I've just reached Velocity Platinum

[Indiana01]

Just read Matt's article as well, I was intrigued with:

• The “guaranteed Economy Reward Seats for a family holiday” benefit can also be used on international flights (Gold members can only use this for domestic bookings)

Would I be correct in saying that I could get a reward seat & then select Row 14 because of platinum status?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Just read Matt's article as well, I was intrigued with:

• The “guaranteed Economy Reward Seats for a family holiday” benefit can also be used on international flights (Gold members can only use this for domestic bookings)

Would I be correct in saying that I could get a reward seat & then select Row 14 because of platinum status?

Yes!

But beware, the ‘guarantee’ is fairly limited. VA has a window of three days either side of your preferred day. And they can pick any flight on the day they choose.

I tried to use it for Bali, but they came back saying there was a flight two days earlier, so no dice. Meaning, I guess, if the school holidays start on Saturday, they could have you flying out on Wednesday.

 

[im.daniel]

Yes!

But beware, the ‘guarantee’ is fairly limited. VA has a window of three days either side of your preferred day. And they can pick any flight on they day they choose.

Also, if there is indirect award routing via another city, they will tell you to book that instead

For example - I wanted to book 2x ADL-MEL (Y) flight 6 months in advance for the Taylor Swift concert using the Plat Guarantee. They told me there was ADL-SYD/BNE-MEL availability (that I couldn’t see online) on the day I wanted, but no direct ADL-MEL reward seats.

Because there was indirect availability - the Plat reward seat guarantee did not apply.

Absolute rubbish benefit. I ended up booking QF instead, using my QF Plat status to request them to convert a revenue to reward seat. QF does this MUCH better than VA.

 

[Bolter]

I have to agree. I was happy to finally hit it - but not much difference to Gold. It's nice to have the fancy Plat phone number that gets answered pretty quickly...

This is a bit of a secret. Is there a dedicated number or do you just have to whisper magic words? I'm guessing that your member number is logged and they can tell whether you're genuine. I always ask for the 'platinum team in Brisbane' but the service reps follow a script and are reluctant to put me through. Being persistent usually works.

 

[Happy Dude]

Also, if there is indirect award routing via another city, they will tell you to book that instead

For example - I wanted to book 2x ADL-MEL (Y) flight 6 months in advance for the Taylor Swift concert using the Plat Guarantee. They told me there was ADL-SYD/BNE-MEL availability (that I couldn’t see online) on the day I wanted, but no direct ADL-MEL reward seats.

Because there was indirect availability - the Plat reward seat guarantee did not apply.

Absolute rubbish benefit. I ended up booking QF instead, using my QF Plat status to request them to convert a revenue to reward seat. QF does this MUCH better than VA.

I'm yet to read of a finer example of an airline cutting off your nose to spite your face. But did they offer you the SYD/BNE route at all?

 

[marcojim]

This is a bit of a secret. Is there a dedicated number or do you just have to whisper magic words? I'm guessing that your member number is logged and they can tell whether you're genuine. I always ask for the 'platinum team in Brisbane' but the service reps follow a script and are reluctant to put me through. Being persistent usually works.

I’m curious about this too. In my (albeit short) experience as a WP since October, I don’t think I’ve ever once been put through to Brisbane. But generally I find the VA call centre agents are pretty switched on anyway so not complaining.

 

[Bolter]

I’m curious about this too. In my (albeit short) experience as a WP since October, I don’t think I’ve ever once been put through to Brisbane. But generally I find the VA call centre agents are pretty switched on anyway so not complaining.

You'll probably never be put through to Brisbane without being very insistent. While calls are usually answered quickly with the 131875 number I find that sometimes for more complicated bookings, requests and changes it's worth talking to a local. Also I've had trouble understanding the offshore accents probably due to my poor hearing. I've found talking to the team in Brisbane just less stressful and they also tend to pick up on what I would like more quickly.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I’m curious about this too. In my (albeit short) experience as a WP since October, I don’t think I’ve ever once been put through to Brisbane. But generally I find the VA call centre agents are pretty switched on anyway so not complaining.

The scoop is… because I actually got through to Brisbane last week… is that it is a specialised team, handling discreet projects.

Occasionally they handle calls, like the time I managed to get through. The agent advised there is no particular day or time that you might get lucky, but apparently it’s rare. You cannot ask to be out through.

I was on the line for a good half hour with three outstanding issues… all of which had been going round in circles with the o/s call centre but were resolved on the spot by Brisbane! That’s 6 overseas agents and hours of time vs 30 mins in total with Brisbane, most of which was because I had to find all my notes and booking references.

For anyone with elite status you call the standard number and your FF# determines how far forward in the queue you are.

 

[im.daniel]

I'm yet to read of a finer example of an airline cutting off your nose to spite your face. But did they offer you the SYD/BNE route at all?

They put me on hold for 10 min, came back telling me they found standard award availability via BNE and SYD and asked whether I wanted that instead ... (which is within their right I guess). I pushed them for a direct flight, they said nope (because of availability via BNE/SYD).

I thanked them and told them no thanks.

10min later on a call to QF, all sorted with a direct ADL-MEL flight.

I think I went thru VA first out of curiosity as I'd never tried this Plat reward guarantee before - I probably won't try it again, given how convoluted it is (especially given the +/- 3 day rule).

I think QF offer a much more solid offering in this regard, and I've had 100% success on both domestic and international Y/J reward requests (after having done my homework on Expertflyer first).

As for the VA call centre topic - I've noticed that in the past 6-12 months, I've been directed to the MNL call centre almost 100% of the time. I used to hit BNE call centre 80% of the time ++ prior to that. The service hasn't been any different, they've been very helpful regardless of where they're based. Wait times however, have still been very good - I don't think I've had to wait more than 5min for some one to pick up, even during peak hours.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The +/- 3 days is even worse given they can put you on any flight that day, even if it’s 6am

It’s almost rubbish.

One of the reasons I chose VA last year was my very first call was answered by BNE, I was so impressed with how helpful they were!

But the next 12 months i got the o/s centre. Fine for something simple, but anything more than the basics the answer is always ‘no’.

 

[pauly7]

This is a bit of a secret. Is there a dedicated number or do you just have to whisper magic words? I'm guessing that your member number is logged and they can tell whether you're genuine. I always ask for the 'platinum team in Brisbane' but the service reps follow a script and are reluctant to put me through. Being persistent usually works.

Another tip for escaping the overseas ‘computer says no/unhelpful/incorrect call centre operator’ if you get trapped with one at Virgin, is to really politely but repeatedly insist to speak to a higher level manager because ‘I’m not satisfied with the response’ etc.

That for me has worked almost every time to be transferred to Brisbane. One time it didn’t but the overseas operator took down the message of my request and said it would go to Brisbane and low and behold (albeit 2 days later) it was fixed after being told repeatedly it was impossible to fix .

I don’t know if being WP with Virgin helped me with that or not, just sharing my experience.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Another tip for escaping the overseas ‘computer says no/unhelpful/incorrect call centre operator’ if you get trapped with one at Virgin, is to really politely but repeatedly insist to speak to a higher level manager because ‘I’m not satisfied with the response’ etc.

That for me has worked almost every time to be transferred to Brisbane. One time it didn’t but the overseas operator took down the message of my request and said it would go to Brisbane and low and behold (albeit 2 days later) it was fixed after being told repeatedly it was impossible to fix .

I don’t know if being WP with Virgin helped me with that or not, just sharing my experience.

That’s the complete opposite to my experience

It might have been an option for me to try in the future, but I’m transferring away my 80 flights from VA to QF and ZL.

Contrast with ZL where I put in a missing points claim and they rang me to apologise and tell me it was being processed!

 

[pauly7]

That’s the complete opposite to my experience

Sorry, just thought I would share anyway…. It’s definitely a very inconsistent approach by all the posts above.

Now I’ve probably jinxed myself and the next time something breaks at Virgin it probably won’t work for me…! I’m guessing my flights next week yet will be canceled, I’ll be offered a new routing via Antartica or something and will have to call them…

 

[Happy Dude]

The +/- 3 days is even worse given they can put you on any flight that day, even if it’s 6am

It’s almost rubbish.

One of the reasons I chose VA last year was my very first call was answered by BNE, I was so impressed with how helpful they were!

But the next 12 months i got the o/s centre. Fine for something simple, but anything more than the basics the answer is always ‘no’.

I never used the 'benefit' but also never really considered using it for domestic flights, mainly for those reasons.

But it seems that VA doesn't understand the intent of the 'benefit'. It's meant to be of use when you can't get a reward seat, so for them to offer flights where there's likely to be rewards available is akin to taking the pi55.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I never used the 'benefit' but also never really considered using it for domestic flights, mainly for those reasons.

But it seems that VA doesn't understand the intent of the 'benefit'. It's meant to be of use when you can't get a reward seat, so for them to offer flights where there's likely to be rewards available is akin to taking the pi55.

We tried to use it for international…Bali. No dice as of course the day we wanted to fly was full, but there were mid-week seats leaving three days earlier.

Also wanted the ‘nice’ flight times ex MEL… arriving Bali afternoon and leaving Bali afternoon. The ‘award release’ would have put us on the flights arriving late evening, and red-eye home. If you really were using this benefit to travel with the family for school holidays, you could end up with the raw prawn.

 

[Happy Dude]

We tried to use it for international…Bali. No dice as of course the day we wanted to fly was full, but there were mid-week seats leaving three days earlier.

Also wanted the ‘nice’ flight times ex MEL… arriving Bali afternoon and leaving Bali afternoon. The ‘award release’ would have put us on the flights arriving late evening, and red-eye home. If you really were using this benefit to travel with the family for school holidays, you could end up with the raw prawn.

If those seats were visible to you and bookable, then the benefit is not a benefit at all. It's just them finding you seats you don't want or weren't looking for.

For it to be of any use, there has to be seats for sale but no rewards seats available. Amazing how they can make something so simple so frustrating.

 

[DonaldD]

I had a recent experience in using the 4 business upgrades available to Velocity Platinum members. We were flying from Queenstown, NZ to Brisbane yesterday and there were 4 vacant business class seats. We chose to use the business upgrades but what we didn't know was that the 4 upgrades equate to 1 when you are travelling on a Choice ticket and flying more than 1000 miles. That's the rule but it comes as a shock nevertheless.

 

[ThatMrBlake]

I had a recent experience in using the 4 business upgrades available to Velocity Platinum members. We were flying from Queenstown, NZ to Brisbane yesterday and there were 4 vacant business class seats. We chose to use the business upgrades but what we didn't know was that the 4 upgrades equate to 1 when you are travelling on a Choice ticket and flying more than 1000 miles. That's the rule but it comes as a shock nevertheless.

When using mine via Choice the agent explained how for BNE to PER based on distance it would use 4 before asking to proceed. Did the agent give you any warning?