How we flew business class on our honeymoon for $400
This Melbourne couple managed to travel to Singapore, Paris, Milan, Rome, the Amalfi Coast, Doha and Bangkok for their honeymoon - often in business class - for just $400. And they accumulated enough points to do all this in just six months. Here's how they did it.
Lifestyle
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Melbourne couple Ben and Vincent got married August last year, and set off on their honeymoon two days later.
Six months prior to their big day they gave themselves a goal - to accumulating enough Velocity points to travel in style on their honeymoon.
Despite the short time frame, they actually managed to do it - they booked business class seats on Singapore Airlines to Paris for 184,000 Velocity points. They also booked flights from Rome to Bangkok for 156,000 points. All they had to pay was around $400 in fees.
"We have a good friend that was big on getting credit cards with points and he explained how he was able to travel business class on points to Europe and back," Ben tells Escape.
"I hadn't paid much attention to credit cards with points as I had a normal one and was just sticking with that, but our friend explained it was easy to change so we did.
"I used a few comparison websites to work out the best one for us that has the most points, but within our limits. A big deciding factor apart from the initial sign-on bonus point off with minimum spend was if the cards offered BPAY which you can use to pay your home utilities bills to help generate more points."
"I applied for the Amex card first and then both Vincent and I then applied for Citibank cards, all of which all had initial bonus points point sign on schemes and deals.
"We used the Amex with a larger limit to pay all our deposits with venues and suppliers so get points quickly. Amex also offered other perks such as complementary flights and insurances etc.
"The big thing was making sure we paid off the cards in full each month and had no balance owing before applying for the next credit card with bonus sign on bonus point deals.
"We also made sure that we would each apply for a new card within a 2–3-month period of each other so that we would both get the initial sign-on bonus points then only use one card between us moving forward to make sure it was easier to keep track of spending".
The couple also took advantage of the Velocity e-store.
"The e-store always has promotions with different brands," explains Vincent.
"We'd keep an eye out when shopping and make sure all purchases were made via using the e-store Shop & Earn plug-in.
"Usually, we'd earn 1 or 2 points per dollar spent but we'd keep an eye on the bonus point offers when you could earn 4 or 5. Purchases ranged from the Iconic, Pet-Barn for puppy supplies and even Chemist Warehouse".
"We also did a lot of shopping via the e-Store for birthday gifts and our Christmas shopping. We turned on the Velocity alert so when browsing online we would see the alerts".
The couple also signed up with Velocity's partners including 7-Eleven, Myer and FlyBuys (to help earn points on their everyday expenses including groceries and filling up on petrol), and signed up for Family Points Pooling to combine their points.
Finally: Ben and Vincent's tips for finding great flights using Velocity points
"Rather than going from Melbourne to the final destination, we looked for the longest legs and searched those first as priority. We also looked at the Virgin partner flight maps to work out different routes. That was how we found business class flights from Singapore to Paris and then Rome to Bangkok via Doha.
"We also tried looking on days like Sunday and week days to fly instead of Friday and Saturday".
Originally published as How we flew business class on our honeymoon for $400
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