I am wanting to fly next year from Sydney to New York, and then san fran to Sydney on the way back flying united business class, using velocity points plus $$$
I will have approx 400k points when I am ready to book… Is there any way to find out the cost of points and $$? Booking directly through united seems much better value
Hi and welcome @j_choo !
I’m not sure how much you know already so forgive me if my answer is too basic or not basic enough: feel free to ask again if you have more questions or if there’s anything you don’t understand.
First, if you want to use Velocity points to pay for some or all of your booking, you cannot book through the United website: you need to book through the Virgin Australia website. If you’re using money to pay for the entire fare, then yes, it may well be better to book with United directly.
This Point Hacks article by @BrandonLoo from a few years ago is quite outdated now and needs revising, but it’ll give you a lot of the basics.
To find out how many points you need and how much extra you’ll need to pay in $$$, the United Airlines page on the Velocity website is a good place to start.
Note that you can use points to pay for flights in two ways: either for reward flights (fewer points, much less availability) or points+pay (way more points, almost unlimited availability). Click on the links on this page from the Velocity website for more information.
If you’re very new to Velocity and using points for flights, the article below is worth reading as well.
All the best and please let us know if you have any more questions!