Transfer Velocity Points To KrisFlyer Miles (And Vice Versa)

Does this mean we no longer need to worry about Kris miles expiring? Kris > velocity > Kris?

Hi Lucky,

I wanted to ask whether having Krisflyer Status is a big benefit when searching for SQ award? and is it worth it if I'm entrenched into QF? I'm going to OWE this membership year and I have a card that can earn Velocity points and QFF points, in this case should I be going to Velocity points?

Hi Lucky,

I think you have read the conversion incorrectly. It seems to me that you need 1.35 Krisflyer mile to get 1 Velocity point. So that means New York to Abu Dhabi via Velocity redemption would cost 110700 Krisflyer points.

Actually it's 1.35 to 1 going from SQ to VA as well, so not as lucrative as you thought.

@ Steve -- Whoops, thanks, I misread that. Post updated.

@ Jim -- Yup, thanks. My mistake!

Do you still need an OZ/NZ address to have a Velocity Account? I use a friends address to have an account. Looking at the distance based redemptions, I'm tempted to transfer starwood points to Velocity to book short Delta flights. Do you think there's any risk in having my account audited if I do so?

Thanks!

You haven't taken into account fuel surcharges. One program charges heaps, the other one doesn't.

Is this hinting you're flying to Singapore with your dad

The advantage of VA program over KF, which almost everyone fail to see, is that VA doesn't impose fuel surcharge, has much better award availability (esp between US and AUS), and the ability to redeem Etihad at much loose routing rule than AAdvantage.

I won't go into how easy it is to redeem seats between SYD/BNE and LAX as everyone knows it is the best in the transpacific route. But take BNE to LAX for example, KF on SQ would charge 85000pt + $733.16AUD. VA on VA would be 94000pt + 103.70AUD. A whopping $629.46 difference for a saving of 9000 points! That's $0.07/pt! Plus VA allows you to mix airline partners with VA metal, so you can connect to any US cities serviced by DL.

In terms of EY, as VA's maximum points required for any distance >9501 miles is 62.5/125/187K for Y/J/F. This will allow you to go to Asia / Australia via AUH! I recently redeemed GRU to BNE via AUH on EY for 125000 VA pts plus $72AUD in taxes, for a 30 hr flight in J (Even Etihad guest won't allow that)! I am not sure what the equivalent will cost for AAdvantage, but AFAIK is that AA won't allow you to go to Asia/Aus routing through middle east, so you will need 2 award tickets which can cost a fair bit. (Correct me if I am wrong, Ben, as I am not use to AAdvantage). This is very useful for non-US resident who can't earn AA miles easily, but can earn KF easily and would like to try EY (ie. residence and apartment!).

@Andrew (SJC) - If you don't mind losing 26% of your miles every transfer, yes.

@Michael Kao - The Residence is not in any way redeemable.

@ Andrew -- You lose a lot of value that way, but yeah, if you're willing to lose 35% of their value twice. 😀

@ Richard -- As far as I know KrisFlyer doesn't make any additional award space available to elite members, so it shouldn't make a difference. Having status helps with getting waitlisted awards cleared, but that's about the extent of it.

If you want to earn KrisFlyer miles there are better ways to do it than by accruing Velocity points, given that you'll be losing 35% value every time.

@ Michael Kao -- Thanks for the Velocity education. Very interesting, and I wasn't aware!

@Lucky

You are welcome.

As an Australian velocity is the second biggest FFP for us so I have a lot of experience with it. Most of our cobranded credit cards are either with Qantas or Virgin, no other choice! So we must know the value of VA points.

In a way I am hoping VA would sign up a similar deal with DL, this will then allow Velocity members to access both Star alliance (with access to SQ suite which no other star alliance has access to) Sky Team and Etihad! It will make velocity points a lot more valuable!