I have a accumulated a lot of Velocity points through business travel, just over a million. I am looking to redeem a return Business flight to London for late 2023. I am completely flexible with travel dates and airlines as i am travelling alone. Velocity’s website is quoting me nearly 700,000 points for the ticket which seems a lot. Is there a better way to be doing this please?
Hi rkk76, it’s a matter of finding reward flights. Qatar Airways, Etihad and Singapore Airlines do have some Business availability throughout late 2023. It should cost 139,000 Velocity Points one-way, plus taxes. Below is an example search using the paid service, AwardLogic. The same availability was reflected on the Virgin Australia website.
Thank you, i would book this today for 139,000 each way if i were able to do that. Ask a dumb question, how would i book this? When i search on the velocity website it only offers me flights for the huge qty of miles!
It means reward flights aren’t available on those days. Unfortunately, you’ll need to just keep searching until you find ‘Business Reward’.
If you want a live example, look up Sydney-London on 26 September 2023 using points. Singapore Airlines and Qatar Airways have Business availability at the time of writing, which you should be able to see.
Thanks, what is the paid for service? Could i sign up for that?
As a general rule, Qatar releases two business class award seats in every flight to/from Australia, 330 days before that flight. The seats become available at 1am AEDT and are often gone before breakfast. But if you log on at 1am your chances are very high!
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Good to know thank you. You have been very helpful and that is greatly appreciated. I have done some more searching and it appears i will be better off transferring my points to Krisflyer and booking Business Reward seats on Singapore. They appear to have a lot more availability for reward tickets!
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Looks like it is AwardLogic.
You guys have been so helpful. Thank you. I have also applied for the exclusive Point hacks credit card which hopefully you will get a commission from.
I only have one more question! I am looking to book a Singapore Airlines Business Reward seat through Velocity (Virgin) for 139000 one way plus taxes. Can you tell me what time of day these seats are released to give me the best chance of booking one please?
Your absolute best chance of booking a Singapore Airlines Business Reward flight is to convert 202,275 Velocity points, if you have them, to Singapore Airlines Krisflyer miles. This means you’ll have access to the seats a few weeks before Velocity members do. You’ll save some money on carrier charges too.
On KrisFlyer, flights become available at midnight GST (11am AEDT). I’m not sure what time of day the Singapore Airlines flights become available via Velocity. It certainly takes a couple of days longer than Qatar flights (ie. 328 days out rather than 330 days out). But if your dates are flexible, you may well still be able to grab what’s available as per @BrandonLoo 's post above.
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