Virgin Australia has launched a scheme which lets pets flying on its domestic services earn Velocity points for their owners. While every point helps, we have to say this is a relatively expensive way of earning them.
The points earned are regardless of distance, and require the owner to be on the same flight. For any flight, you can book a maximum of two pet carriers (the pets travel in the hold, folks). A base-level Red member earns 300 points per carrier; Silver score 450 points; Gold earn 525; and Platinum earn 600.
A flight from Melbourne to Sydney will earn you a minimum of 912 points, making you worth at least three times as much as your pet in points terms. However, if you shop around, your fare won’t necessarily be three times as expensive. The minimum charge for a pet per sector is $55, rising to $100 or more for larger dogs. That makes pets better value on longer distance flights, but you’ll earn far more points than them on those sectors.
If you love your animal so much it flies with you regularly, we imagine you won’t care about the fares anyway. Nonetheless, we can’t see this as a huge step forward for your points balance.
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2 responses to “Virgin Australia’s Frequent Flyer Points For Pets Are Bad Value”
From memory, with Qantas you can take pets as part of your checked baggage quota. This was a few years back though, but the $55 charge for Virgin, could make it attractive to go with Qantas.
I think it’s more a gimmick to advertise that you can take your pet with you when you fly. I came across someone recently, who used to pay up to $7-8k to take their dog with them on their annual trips back home to England (and put them in quarantine on their return). They justified it by the fact they didn’t have kids so weren’t paying private school fees.
Back to the future – Ansett were offering points for pets in the last century!