Virgin Australia: Triple points on flights!

With Virgin Australia newly re-launched as a mid market airline under new ownership, and with their lounges reopening, perhaps now is the time to take advantage of their new triple points promotion.

What you need to do

The promotion was launched yesterday and it means you can earn triple points per AU$1 on eligible Virgin Australia flights. That means earning 15 Velocity points instead of the usual 5 per AU$1. The promotion only runs from yesterday (Tuesday 24 November 2020) for bookings made before 1 December 2020 – so you only have 6 days left (including today) to take advantage of this offer.

What you need to do

There are basically three steps:

• Join Velocity Frequent Flyers scheme if you are not already a member
• Activate the offer
• Book an eligible flight by 1 December 2020 (make sure your Velocity membership number is entered in your booking).
• Travel before 19 October 2021 to get your triple points

And don’t be too concerned if you need to change dates, because Virgin will waive any fees for flight changes or cancellations until 31 January 2021 (but you will need to pay any fare difference).

Fine Print

Here is the deals fine print, taken from the promotion, but tidied up gramatically (do they not know the difference between ‘amount’ and ‘number’!) and made bigger!

To be eligible for the Triple Points promotion you must:

1. Activate this offer through the activation link contained in this email or via www.velocityfrequentflyer.com within the member dashboard under ‘Activated Offers’ between 12.01am AEST 23 November 2020 and 11.59pm 1 December 2020 inclusive (Promotion Period);
2. after offer activation, book and ticket an Eligible Flight during the Promotion Period and enter a valid Velocity membership number at the time of booking; and
3. complete travel on an Eligible Flight. An Eligible Flight is a Domestic flight marketed and operated by Virgin Australia (except where a Domestic flight is flown as part of an international journey), between 12.01am AEST 23 November 2020 and 11.59pm 19 October 2021 inclusive and booked and ticketed in a fare class that normally accrues Points. Points cannot be earned on Velocity Reward Seat bookings. Codeshare services marketed or operated by partner airlines are not eligible for this offer. Bonus Velocity Points will be earned in addition to base Velocity Points earned. Bonus Points will be applied to the originally purchased fare class and any upgrades (other than when you paid the full commercial fare) will not attract Bonus Points as a result of this offer. There is no limit on the number of times this offer can be redeemed. Velocity Points offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer or promotion. You should allow up to 4 weeks after completion of travel for the bonus Velocity Points to be allocated.

2PAXfly Takeout

This is another timely reminder to wear your seatbelt when seated. Holding you close to your seat will protect you from the sort of injuries sustained on this flight, when unsecured passengers flew to the ceiling of the aircraft, and then came crashing down once the ‘drop’ ceased.

The hope will be that this is an anomaly – a ‘freak accident’ in casual parlance. If it is a systemic error either mechanical or electronic, then this is a larger concern for the airlines that fly Boeing Dreamliner 787 aircraft. Let’s hope it isn’t. If it is, it will pile on the woes to Boeing’s existing stack.

This is a good offer. The only risky unknown is where you will be able to redeem the points you earn.

Virgin partner airlines are likely to change – given that none of them are shareholders anymore (bar Virgin), and as Virgin Australia slowly increases its destinations and frequency, it’s not clear what their policy on redemptions and their availability will be. We are unlikely to know that until the first quarter of 2021.

Still, if you are looking at building a points balance, then this is a good offer.

Personally, I would be better tempted by double or triple status credits, or a status matching deal, but triple points is pretty good.