Credits earned with travel to South Africa & UAE?

[Nathant123]

Hi guys,


Just want a clarification on a few things. I’m flying this year to South Africa and the UAE for 2 weeks with my younger brother. Planning on flying to Joburg with Virgin (SYD - PER - PER - JNB) as a one way economy ticket which is also codeshare with South African airways. On return I’ll be flying business booked through Etihad as CPT - JNB - JNB - AUH (1 week stop in Dubai) AUH - MEL - MEL - SYD. This is 4 flights all up with Etihad and the last MEL - SYD with Virgin. Would that count as 4 separate sectors for points and credits? My brother is also on my velocity account so I would assume I get his points and credits as well? There is a direct AUH - SYD flight but I figured if I can squeeze more points and credits out of the MEL route which is the same price then it may be worth it. I already have 6 sectors covered and the flights would be well within my review date so I’m guessing this could help get closer to Platinum? Is it this simple or am I missing something? Appreciate any advice.


Cheers, Nathan

 

[bullerdude]

Hi guys,


Just want a clarification on a few things. I’m flying this year to South Africa and the UAE for 2 weeks with my younger brother. Planning on flying to Joburg with Virgin (SYD - PER - PER - JNB) as a one way economy ticket which is also codeshare with South African airways. On return I’ll be flying business booked through Etihad as CPT - JNB - JNB - AUH (1 week stop in Dubai) AUH - MEL - MEL - SYD. This is 4 flights all up with Etihad and the last MEL - SYD with Virgin. Would that count as 4 separate sectors for points and credits?

They should count as sectors if they VA flight numbers, and different flight numbers for each leg.

My brother is also on my velocity account so I would assume I get his points and credits as well?

Do you mean setup with family pooling?

There is a direct AUH - SYD flight but I figured if I can squeeze more points and credits out of the MEL route which is the same price then it may be worth it. I already have 6 sectors covered and the flights would be well within my review date so I’m guessing this could help get closer to Platinum? Is it this simple or am I missing something? Appreciate any advice.

Yep, overall its sounds fine, just depending on whether the flights have the correct codes to earn 'sectors' on your account and if family pooling is setup.

 

[Jack_OC]

On return I’ll be flying business booked through Etihad as CPT - JNB - JNB - AUH (1 week stop in Dubai) AUH - MEL - MEL - SYD. This is 4 flights all up with Etihad and the last MEL - SYD with Virgin. Would that count as 4 separate sectors for points and credits? My brother is also on my velocity account so I would assume I get his points and credits as well? There is a direct AUH - SYD flight but I figured if I can squeeze more points and credits out of the MEL route which is the same price then it may be worth it. I already have 6 sectors covered and the flights would be well within my review date so I’m guessing this could help get closer to Platinum? Is it this simple or am I missing something? Appreciate any advice.


Cheers, Nathan

As Bullerdude said, the key is whether you have VA or EY flight numbers. However, I'm guessing you have booked your flights with EY flight numbers, as I don't think you can book CPT-JNB or JNB-AUH with Virgin. If so, none of these flights will count as "eligible sectors" for the purposes of getting you to Platinum - even the MEL-SYD sector operated by VA will be treated as an EY flight rather than a VA one if it's on an EY code. The same issue applies on your outbound leg - if you are flying on SA flight numbers, those flights will not count as eligible sectors either.

I think the Status Credit earn would be the same either way and it will be significant - I believe you would earn a total of 50-60 SCs each for the outbound flights and 360 SCs each coming back - so a total of up to 840 SCs if your brother pools to you. However, the points earn is also affected by whether you are on VA codes or partners' codes. For example, if you are on VA codes flying long haul international, you would earn 2 points per mile, compared to potentially just 1.15 points per mile if you're on an EY code (depending on the specific Business fare class you book with EY). Also, I'm not sure if you already hold any status with Velocity, but if so the status bonus points are lower (or non existent) when flying on flights with a partner's code. For example, if you are Velocity Gold you get a 75% bonus on a VA code but only 50% bonus on an EY code, and no status bonus on an SA code.

Also just to confirm what Bullerdude said about Family Pooling - if you want to get his points and SCs - and of course if he agrees to that - make sure that your brother has this set up, and that he is pooling both points and SCs to you. If he is, then this trip will certainly get you close to the number of SCs needed for Platinum, but it may or may not help much re eligible sectors. Something else to consider is that if you both keep your own SCs, you would both get quite close to Gold from this trip alone (assuming you aren't there already).

 

[Nathant123]

Thanks for the replies guys. I'm currently silver and have already exceeded the necessary sectors required for gold as I've lately been flying domestic more often than ever. I already have family pooling set up with my parents (wish I had done this sooner) and I will set my brother up as well as he very rarely flies. I suppose I'm not too fussed with not earning any sectors with this particular journey as I'll quite easily get them within the year anyway. 8 eligible sectors would be like flying SYD - OOL return 4 times so quite easily achievable. Pretty decent that Velocity allows points and credits to be added to a single account. Thanks again for all the advice.

 

[Jack_OC]

Thanks for the replies guys. I'm currently silver and have already exceeded the necessary sectors required for gold as I've lately been flying domestic more often than ever. I already have family pooling set up with my parents (wish I had done this sooner) and I will set my brother up as well as he very rarely flies. I suppose I'm not too fussed with not earning any sectors with this particular journey as I'll quite easily get them within the year anyway. 8 eligible sectors would be like flying SYD - OOL return 4 times so quite easily achievable. Pretty decent that Velocity allows points and credits to be added to a single account. Thanks again for all the advice.

That sounds good, but I think it's worth clarifying that the end of your membership year doesn't have any relevance to qualifying for higher status with Velocity - the end of your membership year only defines a cut-off for retaining your existing status. This is an important difference between Qantas and Velocity. For example, let's say your membership year ends on 30 June. With Qantas, that means you would need to meet the Platinum requirements by 30 June, as your SCs and sectors return to zero on 1 July. That can be really annoying if you have a lot of travel either side of your membership date - for example, I once earned over 1,600 Qantas SCs in the space of 4 months, but I still didn't make Platinum as my SC balance returned to zero half way through. However, with Velocity that's not how it works - your SC and eligible sector balance is recalculated every day, to include whatever you have earned in the past year - in other words they use a rolling 12 month period.

This also means that it's not a case of needing an additional 8 eligible sectors and an additional 1,000 SCs to move from Gold to Platinum. You only need 8 eligible sectors and 1,000 SCs in total within the past year. You need to work out what your eligible sector balance and SC balance will be on the date when you complete your international trip - in other words, how many eligible sectors and SCs will you have earned in the 12 months leading up to that date. From what you say, you will not need anything like an additional 8 sectors, and your SC balance might well already surpass 1,000.

It can actually get a bit tricky to project your SC and sector balance with VA, since all of the time you will have sectors and SCs from last year dropping off as well as new ones being added. I set up an Excel spreadsheet for this purpose.

 

[Nathant123]

Hmm that seems quite tricky. Lets say hypothetically everything were to expire before this trip and I return to red with no status credits and no eligible sectors completed. On completion of this trip I would have around 840 credits as you've mentioned but no eligible sectors. If I'm to then take 4 return trips with virgin then that would satisfy the prerequisite for platinum presuming I have 1000 status credits? Basically I would have to go back through my history and track when each status credit was earned and then assume that it will expire 12 months from that date and not according to the review date?

 

[Jack_OC]

Hmm that seems quite tricky. Lets say hypothetically everything were to expire before this trip and I return to red with no status credits and no eligible sectors completed.

While your status may change on your review date (e.g. you may drop from Silver to Red), your SCs and eligible sectors would not return to zero on that date, unless you have done no eligible flying since exactly 12 months previously.

On completion of this trip I would have around 840 credits as you've mentioned but no eligible sectors. If I'm to then take 4 return trips with virgin then that would satisfy the prerequisite for platinum presuming I have 1000 status credits?

If it's correct that you would have zero eligible sectors and no SCs prior to your international trip, and that all of your international flights are on partners' codes, then yes, you would need another 4 return VA trips to meet the eligible sector criterion, and also approx 160 more SCs. Bear in mind that 4 short return domestic trips on Getaway fares will now earn only 40 SCs in total though, so you would need to consider going further and/or buying more expensive fare classes and/or taking more than 4 trips.

Having said that, I thought you said you have already exceeded the number of eligible sectors required for Gold in your current membership year? If so, your eligible sector and SC balance should definitely not be zero prior to your international trip, so you would hopefully be much closer to Platinum than in the example above.

Basically I would have to go back through my history and track when each status credit was earned and then assume that it will expire 12 months from that date and not according to the review date?

Yes, that's exactly right. That's why I use an Excel spreadsheet - I enter every flight into it along with the date and the relevant number of SCs and eligible sectors earned, and then create a new line with a date exactly 1 year later where I deduct the same number of SCs and eligible sectors. Then just track the running totals.

It's even more complicated if you're trying to track your progress towards retaining your current status (as that's based on what you have earned only during the current membership year) at the same time as your progress towards moving up to the next status level (as that's based on what you have earned over the rolling 12 month period). Virgin don't like to make things simple! Although in fairness this complication actually makes it easier to move up through the status levels.

 

[Nathant123]

Thanks again for your help mate. At this stage I'm hoping the trip will be before the review date but now my brother isn't entirely sure if he can take time off when we were planning so it may be pushed back a little which means the review date may come before the holiday. It is what it is I suppose but either way it seems I'll rack up a fair few credits. Meeting the eligible sectors would be far easier for me than to rack up the status credits as my most common route at this stage is SYD - OOL.