Getting To Christmas Island And Cocos Islands On Points

I recently met up with Stefan from Rapid Travel Chai for dinner. While we were talking about unusual travel destinations and far-flung islands around the world, he mentioned the possibility of booking a trip to Christmas Island (XCH) and Cocos Islands (CCK) later this year. Now, I had heard of Christmas Island before, but I didn't know much about it and what there was to do there.

Stefan wanted to see the annual red crab migration on Christmas Island, which sounded intriguing. The more I read and researched, the more they seemed like fascinating places to visit. Both islands are territories of Australia, despite their proximity to Indonesia, but getting there is not easy, since only one scheduled flight currently exists. This flight, operated by Virgin Australia, originates in Perth and terminates in Cocos Islands, with a quick layover in Christmas Island along the way. It then returns to Perth on the same route:

Perth to Christmas Island and Cocos Islands

The Perth to Christmas Island leg clocks in at exactly 4 hours (return is 3 hours 35 minutes), while the short hop from Christmas Island to Cocos Islands takes 1 hour 35 minutes. In between, there is a 45-minute layover. Of course, it makes sense to stop for a few days in Christmas Island if you are already taking the time to travel this far!

Virgin Australia typically operates an Embraer E-190 aircraft three times weekly (Tue/Fri/Sat) from Perth to Christmas Island and onward to Cocos Islands. It then makes the return journey on the same day. A fourth service to Christmas Island without the continuing leg operates on Thursdays using a Boeing 737-800.

The million dollar question, of course, is can this be booked using points? And if so, which partner, if any, offers the best value? To satisfy my curiosity, I decided to examine a number of different options for booking domestic award tickets from Perth to Christmas Island and Cocos Islands.

Virgin Australia

Naturally, I turned to Virgin Australia first to evaluate its award offerings on this route. Virgin Australia has two distance-based award charts, and the applicable one can be seen here:

Virgin Australia award chart

The upside here is that whether you are traveling to Christmas Island or Cocos Islands, the one-way cost in economy is exactly the same: 16,900 Velocity points plus taxes and fees. The downside, however, is that Virgin Australia doesn't allow stopovers on award redemptions, so you are forced to book each leg separately if you want to visit Christmas Island for a few days along the way:

Velocity points needed for Perth to Christmas Island

Velocity points needed for Perth to Cocos Islands (with no stopover)

Velocity points needed for Christmas Island to Cocos Islands

Therefore, if you wanted to book PER→XCH→CCK→PER, the overall cost would be 44,700 Velocity points plus very reasonable taxes and fees, which you can even use Velocity points to pay for. Virgin Australia is a 1:1 transfer partner of Starwood Preferred Guest, but despite the 25% bonus when transferring 20,000-point increments, this redemption is a bit steep (35,760 SPG points needed).

Virgin Atlantic

Let us look at Virgin Atlantic instead, which is a partner airline of Virgin Australia. Unfortunately, Virgin Atlantic does not publish an online award chart for domestic Australia travel, so I had to call in to ask for the miles needed. After a brief hold, the agent returned and offered the following cost for each segment:

• PER → XCH:  20,000 Flying Club miles
• XCH → CCK:  15,000 Flying Club miles

Note that these are for one-way redemptions, and since the agent said I had to book each segment separately, that meant the complete itinerary would cost a whopping 70,000 Flying Club miles total! Even if the agent was mistaken and I could book the Cocos Islands to Perth return as one award, the cost would still exceed Virgin Australia.

While Virgin Atlantic tacks on fuel surcharges to international award redemptions, domestic Australia flights are exempt, and taxes and fees appear to be similar to Virgin Australia. Miles transfer partners include American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and also Starwood Preferred Guest, all at a 1:1 ratio. Membership Rewards runs frequent transfer bonuses, while SPG offers a 25% bonus when transferring 20,000-point increments.

Virgin America

Next, I looked at Virgin America's redemption options. Using their handy partner redemption pricing tool, I found out that a round-trip award ticket from Christmas Island to Cocos Islands is 9,000 Elevate points. Virgin America charges more than half the round-trip cost for a one-way award ticket, and in this case, it came out to 5,500 Elevate points.

Elevate points needed for Christmas Island to Cocos Islands (round-trip)

For some reason, the Perth to Christmas Island route was not showing up in the tool, so I called the Elevate program for clarification. After some confusion and a long hold, the agent returned and informed me that the Perth to Christmas Island leg would cost 16,000 Elevate points round-trip, or 9,500 points one-way.

Like Virgin Atlantic, each leg had to be booked separately, so the total cost for the itinerary came out to 25,000 Elevate points. While this seems quite a bit lower than both previous options, it's important to note that Elevate points are typically worth more, and the only major partner, Membership Rewards, transfers in at a 2:1 ratio, meaning a total of 50,000 Membership Rewards points would be required to book this trip.

Delta Airlines

Delta Airlines is also a Virgin Australia partner, and they even allow a stopover and an open jaw on round-trip award tickets. However, at 60,000 SkyMiles, the cost for an award within the Southwest Pacific region is much too high.

Singapore Airlines

Singapore Airlines is a transfer partner of all three major flexible currencies, so it is quite easy to earn KrisFlyer miles. Taking a look at Singapore Airline's Virgin Australia award chart, I noticed that traveling within the Australia 3 region, which includes Perth, Christmas Island, and Cocos Islands, only costs 30,000 KrisFlyer miles round-trip in economy:

KrisFlyer award chart for Virgin Australia flights

Best of all, Singapore Airlines even allows a stopover and open jaw on round-trip domestic Australia award redemptions! Thus, a PER→XCH→CCK→PER itinerary would only cost 30,000 KrisFlyer miles plus extremely reasonable taxes and fees. This is by far the best option to redeem miles for travel to Christmas Island and Cocos Islands.

Conclusion

After evaluating the five award redemption options above, it is fairly clear that transferring Membership Rewards, Ultimate Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest points into the KrisFlyer program to redeem for domestic Virgin Australia flights to Christmas Island and Cocos Islands is the best way to go.

One major aspect I did not analyze was award redemptions to Christmas Island and Cocos Islands directly from North America. In this case, using Delta SkyMiles would make the most sense, since they allow you to fly, for example, from Los Angeles all the way to Cocos Islands on Virgin Australia for only 100,000 miles in economy or 160,000 miles in business class.

Delta only allows one stopover and one open jaw on round-trip award tickets, so you would have to plan your itinerary wisely, especially if you want to visit multiple destinations in Australia. You could also use KrisFlyer miles to book a separate domestic Australia award ticket, which would provide an additional stopover and open jaw.

Australia September 2013 - Virgin Australia 1117 Economy Class (BNE → PPP)

***This post is part 11 of a full trip report. The index can be found here***

Before heading to Brisbane Central Station, I made sure I still had enough funds on my TransLink go card. Using the handy journey planner tool, I was also able to find out the exact departure times for Airtrain and how long the trip to Brisbane Domestic Terminal would take (approximately 26 minutes).

Since last September, TransLink discontinued the off-peak discount for this route and the fare is now $16.50 AUD one-way throughout the day. However, if you pre-purchase the ticket online on Airtrain's website, there is still a small discount and the cost is $14.85 AUD.

Central Station to Brisbane Airport's Domestic Terminal

Boarding Airtrain

Much like the journey from Gold Coast to Brisbane, this train was fast, clean, and most importantly, complimentary WiFi-enabled. I honestly can't say enough good things about the public transport system in all the major cities of Australia.

Following a quick and pleasant ride, we pulled up to the Domestic Terminal and disembarked the train. Just past the station exit is a ticket counter where you can return your TransLink go card and get a refund for the $10 AUD deposit and any funds that may still be remaining in your account.

As I've mentioned already in a previous post, you must have used cash for your initial purchase (or the most recent top-up) of the TransLink go card to receive your refund in cash. If you used a credit or debit card, you will need to have an Australian bank account for them to deposit the refund directly.

Airtrain

Arriving at the Domestic Terminal

Airtrain ticket counter

Redeeming Virgin America Elevate Points For Virgin Australia Domestic Flights

I have been planning an Australia trip for fall of this year, and while British Airways Avios have been a huge help with booking domestic flights on Qantas, I've noticed that Qantas doesn't fly every single route in the country. And even when they do, schedules may be limited. Another downside is that you cannot use Avios to book flights on Jetstar, even though it is a subsidiary of Qantas.

That's when I began looking into redeeming some of my Virgin America Elevate points for flights on domestic Virgin Australia routes. One good thing about the Virgin Australia website is that it allows you to search for award seats even if you are not a member of their Velocity frequent flyer program. The search is quick and simple, and can be done directly from the home page.

If award seats are available, they will show up on the next screen, along with the number of Velocity points required. I was specifically looking for the flight from Brisbane (BNE) to Whitsunday Coast (PPP) since Qantas doesn't fly that route. Fortunately, availability appeared to be pretty good in economy.

Once I was sure award seats were available, I went to the handy Virgin America partner page, which details information specifically for Virgin Australia award redemptions. There, you can search for the route you want to redeem for, and the number of Elevate points required along with the estimated taxes will be displayed. It does not, however, display actual award seat availability.

I was happy that only 3,000 Elevate points were required. Purchasing the flight outright costs about $128 USD, and doesn't even include a checked bag, while the award option appears to include one checked bag up to 23 kg as long as you are a Velocity member. I followed the instructions on the page and called Virgin America at 1-877-359-8474 to book the flight.

Unfortunately, the first agent I got didn't seem to understand that I wanted to redeem my Elevate points for a domestic Virgin Australia flight. She attempted to talk to a supervisor, but still seemed confused. I decided to hang up and call again. The second agent knew exactly what she was doing, and transferred me immediately to the redemption desk. The friendly lady there did a quick search and told me she saw the available award seats I wanted. Taxes and fees came out to a very reasonable $27.60. The final redemption rate for this flight was approximately 3.3 cents per point, which is very good for the Elevate program.

The catch, however, was that it would take 24 hours just to send in the award request to Virgin Australia. Then, it would take up to a week for them to respond with the final confirmation. Once that happens, Virgin America would then call me to give me the confirmation number. I found the process to be a little tedious, but requiring only a little more patience than usual. Just shy of one week later, I received both an email and a call from Virgin America telling me that my award had been confirmed and everything was set.

Since I was slightly curious about the redemption rates using Elevate points on Virgin Australia, I decided to make a small chart listing the number of points required for many domestic destinations departing from Sydney, as well as a few international ones. Keep in mind that some international destinations such as Los Angeles have ridiculous fuel surcharges upwards of $700-$800 dollars. Otherwise, I found the requirements to be very reasonable, even generous in some cases. It turns out you can get some worthwhile use out of Virgin America Elevate points by redeeming them on domestic Virgin Australia flights!

Redeem Virgin America Elevate Points For International Partner Flights

Starting today, you can redeem Virgin America Elevate points for international flights on Virgin Atlantic. And starting on March 22, 2012, you can redeem for flights on Virgin Australia as well. Before you get too excited, let me just say that the taxes and fuel surcharges involved with these redemptions might shock you.

The Virgin America Elevate program is one of the least lucrative loyalty programs out there. The number of points needed for an award ticket is tied directly to the cost of the ticket, and you will never see the value of a point exceed 2.5 cents. So unlike legacy carrier programs, where you can stretch the value of a point by redeeming for premium class seats on partner airlines or getting creative with routing rules, the Elevate program is typically hard set in the return you get.

One of the worst features of the Elevate program, however, was that there was no way use your points for international flights, even though Virgin America is technically part of the Virgin family of airlines, including Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia. Finally, that policy has changed. Right now, you can go to the Virgin America website and calculate exactly how many points you need to travel anywhere the Virgin brand flies. To book your ticket, you must call Virgin America at 1-877-FLY-VIRGIN (1-877-359-8474). A $20 phone fee will apply.

At first glance, I was actually surprised at how few points are needed to book a long-haul award ticket. For example, only 15,000 points are needed to fly round-trip from New York to London Heathrow in economy, and 40,000 points to fly round-trip from Los Angeles to Sydney in economy. What really made me do a double-take, however, are the absolutely exorbitant taxes and fuel surcharges that are tacked onto the award tickets. More and more airlines are starting to include these fees, and I'm afraid it's only a matter of time before the legacy carriers follow suit (some already do, in fact). Here are just a few examples of the fees you will be paying when booking an international round-trip award ticket with Virgin America:

JFK - LHR

• Economy: 15,000 + $650
• Premium Economy: 25,000 + $750
• Upper Class: 35,000 + $1100

SFO - LHR

• Economy: 25,000 + $650
• Premium Economy: 30,000 + $750
• Upper Class: 50,000 + $1200

LHR - CPT

• Economy: 30,000 + $650
• Premium Economy: 45,000 + $800
• Upper Class: 60,000 + $900

LAX - SYD

• Economy: 40,000 + $749
• Premium Economy: 60,000 + $790
• Business: 80,000 + $849

Given that you can often purchase a round-trip revenue ticket from New York to London for around $800, that means you are basically redeeming 15,000 points to make up a difference of $150 - at a value of one cent per point. Not to mention the points you are not earning on an award ticket. Definitely not worth it in my opinion. There is also the option of redeeming for one-way award tickets, but the value there is even worse, as Virgin America will charge you more than half the points required for a round-trip.

All in all, it's still a positive thing that Virgin America is adding more redemption options. But at these non-favorable rates, I wouldn't recommend anyone start collecting Elevate points at this moment. Stick with the legacy carriers in large global alliances for now as you'll find much better redemption values there.