Which Offers Best Value For Money?

• Both Qantas and Virgin Australia offer frequent flyer points, but one has more partners and the other has easier redemptions.
• Both allow transfers from credit card and loyalty programs.
• Family pooling and transfer policies differ, with recent changes narrowing advantages previously held by Velocity.

Qantas and Virgin Australia have decent frequent flyer programmes, and many are members of both. If you buy the marketing spin, your life will get so much better after signing up. It probably won’t, but joining one is an avenue to free flights. Behind the hype, which of Australia’s two top frequent flyer programmes offers the best bang for your buck?

Will I Earn More Points with Qantas Frequent Flyer or Virgin Velocity?

A short domestic economy class flight will earn you 800 points on Qantas while Virgin Australia pays five points per dollar spent on airfares (dropping to four points next April). Flying greater distances on more expensive fares further up the front of the plane will generate substantially more points. Elites on both airlines also get bonus points.

Both Qantas Frequent Flyer and Velocity offer ample opportunities to earn points away from flying. For a fast fix, credit card sign-up bonuses and credit card spending on certain cards are two ways to earn a sizeable number of points fairly quickly. 

Both schemes also have a large number of retail partners. Qantas teams up with the Woolworth’s Everyday Rewards programme and Velocity partners with Flybuys and Coles. You can earn Qantas Frequent Flyer points by filling up your car at BP and Velocity points at 7-Eleven, among others.

The capacity to earn points depends on the frequent flyer member channelling their spending towards their particular airline partners and, of course, the spend amount. 

A single-person household is likely to spend less than a large household where there is family points pooling and Mum runs her own business and also taps into additional earning programmes such as Qantas Business Rewards.

While both Qantas Frequent Flyer and Velocity have their strong points, in terms of earning opportunities, Qantas has the edge. They have more partners and more opportunities to earn points. Qantas’s inflight earning opportunities are also more straightforward, being distance and fare type-based, rather than spend-based.

Is it Easier to Redeem Points on Virgin Australia or Qantas Flights?

If accruing points is relatively easy, getting value-for-money redemptions is the harder part. Most people look to redeem their points on flights. Both Qantas and Virgin Australia have value-for-money redemptions in all travel classes on all routes. The trick is finding one.

Being a OneWorld member, Qantas has a wider range of partner airlines you should be able to redeem your Qantas Frequent Flyer points on, but any regular traveller knows this isn’t how it pans out.

Tried to book a reward seat on Qatar Airways using Qantas points lately? Any luck on Cathay? Seen any entry-level (Classic Reward) availability in premium cabins on any Qantas flights to Europe? Probably not.

Virgin Australia has fewer airline partners, but a decent selection nonetheless – ANA, Qatar, Singapore, United, and Air Canada, among others. Your mileage may vary, but I’d argue it is easier to find a decent value redemption using Velocity points than Qantas points for international travel. Easier. Not easy.

Both Qantas and Virgin Australia have reasonably decent entry-level redemption availability for domestic travel in their economy cabins. Redemptions on Virgin Australia start at 5,900 points for short sectors such as Canberra – Brisbane and 8,000 points on Qantas.

Entry-level redemptions in domestic business class are harder to find but around. For redemptions, Virgin Australia has the edge because of lower cost and slightly better availability.

Can I transfer points to my Qantas or Virgin Australia frequent flyer account?

Qantas and Virgin Australia allow their frequent flyers to transfer points into accounts. American Express Membership Rewards, Marriott Bonvoy, Woolworth Everyday Rewards, and HSBC Rewards for Miles are among the programmes that will allow you to transfer points to your Qantas Frequent Flyer account.

Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors, ANZ Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, NAB Rewards, and Suncorp Credit Card Rewards are among the programmes that allow you to transfer points to Velocity. These can be a great way of funnelling points into your frequent flyer account, especially if your card spend is high.

Separately, both airlines allow you to transfer points between family members under family pooling arrangements. What constitutes a family member? Someone with a frequent flyer account linked to the same home address.

Family pooling was a Velocity strong point because the program also allowed pooling of status points. If Dad paid for a family of four to fly to Italy, Dad would get the points and status credits. However, Velocity is watering down its family pooling benefits next year, although the change impacts status rather than earning or transferring points.

Qantas family transfers are fairly straightforward. The airline allows you to make an unlimited number of transfers (a minimum of 1,500 points per transfer) to family members.

Velocity has generally had the edge when it comes to transferring points because of its family pooling perks. Now that’s changing, there’s little to distinguish the two airlines other than that they partner with some different financial institutions.

Comparing earning, redeeming, and transferring opportunities, Qantas Frequent Flyer offers better scope for earning points while Virgin Australia’s Velocity provides slightly more opportunities to redeem points for flights, particularly at entry-level rates. In terms of transferability, the two programmes are reasonably similar, with your preference likely to depend on who you bank with and who you hold credit cards with.