Virgin Australia: Vaccination prizes, but not as good as Qantas

On the first day of Spring, 1 September, Virgin Australia has launched its VA-X & Win promotion, but it doesn’t deliver as much as the Qantas scheme does.

Here is where you can enter the competition.

Here’s the promo video:

Background

We first heard about this back in June, but it has taken them a couple of months to pull it together. At least they didn’t have a leak about the prizes like Qantas. But enough of that, let’s get to the main game – the prizes.

What you win

Let’s not beat around the bush, here are the prizes:

• 1 x 1 million Velocity Frequent Flyer Points
• 10 x 100,000 Velocity Frequent Flyer Points
• 50 x 10,000 Velocity Frequent Flyer Points
• 25 x return Virgin Australia Business Class flights
• 50 x return Virgin Australia Economy flights
• 30 x Virgin Australia Lounge memberships
• 85 x Virgin Australia pyjama sets

How to enter

Its pretty simple, you need to go to the site at this address competitions.virginaustralia.com/competition/vaxandwin and complete your details:

• First Name
• Last Name
• Email
• Velocity Member Number
• Confirm that you have received both doses of a TGA approved COVID-19 vaccine by the time of entry
• Agree to the Terms and Conditions
• Acknowledge reading the Privacy and Collection statement

Interestingly, you are not required to provide evidence of vaccination, but you can bet your prize that they will check that before handing over those million points! You can see the full terms and conditions here.

What you could use those points for

Virgin has helpfully provided a list of possible redemptions with those points. Here are a few of the options for how many return flights you could redeem:

• 64 x Sydney to Gold Coast (Economy)
• 42 x Sydney to Byron (Ballina) (Economy)
• 28 x Brisbane to Perth (Economy)
• 7 x Brisbane to Honolulu (Business class)
• 28 x Sydney to Nadi, Fiji (Economy)
• 11 x Sydney to LA (Economy)

They also offer some goods options – but who would want goods when they could redeem free points for flights?

Competition for employees too

Oh yes, they have also opened a competition for their staff if they get vaccinated before 15 November. Staff can win a holiday to Hamilton Island, additional annual leave, Business Class flights and Lounge memberships.

You’ll have to prove you have been vaccinated, Virgin is just not sure how yet

Winners will be notified by 13 January 2022.and will need to provide proof of vaccination ‘through an easy-to-use verification process, details of which will be provided upon notification of their winning entry’. Whatever that means.

 What to do with one million Velocity Frequent Flyer Points

In case you are missing some inspiration, have a look below at what routes you can redeem points on, with Virgin Australia’s international partners:

International Economy redemption using Velocity Points on international partner airlines

Route	Velocity Points required (one-way Economy)
Brisbane to Honolulu	42,000 Points plus taxes, fees and carrier charges
Sydney to Los Angeles	44,800 Points plus taxes, fees and carrier charges
Melbourne to Abu Dhabi	56,000 Points plus taxes, fees and carrier charges
Sydney to London (via Hong Kong)	59,800 Points plus taxes, fees and carrier charges

International Business Class redemption using Velocity Points on international partner airlines

Route	Velocity Points required (one-way Business)
Brisbane to Honolulu	65,000 Points plus taxes, fees and carrier charges
Sydney to Los Angeles	95,500 Points plus taxes, fees and carrier charges
Melbourne to Abu Dhabi	104,000 Points plus taxes, fees and carrier charges
Sydney to London (via Hong Kong)	127,500 Points plus taxes, fees and carrier charges

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.

Virgin was never going to be able to match Qantas’s prize show bag. For a start, they don’t fly internationally, and only have partner airline capability currently. Anyway, they are a midget compared to the size of Qantas.

The new campaign co-inciding with this competition is cute.

Hold on – I just need to enter my frequent flyer number . . . . .