How do you snaffle business class upgrades with Velocity points?

6 replies

missmad

Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards

Member since 08 Nov 2018

Total posts 4

im now a gold member, we have always been economy flyers, but a few trips, my last shouting myself a business upgrade got me to gold and ive managed to accrue a couple hundred thousand points. now all i need to do is find 2 return flights from melb - LA that i can upgrade two seats each way to business. preferably in december. am i asking for the impossible, what are the chances? or is there a better month to fly.....i didnt realise it would be this hard to find a seat let alone 2 x return. hubby has never flown business before and id really love to be able to book this for him as a surprise for xmas.

patrickk

Qantas

Member since 19 Apr 2012

Total posts 737

Mid December isn’t bad as fewer business related bookings as is mid-week bookings. But yes start with flexible economy tickets and go from there.

Brandon Loo

Member since 10 Jul 2018

Total posts 105

This is in the Virgin Australia section, so she probably means Velocity Gold and flying on VA.


Only Gold and Platinum can request upgrades to LAX, but only from an Economy Freedom fare or premium economy to be eligible.

The upside is that this reduces your competition a lot so you do have a chance.

If you must fly on those dates and there's no reward availability, I'd suggest you buy your cash tickets first and lodge an upgrade request immediately.

Check often for reward availability because if the two seats open up, you can skip the queue and upgrade immediately by calling Velocity.

Quite often seats will open up in the last week before the flight, so that's when you need to be checking often.

Perhaps getting Expertflyer Premium for the final month and setting an alert can help.

In the attached screenshot, I got notified on 8 March that the last two business class seats on my friend's 9 March flight were finally opened up as reward seats, so they called up to secure them.

Last editedby Brandon Loo at Mar 21, 2019, 09:33 AM.

missmad

Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards

Member since 08 Nov 2018

Total posts 4

thanks everyone, i was intending on getting the freedom fares and then upgrading from there. i would just hate to book them and pay more for the freedom fares as opposed to cheap economy tickets and then not get any kind of upgrade that would really suck! im looking at beginning of dec - just before xmas...last year i done this same flight and it wasnt full so fingers crossed!


BJ01

Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards

Member since 07 Dec 2015

Total posts 57

I travel BNE-LAX or SYD-LAX 4 or 5 times a year with VA. Where I haven't booked J, I've always booked Premium Economy and I've always had an upgrade request granted despite no award availability showing. I am not so bold as to believe this is par for the course and that there is likely a bit of luck at play here also!

Getting a full award J seat however on this route with VA - nigh impossible in my experience
Good Luck and enjoy VA Business!

missmad

Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards

Member since 08 Nov 2018

Total posts 4

This is in the Virgin Australia section, so she probably means Velocity Gold and flying on VA.

Only Gold and Platinum can request upgrades to LAX, but only from an Economy Freedom fare or premium economy to be eligible.

The upside is that this reduces your competition a lot so you do have a chance.

If you must fly on those dates and there's no reward availability, I'd suggest you buy your cash tickets first and lodge an upgrade request immediately.

Check often for reward availability because if the two seats open up, you can skip the queue and upgrade immediately by calling Velocity.

Quite often seats will open up in the last week before the flight, so that's when you need to be checking often.

Perhaps getting Expertflyer Premium for the final month and setting an alert can help.

In the attached screenshot, I got notified on 8 March that the last two business class seats on my friend's 9 March flight were finally opened up as reward seats, so they called up to secure them.

Last edited by Brandon Loo at Mar 21, 2019, 09.33 AM.

can you explain to me how this works? i joined up to the expert flyerpremium and it is showing award availability in several flights on days i want yet virgin is saying there is nothing available, im confused??

GB18

Member since 24 Oct 2018

Total posts 16

I have gotten award seats on BNE-LAX return before but booked one direction about 10 months out and the other direction 4 months out.


The 6 months in between I would check every few days but as this was a snow holiday I was flexible with dates as long as my holiday ended up being 4-5 weeks long. I also checked SYD & MEL for increased chances but didn’t need to that far.

This was flying solo however, if I was traveling with my partner I’d probably try and upgrade from economy or premium. I’ve seen premium saver only a few hundred $$$ more than freedom economy as well and often thought I would rather pay that price and fly premium than freedom economy and miss out of an upg

Hi Guest, join in the discussion on How do you snaffle business class upgrades with Velocity points?

Attach Files