Virgin Australia slashes reward seats for one week only

Virgin Australia is giving travellers a sweet Halloween treat this week with the price of select economy reward seats across Australia slashed to just 5,200 Velocity Points one-way.

Valid for travel as far off as June 30, 2024, the sale only applies to ‘Tier 1’ fares – the cheapest of the three pricing tiers (more on these below) – for bookings made from 10.01am AEST today until 10.01am AEST November 7. 

In addition, the airline is releasing 600,000 economy reward seats on Virgin Australia-operated domestic and international routes. Cocos Keeling and Christmas Island are excluded from the deal, which covers travel from October 31 until June 30, 2024.

Velocity’s new three-tiered points table

Virgin rejigged its points table in July 2023 – the same time as its revamped branding and ‘Velocity means fast’ slogan was introduced – with each of the five distance-based zones now offering points-based reward seats in economy class at three pricing tiers.

No changes were made to business class rewards, with the revamp purely about economy, which of course represents the bulk of seats on Virgin’s aircraft and the bulk of how its 11.5 million Velocity members redeem their points on flights.

Pricing varies throughout the year depending on factors such as the number of reward seats available per flight and the date of travel.

The lowest number of points per seat now falls into Tier 1, at rates which now start from 6,200 Velocity Points (previously 7,800 Points) plus taxes, fees and carrier charges.

Tier 2 encompasses the previous economy reward seat rates, so you can consider Tier 2 as ‘the new norm’.

Tier 3, on the other hand, increased the number of Velocity Points needed for an economy seat.

Here’s a quick example of how that look in practice:

• Tier 1, Sydney-Melbourne one-way economy: 6,200 Velocity Points
• Tier 2, Sydney-Melbourne one-way economy: 7,800 Velocity Points
• Tier 3, Sydney-Melbourne one-way economy: 9,900 Velocity Points

(Considering that a Sydney-Melbourne business class read seat is 15,500 Velocity Points, the introduction of T3 pricing seriously narrows that economy-to-business gap.)

So if Tier 1 award seats rewards are around 20% cheaper than the standard Tier 2 seat, the Tier 3 seats are around 20% more expensive.

Here’s the complete Velocity points table for Virgin Australia:

While Velocity didn’t specify exactly how and when the various tiers would kick in, the rule change implied that peak travel periods such as holidays, long weekends and even days of the week could see economy reward prices set at Tier 3 rates, with most other flights pegged at Tier 2 or the new lower Tier 1 rates.