There is a new, more accessible way to fly to Bali on points. This option is cheaper than both Qantas and Velocity points and you are guaranteed a lie-flat-seat on every flight in both directions. Sounds good? read on.
Flying Australian Carriers to Bali
Bali is a popular travel destination for Australian’s with about a million of us visiting this island-paradise each year. While both Qantas and Virgin Australia operate multiple flights between Australia and Bali, the route is generally served by the single-aisle B-737 offering recliner seats in Business Class.
This may be ok on the outbound flights which mostly operate during daytime hours, on overnight flights coming home though, it can (and does) get extremely uncomfortable.
In case of Virgin, they simply do not have widebody’s in their fleet anymore. With Qantas, they do occasionally schedule the A-330 on Sydney – Denpasar route during periods of high demand such as School Holidays or the end of year festive season, but for most part it is the B-737 that does the heavy lifting. This is where Virgin Atlantic’s recent addition to the SkyTeam Alliance becomes important.
Virgin Atlantic Joins SkyTeam
After operating outside of any major alliance for decades, Virgin Atlantic recently joined SkyTeam. You can read more on this over here. This means that members of Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Program are now able to earn and redeem Virgin points on most SkyTeam member airlines.
Here is Flying Club’s redemption table for SkyTeam. All prices are for one-way travel.
| Flight distance (miles) | Economy | Business |
|---|---|---|
| 0-500 | 5,500 | 14,500 |
| 501-1,000 | 7,000 | 15,500 |
| 1,001-1,500 | 10,000 | 21,500 |
| 1,501-2,250 | 11,500 | 35,000 |
| 2,250-3,000 | 15,500 | 40,000 |
| 3,001-4,000 | 20,500 | 60,000 |
| 4,001-5,000 | 25,500 | 75,000 |
| 5,001-6,000 | 31,000 | 85,000 |
| 6,001-7,000 | 37,000 | 100,000 |
| 7,001-12,000 | 50,000 | 140,000 |
Flying Club redemption table for SkyTeam Member Airlines
Flying Club is one of those foreign Frequent Flyer Programs that can be incredibly valuable, but does not get nearly a tenth as much coverage as the likes of KrisFlyer and Asia Miles in the Australian points and miles community. I have previously written about the program and some of the sweet-spots it offers on partner airlines which you can check out on this link.
What makes this development really interesting is that Flying Club is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards Program in Australia which makes earning Virgin Points fairly easy. If you have Amex cards such as The American Express Explorer Credit Card or The American Express Platinum Card, you can transfer points to Flying Club in the ratio of 2:1 (2 Membership Rewards Points = 1 Virgin Point).
Redeem Virgin Points to fly SkyTeam Member Airlines
While SkyTeam boasts a long list of 20 airline partners, only a handful operate flights to Australia. In this post, I want to exclusively focus on Garuda Indonesia which is a member of SkyTeam and has a small but growing network into Australia.
Garuda Indonesia Network into Australia
At the time of writing this post, Garuda Indonesia operates non-stop flights from Jakarta and Denpasar (Bali) to both Sydney and Melbourne. Precisely :
- Garuda flies 2x weekly between Sydney and Denpasar, rising to 3x weekly from 1 April 2023 and 4x weekly from 27 June 2023.
- Garuda presently operates a single weekly service between Melbourne and Denpasar, rising to 2x weekly from 1 April 2023 and 3x weekly from 3 July 2023.
You can check out Garuda’s detailed current and future Australian schedule over here.
The best part about Garuda is that all of it’s Australian flights are operated by twin-aisle wide body planes such as the A-330 or B-777 offering lie-flat-seats in Business Class. This means that on your future red-eye flight home from Bali, there’s no need to suffer for up to 6 hours flying this;
Qantas B-737 Business Class
when you could really stretch-out, arrive fresh and hit the ground running onboard this;
Garuda Indonesia A-330 Business Class
In terms of pricing, you can fly Garuda Indonesia Business Class from Sydney and Melbourne to Denpasar (Bali) one-way for 40,000 Virgin points. That compares quite favourably with Virgin Australia which charges 49,500 Velocity points and Qantas, which at 57,000 Qantas points has the priciest redemption on this route.
Searching & Booking Garuda flights
One downside of redeeming Virgin points on Garuda is that it is not currently possible to search or book these flights on Virgin Atlantic website. It is understood that later in 2023, members will be able to book more SkyTeam partners online.
For now, the best way to search Garuda award availability is on Delta. If you don’t have a Delta SkyMiles account, you can create one here for free. Once you set up the account, it is quite straight forward to search for flights.
You can search Gardua Indonesia award space on Delta
As you can see above, Garuda Indonesia releases up to 5 Business Class seats to SkyTeam partners. Ignore the pricing as it relates to Delta SkyMiles.
The other nice thing about searching for award space on Delta is that you can bring up the monthly award price calendar instead of searching 1 day or a week at a time.
Delta SkyMiles Monthly Award Price Calendar View
Isn’t it wonderful to see so much Business Class award availability between Bali and Sydney on every Garuda flight in July 2023 😎😎
Once you have found availability on your preferred date, you need to call Flying Club on their UK number 0344 209 2722 or U.S. number 1800 862 8621.
This might seem like a lot of hassle, but having personally redeemed Virgin points on the phone, I can assure you that compared to Qantas, Asia Miles or Qatar Airways, most Flying Club phone agent’s are highly knowledgeable and efficient in their job. As long as you accurately provide them the flight details, the booking process will be a breeze.
In Conclusion
Virgin Atlantic joining SkyTeam has made previously difficult to redeem Garuda flights much more attainable. Compared to both Virgin Australia and Qantas, Garuda not only seem to release a lot more award space, it also consistently deploys wide body planes on Australian routes offering a much improved travel experience.
Virgin Points are easy to come by in Australia as the Flying Club Program partners with American Express. If you don’t yet have a Membership Rewards Points earning card, check out The American Express Explorer Credit Card and The American Express Platinum Card which are both currently offering increased Welcome Offer.
Have you ever redeemed Virgin Points? Leave a comment below.
