One of the most popular partners for Virgin Australia's Velocity Frequent Flyer is Singapore Airlines' KrisFlyer. If you want to score international flights (outside of the Pacific), using KrisFlyer is one of the obvious options.
It's important to weigh the value of transferring points between these frequent flyer programs and to look at other benefits of the Velocity-KrisFlyer partnership. You want to get as many travel perks as possible when you fly with Virgin Australia and Singapore Airlines.
If you want to exchange points between your Velocity and KrisFlyer accounts, you first need to link your frequent flyer memberships. You can do this by logging into each account and providing your details for the other program.
Note that your name and birthdate must be the same for each account. Once you’ve linked your Velocity and KrisFlyer memberships, you’ll be able to transfer points between them using the steps below.
When you transfer points between Velocity and KrisFlyer, the point exchange rate is 1.55 to 1. This means a minimum transfer of 5,000 points will give you 3,226 points with the other program (rounded to the nearest whole point).
If you've transferred points between these programs in the past, it's worth noting that the current exchange rate applied from 1 January 2019. Previously, there was a slightly more generous transfer rate of 1.35 to 1.
Follow these steps to transfer your Velocity Points to your KrisFlyer account:
If you have KrisFlyer Miles you want to transfer to your Velocity account, follow these steps:
Keep these factors in mind when you’re transferring points between Velocity and KrisFlyer:
The transfer rate of 1.55:1 means that you end up with fewer points each time you move them between Velocity and KrisFlyer. For example, transferring 100,000 Velocity Points would give you 64,516 KrisFlyer Miles, which means you lose 35,484 points in the process. With this in mind, it’s often more valuable to redeem points directly through the program in which you earned them.
So when does it make sense to transfer points between Velocity and KrisFlyer so that it works in your favour? Here are some of the most common scenarios where you could get more value through a transfer:
To see when transferring Velocity Points to a KrisFlyer account could work in your favour, let’s say you want to book a one-way, Premium Economy flight from Sydney to London with Singapore Airlines. Here’s how much it would cost through each program, based on point details we found on each website in January 2019:
That's a difference of 25,000 points, in favour of KrisFlyer. But if you had no KrisFlyer Miles and the required Velocity Points, transferring them would only give you 72,581 miles. So in this scenario, you'd be better off trying to redeem your flight through Velocity instead. If, on the other hand, you had most of the KrisFlyer Miles required and some Velocity Points you wanted to use, transferring them could be a useful option. Just make sure you check that a reward flight is actually available before going ahead with a transfer.
Transferring points between Velocity and KrisFlyer usually only offers you more value when it’s for a specific reward flight option. So here are some alternatives you can also consider to help you get the most out of the points you earn through these frequent flyer programs:
The option to transfer points between Velocity and KrisFlyer sets these two frequent flyer programs apart from most other airline loyalty schemes. But because it only really offers value in specific situations, make sure you weigh up the benefits before you transfer points so that you can get as much value as possible from your frequent flyer rewards.
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