Company keeps SC and FF points

[lovetravellingoz]

Why not ask the lounge for the name against that velocity number. If it's your name then ring to change the login password. Or something like that.

Am I missing something here..is not the name and FF number all detailed on the Boarding Pass?

If it is not your name...it is illegal to fly.


However no point trying to dud the employer.

Only approach you can take is to have a chat and say you are uncomfortable if any airlines rules are being breeched, as it is your name involved.

 

[medhead]

Am I missing something here..is not the name and FF number all detailed on the Boarding Pass?

If it is not your name...it is illegal to fly.


However no point trying to dud the employer.

Only approach you can take is to have a chat and say you are uncomfortable if any airlines rules are being breeched, as it is your name involved.

Well clearly not, since the OP's number is not getting the points. So it's not the OPs FF number which means there must be a different number. Then the question become whose name associated with the different number. If it happens to be the same as the OPs name, that is a massive coincidence. It then becomes questionable that the points are going to the employer and not to someone who has dodgyed up an account. All of which means I reject you're assertion that I have suggested dudding the employer. The whole point of my post is to get to the bottom of this as it sounds very dodgy.

 

[eastwest101]

Here is a question that may be a little tough for us to answer. But if say the member of say EY/DL or another VA partner frequent flyer scheme fly on a VA flight then what does the boarding pass say in the area where the VFF no usually is? Is it sometbing like partner silver/gold etc? Or just left blank? Any DL Skymiles members here whom have kept tbeir VA boarding passes lately?

 

[Clivem]

Irrespective of the T&C, you can only pool one other adult into your account can't you? Doesn't sound like a very efficient way of doing this particular activity.

Wow this whole thing has a very bad odour doesn't it - I know it would be getting a bit extreme, but to the work around the you can only pool to another family member - Could they be 'cascading' the points transfer (bending section 12 of the T&C's - EG one big 'happy' family at the same address ) ... EG person A hold the prime account ...Person B has to transfer all to A ..... C to B (and then B to A in the cascade) etc etc ....is that a possibility?.....can that happen? ....Given how 'uber dodgy' this whole thing seems nothing would surprise me here.......

Regardless, the travel policies of some companies does my head in and is in the vast majority of case appears to be very counter productive, as other have noted.

 

[grubbidok]

My guess is that it's not so much someone collecting points, but the company is probably assigning a 'work' FF account for the OP to make every 5th flight or so a free one (which would actually add up if the OP is flying every week as they said).

Of course, no-one actually knows yet so it's all just conjecture.

But this is fraudulent (at least from a technical legal perspective, even if 'intent' isn't there), does breach the VA T&Cs and as such puts the OP's own personal FF account (and the status they've earned) at risk, as well as risking the new account being shut down too.

It's not just about points, you could lose your real account!

I would speak to the travel agent/boss, express these concerns, highlight very clearly you've got no issue at all with points earned on company travel being used for company travel (this is really all they'll want to hear), but simply highlight that it could cause issues (for them and for you, yours won't be the only account shut) and offer them an easy solution (i.e. you will redeem every xth company flight with your points, you will make regular transfers [also technically a breach though as they aren't a family member, but not as big as what's occurring] or you or the travel person will track and use points as appropriate).

 

[lovetravellingoz]

All of which means I reject you're assertion that I have suggested dudding the employer..

Well we may think differently, but your line above suggested to me that you were recommending the employee act against his employer.

If it's your name then ring to change the login password. Or something like that.

Which to me means changing something without permission that the employer has specifically set up.

Such an action would clearly antagonise the employer.

The employer may not be right in their actions, but the employer remains the employer and to act in such a way would be a career limiting move in my view, with the best case scenario being to create a lot of bad blood. And again the employer, is the employer.

However the employer does not have the right to demand, or expect, an employee to defraud, breech T&C, fly under a different name (which may not be occurring as they probably have used the same name with a different address).

Again I would suggest that he talks with his employer about that he is uncomfortable if any breeches in T&C are occurring. If the name on the boarding pass is not his, then he should indicate that he cannot fly.

As another poster has suggested a compromise may be for the employee to agree to book a work flight with points whenever enough points have been earnt. That way he gets the status benefits.

People work the system all the time. However the unfair aspect here would seem to be that the employee is taking all the risk, and the employer all the benefit....and that the employer expects the employee to act in a dishonest way.

 

[Dalescott]

Is the Company Australian or foreign international. Do they have corporate account, and have they some arrangement with VA or more importantly Virgin Atlantic. Have they done a deal with VA to for go FF points and SC's for cost savings. They may in fact not be getting any points for the flights. That is the situation with my daughter, who works for a VERY large US law firm, the USA. No points, no SC's, no J just cattle class, this is because of the hangover from the GFC.
I would have a chat with the person organizing the flights, a quiet chat may answer a number of questions.

 

[AdMEL]

I rarely fly VA so I'm not very savvy about Velocity, but I'm still struggling with the idea of the company earning SCs. How can this be? What use are SCs to a non flying entity? Points on the other hand can be exchanged for airfares or upgrades for other people, so I get how that works (whether it's legal or not in Velocity).

I'm familiar with the concept of some people who fly QF for work only earning SCs but not FF points when they fly, but I've never heard of an employer keeping the SCs before.

I should clear some things up, it appears to be standard company policy they earn the frequent flyer points. Its not 1 person earning them for themselves, the company earn the frequent flyer points to redistribute to save on travel costs. I think the keeping of status credits is just a side effect of them using their frequent flyer number to earn the points which at the same time means they earn SC.

Things like finding another employer isn't that simple. This dodgyness aside, I enjoy the work I do and the company I work for. It really is 1 of a kind, so they kind of have me by the balls that there is literally no other company that employs for the work I do.

I have a feeling they setup the velocity account in my name and pool to their account. Possibly the account they are using just hasn't earned status yet since I'm new and they aren't "taking them" but I don't have the login details to see what's going on.

I think I am going to just have the lounge/ call centre update the bookings as they come to my frequent flyer number. If I get pulled up on it, I'll plead ignorant that I was just doing it for the status benefits (which is my main concern anyway) and transfer them the points.

Whilst the Velocity t&c's don't specifically state that a company cannot have an account and only an individual can, they do refer to membership of a person or individual many times. Also, the sign up makes no provision for a company to have an account, only an individual.

Given this, I assume it is only possible for a person to have an account, not a company.

My guess is that one of the following things has happened:

1. The employer has set up a second Velocity account in the employee's name. As has already been mentioned, this is a breach of the t&c's, which clearly state that you can only have one account. As such, your personal account is at risk of being closed, with loss of points and SC's. The account(s) the employer has set up is/are also at risk.

2. The Employer had set up a FF account with another airline (likely in the US) in the employee's name.

3. The FF number of a person from the employer company is being used, such as a director, or the travel coordinator (who may have suggested it to the boss to cut costs). Whilst I'm not sure whether this is possible, I suspect it is, given lots of organisations don't cross reference account numbers with names. This probably raises another set of breaches with respect to pooling.

None of these are a position I'd want to be in! Especially if they do something like this for international travel. Better no frequent flyer number is used.