How to use a temporary Velocity card to earn points on BP petrol

You might know this feeling: your car's running low on petrol so you pull up at a BP service station and fill the tank, only to realise you don't have your Virgin Australia Velocity frequent flyer card handy.

That's an easy serve of Velocity points down the drain, at a rate of two points per litre.

Happily, those points can still be yours if you grab a temporary Velocity card from the servo's checkout.

These work not only as short-term membership cards for newcomers to Virgin Australia's frequent flyer program – they can also funnel those just-earned points into your current membership account.

First, take a card from the display at the counter and have your freshly-pumped points added to the card.

You've then got 30 days to register the card at the Velocity website and have it linked to your frequent flyer membership account, which will send the temporary card's points through to your account.

Here's how it's done.

1. Log into your Velocity account and you'll spy a BP Temporary Card menu option at the left side of the screen.

This provides access to a screen where you can register your temporary card.

Note that I already have one temporary card attached to my Velocity Frequent Flyer account from a previous topping up of my tank – but because you can have only one temporary card active at any time, the new card will replace the old one.

2. Enter your temporary card number into the box below, which already contains the first five digits of the number assigned to these cards (70528).

3. Click the Register button to associate this temporary number with your Velocity account.

And that's it – the temporary card is now hooked up to your account.

Those points you just earned at the BP pump will be added to your Velocity account, and you can continue using this temporary card for three months – making it handy to keep in the car for next time you top up the tank.

But what to do after those three months – or if you've got several cars in the household and want each of them to earn points at the BP pump for your account?

The easy solution for a family of cars is to have each driver join Velocity Frequent Flyer and then activate the Family Pooling feature, which will send the points of all cards into a single nominated account.

Read: Virgin Australia's Velocity family pooling – tips and tricks for sharing your points

If all you want to do is keep a spare card in your car's glovebox, simply grab last year's Velocity membership card.

While officially out of date, it's still got the same account number burned into that little magnetic strip or smartchip – so it'll work just as well as your current card for adding points from a BP service station to your account.

Also read: Fuel discounts vs frequent flyer points – which is better value?

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