Save Velocity points on Virgin Australia business class seats

Sitting on a stack of Virgin Australia Velocity frequent flyer points? Until next Wednesday, January 18, you can book business class flights within Australia and save thousands of points off the rack rate.

The trick is to book your reward flight as a premium economy seat, which require substantially fewer points than a seat in the airline's new business class.

As of Wednesday, premium economy will be replaced by business class on Virgin Australia flights – and premium economy reward bookings will subsequently disappear from the Velocity booking system.

However, premium economy redemptions will be treated as a business class booking: so if you spend your points on a flight from January 18th onwards you'll be paying only premium economy rates for the full business class package.

"If a Velocity Frequent Flyer member makes a Premium Economy redemption booking before January 18 for a flight after January 18 (inclusive), it will be counted as a Business Class seat" a Virgin Australia spokesperson confirmed to Australian Business Traveller. (The exception to this deal are flights from the east coast to Perth, which already feature business class.)

So how many points can you save? Here's the Virgin Australia Velocity Points Table for reward flights.

For example, a return flight between Melbourne and Brisbane will set you back 67,600 Velocity points in business class but only 50,800 if booked as premium economy – leaving 16,800 points in your pocket.

But remember, this deal closes on Wednesday January 18th.