but from what I’ve read in a multitude of places, it literally has to be a solely operated Virgin flight which means New Zealand and Bali are basically the only places that the short haul refers to. I’ll certainly be giving it a try though. They’ve screwed me around with some status credits and miles for a flight I recently took so I’ll also try to leverage that!