Virgin 30% off Velocity Reward Seats: Power booking tips
Big points savings on offer, but be careful of the fine print – here's what to check.
Woo-hoo! Virgin is offering a 30% discount on the points needed to book Reward Seats.
Make a booking using your Velocity Points between now and 13 April 2022 for travel between 1 May 2022 and 1 March 2023 and you'll pay 30% less than usual.
The discount will show up automatically when you search for flights. Here, for example, a Sydney-Melbourne flight shows up as 5,400 Velocity Points rather than the usual 8,000.
Reward Seats are one of the best-value ways to use your Velocity points. (Don't confuse them with Points Plus Pay, which charges many more points and is rarely worth it.)
My key advice? Don't use your Velocity Points to pay for the carrier charges – that's wasteful.
In the example above, for instance, you can either pay 5,400 Velocity Points and $34.39, or 11,300 Velocity Points outright.
That means you've spent 5,900 Velocity Points to save $34.39, effectively valuing every 1,000 points at around $5.82. That's way below my target of getting at least $20 in value for every 1,000 points spent.
The default settings on Virgin's site choose the higher points option, so make sure to adjust that before you finalise the booking.
One other thing to remember. If you do need to make changes to a Reward Seat flight, you'll have to pay a fee – either $35 or 4,500 Velocity Points.
Changes made before 30 April 2022 will see that fee waived, but in practice that's not going to apply to flights booked under this deal since it doesn't kick off until 1 May 2022.
Now excuse me, I'm off to hunt down some New Zealand flights.
Want to keep your frequent flyer points balance growing? Check out the latest credit card sign-up deals.
Angus Kidman's Findings column looks at new developments and research that help you save money, make wise decisions and enjoy your life more.
Picture: Angus Kidman
