Velocity Daily: earn extra Virgin Australia points with your Visa card

Virgin Australia’s Velocity Frequent Flyer members can now earn extra Velocity points on Visa credit and debit card purchases at participating businesses through the new Velocity Daily scheme.

Launched in ‘trial mode’ this week and similar in concept to Qantas’ My Card Offers which debuted in November last year, the initiative is currently limited to around 130 Sydney-based small businesses and is expected to expand over time.

At these locations, Velocity members can earn bonus Velocity points for every dollar they spend – over and above their card’s normal earning rate for points – after enrolling, ‘linking’ their Visa card to their Velocity Frequent Flyer account and paying via the card’s ‘credit’ account (including contactless payments like PayWave and Apple Pay).

Many businesses participating in the program are offering two Velocity points per dollar spent – again, on top of any points you’d normally earn from your Visa card – with some businesses serving up even more points, such as four or five Velocity points for every dollar spent.

For example, if you registered your ANZ Rewards Black Visa credit card, you could earn points twice on the one purchase: both through your credit card and through Velocity Daily.

That means you could take home your normal haul of up to one Velocity point per dollar spent via ANZ, plus 2-5 bonus Velocity points per dollar spent on top through Velocity Daily, for an impressive haul of 3-6 Velocity points for every $1 spent.

Velocity Daily: how does it work?

Velocity’s direct partnership with Visa means these extra points aren’t provided through your credit card’s own rewards program in the normal way: they’ll instead appear automatically in your Velocity account, as Visa maintains a virtual link between the card number you enrol and your Velocity account and flags when an eligible transaction has taken place so that points can be provided.

The beauty of this partnership is that the Visa card you use doesn’t even need to be a points-earning card on its own, so if you’d normally pay for purchases using a higher-earning American Express card, but also have a Visa in your wallet, this new scheme could allow you to earn a higher number of points by whipping out that Visa instead.

As long as your Visa card number is registered with Velocity – even if it’s merely a Visa Debit card, or even a Qantas-earning Visa credit card like ANZ Frequent Flyer Black – you can still collect these extra points through Velocity Daily.

Members can link up to five Visa cards with one Velocity account at any time, all of which must be issued in their name.

Most Velocity members should already have at least one Visa card at their disposal, as the Velocity Global Wallet feature attached to most Velocity Frequent Flyer membership cards backs onto the Visa network, and could be used to earn extra points via this program.

To celebrate the launch, Velocity is offering 500 bonus Velocity points on a member’s first Velocity Daily purchase before June 30 2018, plus a bonus 2,026 Velocity points after 10 eligible purchases before the same date, being Bondi’s postcode in points.

To enrol or browse the list of participating businesses, head to the Velocity Daily website – but keep in mind that if any of your card details change, such as your expiry date or card number, you’ll need to re-link your new Visa card to continue earning Velocity points.

Chris C.

Chris is a a former contributor to Executive Traveller.