Redeeming points
Nov 8, 2016, 11:23 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2016
Programs: Qantas Frequent Flyer, Virgin Australia Velocity
Posts: 7
Redeeming points
We are about to take out a home loan with NAB and have been offered their 250,000 bonus points with velocity. Sounds great but I understand that it may be difficult to redeem points. To redeem points, we would mostly be interested in redeeming points for domestic flights between Brisbane and Townsville, Brisbane and Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne or Brisbane and Auckland with flights taken mostly in school holidays. Is there much availability in school holidays? We also thought about using the points for domestic accommodation and car hire. We currently hold virgin red frequent flyer status. I don't think we would use the points to fly internationally. We are a family of 4, 2 adults and 2 children. The only time that we could get away for 2 to 3 weeks at a time would be at Xmas and with low status, I don't like our chances of securing award availability. Long haul international, we fly premium economy or business class so if we sought to redeem we would buy premium economy and then seek to upgrade to business. Our preferred destinations are usually Brisbane to US or Canada and I understand there would be little chance of securing an upgrade between mid dec to mid jan. Your thoughts would be appreciated.
Nov 9, 2016, 12:42 am
#2
Join Date: Jun 2016
Posts: 51
Sorry, I can't help with availability during school holidays (we don't have kids, so always avoid travelling at that time!) but with regards to upgrades, you need to have either Gold or Platinum status with Velocity to be able to use points to upgrade on long-haul flights, so that wouldn't be an option for you at the moment.
Nov 9, 2016, 2:25 am
#3
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Cairns, Australia
Posts: 924
For example, those points could be bought for $6,250 through the right Amex card (i.e. $25 per 1000 points).
There is no guarantee you'd be able to use the points exactly as you'd like to when the time comes.
Virgin is relatively good at offering award space for domestic flights, but the real value comes in using the points for business / first class seats or upgrades, not economy.
You can transfer the Virgin points to Singapore airlines at a 2/3 loss leaving you with nearly enough for one first class ticket from Australia to Europe return (again subject to availability). This provides a healthy rate of return by saving you around $12,000 to $15,000 worth of travel.
One transferred to Singapore Airlines the points can also be used on Star Alliance airlines by ringing singapore airlines to request award seats. Searching for seats can be done on various websites such as ANA, Aeroplan (air Canada) and United.
Similarly, you can do some trial searches on virgin website to get a feel for availability on Virgin and similarly on singapore airlines website.
Please consider other mortgage products (if you haven't already) and reckon that anything greater than a few thousand dollars saved on the loan during the likely term is actually providing better value than those velocity points.