Virgin Money credit card customers will earn fewer Virgin Australia Velocity frequent flyer points on their everyday spends from next year with the popular two-for-one flight discounts also being scrapped.

Come April 1 2016, Virgin Australia Velocity Flyer Visa cardholders will earn a lower 0.66 Velocity points per dollar on the first $1,500 spent every month – down from the current rate of one point per dollar for the same – and will continue to earn 0.5 points per dollar above this threshold.

To lessen the pain, these cardholders will also keep earning one point per dollar on all spend with Virgin Australia, such as on flights and airport lounge memberships, without any capping or tiering.

Similar changes are afoot for Virgin Australia Velocity High Flyer Visa users with the card’s more-impressive 1.25 points/$1 earning rate pared back to an even one point per dollar on the first $10,000 of monthly spend, and 0.5 points per dollar thereafter (uncapped).

However, from April 1 the card also picks up Virgin Australia as a bonus partner – awarding three Velocity points per dollar spent with Virgin Australia (uncapped), up from 1.25 Velocity points regardless of where you shop and spend.

That’s also when the discounted two-for-one flight benefits of each card come to an end, instead replaced with a yearly $129 Virgin Australia gift voucher from “mid-2016”, and also two free Virgin Australia lounge passes for High Flyer customers.

Earlier this week, Citibank – which issues Virgin Money credit cards – also unveiled reductions to frequent flyer earning rates across its range of points-earning plastic, affecting all Qantas, Virgin Australia, Singapore Airlines and Emirates-earning cards.

For more information, head to the Virgin Money website.

Also read: Citibank cuts credit card frequent flyer points

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