Major changes to Velocity Frequent Flyer announced 17/10/24

[GrahamBRI]

Confirmed to get both Avios and QPoints and doesn't need to be under a QR code.

Interesting? QR's Privilege Club, My Calculator, only shows Avios earn for VA (no QPoints). QF gets both according to calculator.

 

[Bagpuss]

I don't think I've seen anyone else make the comment. But really a lot of people with status have a review date of 28th Feb (due to the covid extensions). A way to try and achieve retaining status in the short term would be to lock in travel now / before booking date changes and complete travel prior to 1st October 2025 as status retention would have been achieved by then as I would assume they wouldn't take it away. Which is why they are communicating now because really that booking window is almost fully open as of today (early September 2025 is open) and airline partners are running European Early Bird sales.

 

[justinbrett]

A domestic flight with a VA code won't earn anything towards status - Avios only.

It's effectively the same as the way the EK partnership with QF works - can only earn QFF SC on a QF code, or a Oneworld marketed and operated flight, so no SC for an EK coded flight. This seems to be the same deal with QR and VA, since VA isn't a Oneworld airline.

The inability to earn Qpoints on domestic only QF itineraries is just a special case, presumably out of spite from one or both parties.

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Strange, so basically no way to credit domestic flights of either program to QR. There goes that idea!

At the time it was suggested the no earn for QF came from QF itself, as it made its way into the QFF T&Cs (very odd considering it didn’t apply to QFF). I imagine the full story is commercial in confidence.

 

[BrianQQ]

Interesting? QR's Privilege Club, My Calculator, only shows Avios earn for VA (no QPoints). QF gets both according to calculator.

Interesting.. unless something's changed recently, I remember my friend and I were on VA and he was able to earn QPoints when crediting a VA flight to his PC back in late 2022.

 

[luckypierre]

Or they're going to find a lot of people that they worked so hard over the past few years to convert from QF will change back again.

Certainly will have to weigh up the options and may have to dust off the life QP membership for lounge access in Oz

 

[justinbrett]

Certainly will have to weigh up the options and may have to dust off the life QP membership for lounge access in Oz

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I don't think I've seen anyone else make the comment. But really a lot of people with status have a review date of 28th Feb (due to the covid extensions).

You touch on another flaw of the Virgin Australia program, earning status is unpredictable as it’s based on this mythical review date which I believe is 12 months after you earned a Virgin Australia status level. Contrast that with Qantas where it is very predictable: based on 12 months since you signed up. And when you earn status on Qantas you get it for more than a year (e.g., the remainder of your program year and the following year) compared to the 12 months you just get with Virgin. Sure there are fewer status credits needed to earn status but there’s also far fewer airlines you can earn status credits on too.

-RooFlyer88

 

[ozstamps]

Travelling at the moment so it's a bit hard to take all of these changes in as there is just so many. But that said, at first glance, I think this is a goodbye to VA status for me.
It's been a fun 7 or so years as a Platinum! I will requal plat this year (review mid March) then soft land to gold and beyond assuming that hasn't changed. Try and burn as many points as I can before those changes come in.

Will have to formulate more thoughts...but I think they've overshot the mark to be honest.

Yes way too much change, WAY too soon. Shot themselves in the foot, and with an IPO looming, very dumb timing for Bain as VELOCITY is the moneymaker in the group. This will hurt loyalty BIG time, and that will of course hurt revenues. Which will hurt the IPO.

Getting Virgin Plat (or Gold) does not get you global ALLIANCE One World benefits, as one gets at Qantas - not a few stray and wobbly Virgin affiliations - and let us not forget the Qatar deal is NOT yet approved by the regulators, by any means.

Many will now switch alliances, and QF running a status match before Xmas is a CERTAINTY.

Little wonder Qantas share price rocketed today. Jayney take note.

Qantas has been on the serious back foot in recent months, and with REX gone on Golden Triangle, now was NOT to time to rock the applecart.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Yes way too much change, WAY too soon. Shot themselves in the foot, and with an IPO looming, very dumb timing for Bain as VELOCITY is the money maker in the group. This will hurt revenues. Which will hurt the IPO.

That's what I cannot understand. Lots of announcements much of which are for things that won't be happening for several months or nearly a year. Why couldn't they just pace this out over time? For instance, the award devaluation they could have made in December when everyone's on vacation, whilst still giving people ample notice (1 month) of the impeding changes. Now they could argue that if you're gonna rip that bandaid off, you might as well do it in one go rather than doing it incrementally, slowly and painfully. And that's a valid point I suppose, but there's just way too much going on here that impacts not just elite status but loyalty.

The other thing I'll mention is they did a poor job at packaging this cough sandwich. There's not enough fairy bread in the announcement to offset the pain they are about to cause. Yes, advertising multi-year Gold status (because let's face it Virgin lifetime Gold will last the lifetime of the airline) is nice. And look there is an even higher frequent flyer level that offers some marginally better benefits, but that's about it. As I've mentioned earlier everything else is take, take take. It'll take you more points to book redemption flights, it'll take more flying with partners like United to earn the same amount of status credits, it'll take more points to upgrade your Virgin flight. A lot of changes, most of them are largely negative, and the ones that are positive impact such a tiny fraction of their customer base. How many among us will qualify for Virgin Platinum+ or Virgin "Lifetime" Gold?

To your point about the Velocity program I think you're spot on here. Notwithstanding what members of this community, the fact of the matter is Virgin Australia points can only be used on Virgin Australia flights. Now they want more points for that too! Sure people on this forum will point to the partners you can book with, but that's the problem very few people are even aware of this possibility. The average punter thinks with Qantas Points I can travel the world on award tickets whereas with Virgin Australia points maybe I can get a weekend trip to Launceston. Virgin needed to advertise the ability to travel the world on partners using points, but rather than do that they buried the one shining star in their program (i.e. the ability to fly to Europe in business on points something you can rarely do on Qantas Points) with a heap of cough, which again doesn't impact anyone until sometime next year.

I hope they do well in their IPO, but I fail to see how any of this news will help. Australia needs to have competition to Qantas, a single market monopoly is unsustainable.

Getting Virgin Plat (or Gold) does not get you global ALLIANCE benefit, as one gets at Qantas. Many will switch alliances, and QF running a status match before Xmas is a CERTAINTY.

Not only that the benefits are varied depending on the partners you are flying with too!

-RooFlyer88

 

[sydunipete]

I just recalculated my planned travel for next year. Under the current system I would earn 1800 SCs, enough for platinum and to gift platinum. Under the new scheme I would earn 1181 - enough to retain platinum but not to gift anything. I would just clear the 400 for the 50% my bum on a VA seat hurdle.

SYD-BNE rtn in business 110 SCs down to 63.
SYD-HTI-BNE-SYD in business 190 SCs down to 106!

My main points earn strategy is Platinum Amex and CBA MC for overseas transactions, Velocity as a non-expiring store from domestic travel, flybuys etc. Mostly I redeem on SQ Suites or J.

With the recent Amex to SQ transfer downgrade and now this it might make more sense for me to keep my cards, change to QF as my domestic travel and store and switch to QR for my redemptions.

Here comes another spreadsheet.

 

[Dvg]

Well there is an article in the AFR today that 90% of gov travel is on Qantas despite BFOD policies in place.

Funny about that hmm something about chairman’s longe comes to mind

 

[ferntree]

And look there is an even higher frequent flyer level that offers some marginally better benefits ...

... several of which (such as gifting platinum) were already available to platinum members, who have now had these benefits withdrawn!

One other point.

If you're comparing Velocity with Qantas Frequent Flyer, one glaring difference is Virgin's woefully inferior lounge network (the network, not the lounges themselves). No lounges at Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Cairns, Townsville, Newcastle, Hobart, Alice Springs, etc. etc. etc.

 

[PDog]

Yes way too much change, WAY too soon. Shot themselves in the foot, and with an IPO looming, very dumb timing for Bain as VELOCITY is the money maker in the group. This will hurt loyalty BIG time and that will of course hurt revenues. Which will hurt the IPO.

Getting Virgin Plat (or Gold) does not get you global ALLIANCE One World benefit, as one gets at Qantas - not a few stray and wobbly Virgin affiliations - and let us not forget the Qatar deal is NOT yet approved by all means.

Many will now switch alliances, and QF running a status match before Xmas is a CERTAINTY.

Little wonder Qantas share price rocketed today. Jayney take note.

Qantas has been on the serious back foot in recent months, and with REX gone on Golden Triangle, now was NOT to time to rock the applecart.

I have no skin in this game as I no longer have status.
But thinking about when I did - I wonder if this much lead time will actually see a spike in revenue as people shore up their status for another year while it's easier?

 

[antycbr]

... several of which (such as gifting platinum) were already available to platinum members, who have now had these benefits withdrawn!

One other point.

If you're comparing Velocity with Qantas Frequent Flyer, one glaring difference is Virgin's woefully inferior lounge network (the network, not the lounges themselves). No lounges at Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Cairns, Townsville, Newcastle, Hobart, Alice Springs, etc. etc. etc.

There is a lounge at OOL. The only non-capital lounge…

 

[PDog]

That's what I cannot understand. Lots of announcements much of which are for things that won't be happening for several months or nearly a year. Why couldn't they just pace this out over time? For instance, the award devaluation they could have made in December when everyone's on vacation, whilst still giving people ample notice (1 month) of the impeding changes. Now they could argue that if you're gonna rip that bandaid off, you might as well do it in one go rather than doing it incrementally, slowly and painfully. And that's a valid point I suppose, but there's just way too much going on here that impacts not just elite status but loyalty.


-RooFlyer88

Wouldn't you rather 11 months' notice rather than 1 so you've lead time to strategise around it? Forewarned is forearmed?!

 

[VulpesVulpes]

Anyone managed to figure out their lifetime status earning? It seems they only started publishing email statements in late 2017.

 

[harryhv]

Under the current system:
SYD - SIN: 67,000
SIN - LHR: 92,000
SYD - LHR (Single Booking): 139,000

New system:
SYD - SIN: 74,000
SIN - LHR: 104,000
SYD - LHR (Single Booking): 158,500

To be fair, in terms of point devaluations go it isn't horrible but the increase in carrier charges for SQ is a bit painful. Definitely increases the number of circumstances where it makes sense to transfer points to KrisFlyer to access earlier availability and lower fees.

I also noticed the band 12 mileage has changed from 9,501 to 15,000 up to 9,501 to 20,000 not that it's really of relevance.

The points devaluation looks like about 10% for international J, probably worse to come for domestic J. Whispers of additional fees too.

As regards status, I saw a suggestion that one should try in one's next review year to make a Cinderella-like dash to achieve the old requirement of SCs before the axe falls, eg 800 to renew plat. That is, get the SCs between the review date say 28/2/25 or 31/3/25, and the day the Virgin carriage turns into a pumpkin in Oct 25.

 

[oz_mark]

You touch on another flaw of the Virgin Australia program, earning status is unpredictable as it’s based on this mythical review date which I believe is 12 months after you earned a Virgin Australia status level. Contrast that with Qantas where it is very predictable: based on 12 months since you signed up. And when you earn status on Qantas you get it for more than a year (e.g., the remainder of your program year and the following year) compared to the 12 months you just get with Virgin. Sure there are fewer status credits needed to earn status but there’s also far fewer airlines you can earn status credits on too.

-RooFlyer88

Not really a flaw, and not really mythical.

There are pros and cons to both systems. It is generally easier to achieve status on a rolling 12 month period (see how many people ask about moving their Qantas membership date), but yes, when you first achieve it it generally for a shorter period. Once you are on the renewal treadmill, it doesn;t matter so much,

 

[Mattg]

The points devaluation looks like about 10% for international J, probably worse to come for domestic J.

VA J redemptions aren't changing in price (for now).

 

[oz_mark]

Someone made a video about that:

Maybe so, but take the airline away and see what that does to the program valuation....