Virgin Australia Velocity - Better to join Velocity or Elevate?

I got a really great fare quote from Virgin AU for a trip from NZ to the US, and I'm thinking about making the jump over from being a Qantas flyer.

I'm not a frequent flyer. I travel to the US from NZ once a year, and usually do 1-2 other international trips a year (this year CHC-Malaysia on Air Asia and CHC-Tonga on NZ).

Is it likely to be better for me to join elevate or velocity?

My routing if its relevant will be

CHC-BNE-LAX-SF
NYC-LAX-BNE-CHC

The domestic segments are Delta. If they had booked me on Virgin America for the domestic segments, the fare jumped up (although I'd prefer the flying experience of Virgin America v. Delta).

My initial experience with Virgin was interesting. Much nicer customer service on phone, offered to hold the booking 3 days, but took 3 calls before I finally successfully received the emailed itinerary. The other positive was that the customer service agent very enthusiastically told me the options for travel from Brisbane airport into the city (since I will have a long connection if I take the flight), seemed very genuinely wanting to be friendly and helpful.

Choose the program of the airline that you will fly and redeem most often. If you think you will fly mostly with Virgin Australia, then pick them. Do you have a U.S. address? Do you know if you can join Elevate with an N.Z. address?

I got a really great fare quote from Virgin AU for a trip from NZ to the US, and I'm thinking about making the jump over from being a Qantas flyer.

I'm not a frequent flyer. I travel to the US from NZ once a year, and usually do 1-2 other international trips a year (this year CHC-Malaysia on Air Asia and CHC-Tonga on NZ).

Is it likely to be better for me to join elevate or velocity?

My routing if its relevant will be

CHC-BNE-LAX-SF
NYC-LAX-BNE-CHC

The domestic segments are Delta. If they had booked me on Virgin America for the domestic segments, the fare jumped up (although I'd prefer the flying experience of Virgin America v. Delta).

My initial experience with Virgin was interesting. Much nicer customer service on phone, offered to hold the booking 3 days, but took 3 calls before I finally successfully received the emailed itinerary. The other positive was that the customer service agent very enthusiastically told me the options for travel from Brisbane airport into the city (since I will have a long connection if I take the flight), seemed very genuinely wanting to be friendly and helpful.

If your domestic leg in the US is on DL you won't be able to credit Elevate so you may as well join Velocity to get the most miles. Velocity also has some ability to accrue NZ mileage so that may also be helpful. Is there a reason why you don't want to fly NZ transpac. It's not bad.

The AirNZ flights were twice as expensive but definitely would've preferred to travel via AKL rather than AU.

I am a bit dumb b/c I asked the Virgin AU agent if their mileage program was based on earning points for miles flown (like QF) or dollars spent on the tkt and she said it's based on mileage but it didn't occur to me that I'd be earning less than 1 point per mile bc the cheaper fares don't earn the full rate.

Is there any airline program that can be joined that will allow Virgin AU discount econ flights to be credited at 1 point per mile?

I checked a couple, Delta and Etihad and they both looked like less than 1 point per mile.