[Update: BP and Qantas have announced some details of their new partnership. Please see here.]
Velocity has lost its bid to stop BP terminating their agreement that allowed Velocity members to earn and burn points at BP. The Queensland Supreme Court has ruled that the partnership terminated effective from July 1, 2017. BP had previously flagged its intention to terminate the agreement due to Velocity entering into an agreement with Flybuys.
At present, BP are still offering Velocity points, but we can imagine that this offer will soon cease. At present, there is no time frame on when this will be. We will update this post when this information comes to hand.
Given that the partenrship has ended, we will now look at where BP and Velocity may go from here.
Velocity
At the heart of the dispute between Velocity and BP was Velocity entering into an agreement with Flybuys. In particular, the issue was with the participation of Coles Express in Flybuys.
Members of Flybuys were able to earn points while spending at Coles Express. From there, members could convert their flybuys points to Velocity Points through the Flybuys redemption process.
While that was rather indirect, it did provide a mechanism for earning Velocity points through Coles Express. The obvious direction for Velocity would be to deepen the relationship between Coles Express and Velocity. As an example, we could envision that the Status Credit offer for spend at Coles and Liquorland may be extended to include spend at Coles Express.
BP
In the case of BP, it has already been flagged that they will be entering an agreement with Woolworths Rewards. Under this proposal, spend at BP will earn Woolworths Rewards points. Members will also be able to use earned points as part payment against the purchase.
The ACCC has proposed to allow the partnership between BP and Woolworths Rewards. In any event, this agreement would have required the partnership
It looks as 2018 is shaping up as a year of change for those earning frequent flyer points from fuel purchases. We will post these changes as they are announced.