Virgin Australia partners with Luxury Escapes for Velocity Points
There’ll soon be a new way to earn Velocity Points on your next high-end holiday.
By David Flynn, May 30 2023
Qantas is ending its partnership with Luxury Escapes on June 30 2023, with the premium travel packager switching to an exclusive loyalty tie-up with Virgin Australia’s Velocity Frequent Flyer program.
The Velocity-Luxury Escapes alliance will let Velocity’s 11 million members – Luxury Escapes’ 3 million Australian customers – earn and burn points on luxury holiday packages, hotels, cruises, tours and experiences.
While those earn-and-burn rates haven’t yet been revealed, the ‘earning’ will almost certainly be the most attractive option: as a benchmark, the current Qantas-Luxury Escapes partnership sets an earn rate of 1 Qantas Point per dollar on most packages.
However, spending your Velocity Points on your next high-end getaway will probably be only for the ‘points-rich’: this method of using points is generally regarded as a very poor rate of return.
According to Luxury Escapes’ 2023 Travel Trends Report, nine in 10 Australians plan to travel either domestically or internationally in 2023, with destinations such as Bali, Fiji, Gold Coast and Cairns among the most popular.
A Qantas spokesperson confirmed to Executive Traveller that its partnership with Luxury Escapes, which launched in February 2018, will end on June 30; Virgin Australia says its own Luxury Escapes partnership will begin “mid-year”.
24 Aug 2011
Total posts 1207
This was always going to happen once Qantas acquired a majority stake in LEs competitor Trip-a-Deal
QF
11 Jul 2014
Total posts 1010
The issues I have with Luxury Escapes and QF points..... you book but they don't automatically put your FF number onto the booking even though they have the number in their data base, and once booked, you can't retrospectively put the FF number on the booking? On top of that, not all bookings can get QF points at Luxury Escapes. I HOPE THIS CHANGES with VELOCITY. The funny part is you book travel insurance with Luxury Escapes and it prompts the agent to enter your Velocity number.
07 Mar 2022
Total posts 65
I wish I could book more work travel with Luxury Escapes, our CFO is worried booking work travel with LE is a red flag.
23 Mar 2012
Total posts 98
Great to have another Velocity partner but what happened to ANA ? Promised reciprocal benefits at the beginning of the year but no progress or updates it would seem !
QF
11 Jul 2014
Total posts 1010
I really don't think there will be an innovation from Virgin until after the IPO, they won't want to make any sudden changes for the new owners which could devalue the selling price of the IPO. The only thing we will see is new partners for Velocity points. Forgot about P1's, lounges etc, it's all about points partners.
Virgin Australia - Platinum
21 Mar 2021
Total posts 8
So will this mean you can book flights AND accomodation using your velocity points?
28 Nov 2019
Total posts 1
So Im wondering about the hotel I booked with LE months ago but its not until August, will I still earn Qantas points or not?
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