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

[BrianQQ]

So is now (ie. before October 2025) a good time to do domestic business status runs, since now for eg. platinum, I need 400 SCs from VA?

Domestic Business Runs should be booked before 2nd April 2025, not the October date. Note that you can book as many trips as you can to rack up SC and then fly them whenever. May be an advantage given the "the let's actually get the plans out of the group sale" is going to start.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Not going back to Qantas. Lifetime Gold already and not chasing status on ridiculously expensive airfares.

Congrats on the lifetime Gold with Qantas. The next step would be looking at which airline alliance outside of OneWorld would you fly regularly and that has lifetime status? Air France / KLM and Delta are the two to my knowledge offering lifetime status with the former have significantly lower requirements than the latter. For Star Alliance, it would likely be something like Asiana since it’s half a million miles on Asiana and Star Alliance partners (IIRC) and doesn’t come with the United lounge tax.

May go to BFOD and some JQ flights OOL-SYD can be cheap. If not I'll continue with Virgin flights as they are next cheapest.

Virgin is certainly an option and may make sense if you do enough domestic flying and anticipate they’ll be around for sometime. The drawback I see is the limited reciprocal benefits on partners and the limited partners they have.

I think we have status for another 2 years. Wife will be Platinum end of Jan 25 and I will drop to Gold in a few days and not sure I can make Gold one time before these changes kick in.

Other option is to see where you can status match to as Virgin Platinum that will give you some value. For instance, would Qantas status match you over to Platinum? What about some other airlines you fly frequently? May as well squeeze out every drop of loyalty the airline gave you before they “fire” you.

If airline ls are going to keep moving goalposts then we'll stop playing and go for cheapest.

That’s something I realized when United “dumped” me back in 2019. Figure out what is best for your situation and go from there. Sometimes it won’t be the cheapest fare but can work out.

Domestic Business Runs should be booked before 2nd April 2025, not the October date. Note that you can book as many trips as you can to rack up SC and then fly them whenever. May be an advantage given the "the let's actually get the plans out of the group sale" is going to start.

That’s one skill I think anyone chasing status needs to have is long range planning of their travel. If you know you’re going to go somewhere down the track, start monitoring flights and snap them up when a sale or promotion (DSC) comes along. Speaking of, I would be surprised if Virgin doesn’t offer a DSC promotion before the switch over to cash based accrual of status credits. No doubt we’ll see something in the coming weeks

-RooFlyer88

 

[RooFlyer]

I feel so free! I can now use my points* for flights that give zero status credits; I can fly routes and airlines without being tethered to Velocity (airlines that actually have their own international lounges); and I don't have to pretend that being WP on an airline that doesn't even have flat seats is anything to aim for.

This is always a great way to go! Throw off those handcuffs and fly when you want and who you want to go with.

LTG would have been something to aim for, but I feel their lol some of your previous SC's now aren't worth sht bait 'n switch is highly distasteful, and not something I want to reward with my loyalty. They should have at the very least had the LTG data available to all members at the same time as the announcement.....simple....fair.

You can say the hurdle is too high (like we say with QF Lifetime Plat) but hardly sh*ting on loyal flyers. They want to reward hard-core VA metal flyers.

SCs earned from family pooling have been 'spent' for benefit when previously used in the year transferred and they aren't the flyer's SCs, so not unreasonable that they are excluded. Partners .. well, debatable. But of course Qantas has a similar type of hurdle for Plat1 (certain amount of SCs from flying QF only).

But yes, bizarre that they didn't bring in the eligible total as an observable figure from the announcement. They might say it won't be operative for a while, but it seems to be readily calculable by them, so

Anyone else get their VFF points statement yet? Got mine, and double/triple bonus SCs don’t seem to be included. Weren’t they earned on VA flights, and therefore should be included? Lounges will be empty at this rate. But, as pointed out, that may be the idea.

From what's been reported, its inconsistent, which adds support to the notion that they were (surprisingly) unprepared and hadn't got the systems lined up.

 

[SCM]

One other thing, Virgin has a codeshare agreement with EY right? I noticed that they are only selling SQ and QR tickets though.... for Europe flights.

 

[Sprucegoose]

Domestic Business Runs should be booked before 2nd April 2025

Apologies if I missed it or if it has been previously explained - why?

For Star Alliance, it would likely be something like Asiana

Asiana was part way through a sale process to Koreans and will probably transfer their FF scheme to Sky Team when it is complete. The EU has conditionally approved that sale; however, the US and Japan have not granted approval, and rerouting some Korean routes may be required to satisfy final approval.

 

[HS-TQE]

One other thing, Virgin has a codeshare agreement with EY right? I noticed that they are only selling SQ and QR tickets though.... for Europe flights.

The VA/EY partnership is a unilateral agreement. EY codeshares on VA domestic, but VA no longer codeshares on EY.

VA prioritises their main partners QR and SQ in the booking engines as those two (of current) are their major partners going west, thus anyone wanting to book EY will need to either search down the bottom in the VA search (only on EY codes), or book through EY directly (no VA codes on either site).

EY is still a Velocity redemption partner so you can also redeem EY seats through VFF.

 

[henrus]

Apologies if I missed it or if it has been previously explained - why?

Anything booked after that date earns SC at the rate of 1 SC per $12 spent (except light fares which is 1 SC per $24 spent). This means that booking a cheap J fare (which would previously earn more SC) would make no difference.

 

[BrianQQ]

Apologies if I missed it or if it has been previously explained - why?

The status credit per $12 doesn't roll out until then and only applies for bookings made after that date, not travel.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Asiana was part way through a sale process to Koreans and will probably transfer their FF scheme to Sky Team when it is complete. The EU has conditionally approved that sale; however, the US and Japan have not granted approval, and rerouting some Korean routes may be required to satisfy final approval.

It remains to be seen whether the merger goes through and what happens to those frequent flyer programs. More than likely you are right, the Asiana program will merge with Korean. But there still might be some opportunity to take advantage of the program while the going is good. For instance, Asiana lets you earn up to 4 years of Diamond (Star Alliance Gold) status for flying 70,000 miles on Asiana and Star Alliance partner airlines if you time everything just right. So this can be an incredibly lucrative program if you know how to game it. If an acquisition happens, what I suspect will happen is there will be a transition period where the existing frequent flyer program (and rules) remain in place.

Korean Air is similar to Asiana in the sense that half a million miles flown gives you top tier status for life with the main difference being that you only earn top tier status with Korean after flying those half a million miles.

The status credit per $12 doesn't roll out until then and only applies for bookings made after that date, not travel.

Hence, the existence of a golden window for booking flights at the old rates. Now if the changeover is in April that means you can book as far out as end of March 2025 for travel as far out as March 2026, meaning you've still got time to keep going while the going is good.

 

[MG1]

The rules on lounge access are pretty clear when it comes to accessing Virgin lounges as a United *Gold member:

United Premier Gold or better provides lounge access for you and a guest travelling on United, Star Alliance or a partner airline like Virgin Australia. If you receive any pushback from the lounge, tell them to refer to their intranet on lounge access as they have a document that spells out the entitlements for each elite member. This is what happened when I was travelling in Perth as the agents weren't sure of the access rights and pulled up the document. Sure enough United Premier Gold could bring themselves and a guest in.


They need to read the document on their intranet that spells out lounge access. It clearly says United Premier Gold or better has access for themselves and a guest, the agent in Perth literally showed me the document.

First things first. Don't get emotional over the whole thing. Remember what I always tell people, loyalty to airlines is a one-way street: they have to be loyal to me but we never have to be loyal to them. So the rational thing to do right now is see whether you can earn retain status before the enhancements go into place. In particular, it's my understanding that bookings made before sometime in April will count towards the old status credit accrual. So it may make sense to retain your current Platinum status for now, particularly if your review date is within the next several months.

With your Virgin Platinum status in hand for another year, well now you've got some breathing room to look at your options. In particular, you should take time to review what the requirements are for the various programs. A quick look on Youtube and Flyertalk will have videos and articles describing the various programs out there. What I will say is what makes sense for one person may not make sense for another. Lifetime status is nice, yes, but you need to find a way for it to work for you. In my case, I'm committing to Qantas because they have a decent way of earning lifetime status even if you don't live in Australia.

One thing you should remind yourself is now that you hold status with an airline you literally hold all the cards. I know that may seem impossible to believe, but that is the reality now. Most airlines will provide status matches which will let you earn that airline's frequent flyer status for considerably less. In my case when I moved to Australia, I noticed Qantas had a status match promotion on where I could match my United Premier Gold status over to Qantas Gold for a year by simply earning 100 status credits on flights, which was done by flying a single trip on Qantas: Sydney > Darwin > Melbourne > Sydney during a double status credit promotion. The cost was around $600 booked as a red e-deal back in 2021. I did the same trick this year as a newly minted Qantas Platinum, I status matched over to LATAM paying the $80 USD fee in that case to earn Black status through March 31, 2025. Among the many benefits I got included 8 upgrade certificates which I applied on two flights my partner and I were taking (Melbourne to Santiago and São Paulo to New York) to move from economy to business class. Arguably the best $80 I've spent in a while. Again, you'll need to do homework here to see what status match promotions there are and whether any of it makes sense for you.


You'll need to look that one up as there is a lot involved there. With that being said, I will make several extraordinary simplifications to begin to convey what is involved. If you're flying United Airlines you will earn 1 PQP per USD spent on a flight (excluding some taxes and charges). For other partners including Virgin Australia, PQP is computed as a function of distance flown divided by a magic number. The magic number for Virgin Australia is 5. A business fare will earn between 125% to 150% of mileage flown. So a flight between Sydney to Melbourne is 439 miles meaning the award mileage accrual is either 549 miles or 659 miles. Now take that number and divide by 5 and you'll either earn 110 PQP or 131.8 For Gold you need to earn 8,000 PQP and 24 qualifying segments flown on United and partners or 10,000 PQP meaning as little as 72 flights between Sydney and Melbourne in business will do the trick. Now obviously that's not a very cost advantageous way of earning status. Where it gets interesting is international long haul in business class (or better yet consolidator fares on United, a topic which I cannot spend any time talking about but you are free to investigate that rabbit hole on your own), but even there you'll still have to do a decent bit of flying. Oh and remember, you need to fly 4 segments on flights operated by United Airlines to earn status in any calendar year. For Lifetime status, nothing matters. Once you cross the 1,000,000 miles flown on paid United tickets, you've got Gold status for life. You don't need to even set foot on a United aircraft to keep or enjoy those benefits.

The United Airlines forum on FlyerTalk is probably your best bet

Wait there's an upstairs level to the Sydney lounge? I thought that was permanently closed! Would be curious what that looks like.

The Virgin Australia lounge at HBA is easily way better than the Qantas Club.

That's correct although one must wonder how big of an issue that was for them. Lounges may have been packed but one must wonder how much of that was from travellers with status versus those on a business ticket or with a credit card?

I wonder why that is?

Thank you for your very detailed response, @kangarooflyer88.
I will need to look up Consolidator Fares, as you suggested. I will also continue to research PQPs as well.

 

[JohnK]

Surely someone at Velocity thought that revenue based SCs would be difficult for someone to manage? They obviously don't care whether you strive for status or not or that you don't care how much you spend?

If you have plan x number of trips and then you find some cheaper airfares and you end up short. Then you'd need to plan more flights close to anniversary to attain status.

I am not too worried by these changes. Yes I get family pooling from mrsdrron but we always fly together so 50% of my SCs come from my flying

There are 3 of us. Wife and I could alternate getting Gold but neither of us would be able to make 50% as we have daughter with us so that's out the window. If we did strive for Gold we'd end paying extra for daughter and obviously plan more flights to make up for the shortfall in revenue based SCs.

Who actually thinks these are good changes? Someone that travels on corporate dollars? Double SC and triple SC promotions hurt lounge numbers more than family pooling?

 

[MG1]

I remember back in 2019 when United moved from a strictly miles flown system for accumulating status (at least for overseas elites) to one now based on quasi-dollars spent, I had a similar panic attack. I was using United status a lot so there was a lot of value in keeping it, but I couldn't justify spending the many thousands of dollars USD to keep status each and every year. Initially it felt like a betrayal by United. After all, I planned all of my travel around that airline, sometimes flying with United even if it added hours to my travel time or crossing the wrong international oceans (once I flew Berlin Tegel to Osaka Japan via Dusseldorf, Las Vegas, and San Francisco just to keep to mostly UA metal). I understood the system really well and knew what it took to keep status. Then they just flip the bloody checker board and I'm left trying to pick up the pieces. I spoke to a dear travel colleague (who by the way is an AC Million Miler) and she told me I need to take a step back and re-evaluate what is going on. I'm glad I did, and made the switch to Qantas.

This is not to say I'll never fly United again (indeed I flew them back in August in Polaris business class as part of a Virgin Australia award back to Sydney). But I'll be clever in how I fly them. If I can status match them now against my Qantas Gold and take one trip to Europe from Australia to earn Premier Gold status for a year so be it. But I'm not going out of my way to chase the status. Life is too short to sit middle seat in coach just so you can claim you're Medallion Palladium.

IME much of the benefits aren't amazing. Yes, lounge access is nice, as is seat selection, but one must ask the question is it really worth going out of your way for these benefits? There's some status out there where a credible argument towards chasing status could be made. For instance, LATAM Black gives you 8 international upgrade certificates every year to upgrade their flights from economy to business. And unlike other airlines, LATAM Black members are second in order of upgrades.

Lifetime status makes sense so long as there is a viable way to get there. Looking at Virgin Australia, United and Air Canada as examples, they require you to earn all of those status credits flying with them (or at least on a flight marketed by them). For me that's plain unrealistic, especially for long haul flights where you're just not going to find a Virgin Australia flight to LA or Paris. Contrast this with Air France/KLM, where the requirement is attainable: 10 consecutive years of top tier status gets you lifetime top tier status with Air France/KLM (and therefore SkyTeam). Yes that is a big hurdle, but it is one that is attainable for some people. Meanwhile Qantas and Asiana let you earn lifetime status based on flights you take operated by them and partners, which opens up a huge opportunity for travellers, especially those who are nomads.

-RooFlyer88

This may end up being a similar situation for me. Thanks for detailing your previous experiences, @kangarooflyer88

 

[simmomelb]

Who actually thinks these are good changes? Someone that travels on corporate dollars? Double SC and triple SC promotions hurt lounge numbers more than family pooling?

I think they are okay changes, provided they vastly improve the product (lounge & onboard), that is the big question!
Even on DSC for many who were chasing status, this is a huge drop when on a discounted fare.
I posted an example of this yesterday, such as the current $319 J MEL-OOL currently earns 80 status credits, under the new $ based earn, this will be 26 status credits.
Even under DSC (52), it's still far less than the current 80 without DSC.
Many will find it impossible to maintain their status after these changes, but that is clearly the plan, they want to award status to genuine high $ customers.

 

[kamchatsky]

This program change is consistent with their aeroplane refurbishment to remove 1 row of Economy X on every plane. They expect fewer Platinum and Plat+ to take advantage of it.

Also they added 1 row of Y to it so that they can remain price competitive and still make money with watered down Velocity program.

 

[MooTime]

This program change is consistent with their aeroplane refurbishment to remove 1 row of Economy X on every plane. They expect fewer Platinum and Plat+ to take advantage of it.

And they believe (hope) all the Platinums that can't up the spending to retain WP will just lower their status to become Goldies.....but some may well become disenchanted & opt for BFOD & in turn direct good portion of their flying budget away from VA altogether.

EcoX is a lovely perk of WP, but if they keep offering like of late for $15, then no sweat.

 

[simmomelb]

And they believe (hope) all the Platinums that can't up the spending to retain WP will just lower their status to become Goldies.....but some may well become disenchanted & opt for BFOD & in turn direct good portion of their flying budget away from VA altogether.

EcoX is a lovely perk of WP, but if they keep offering like of late for $15, then no sweat.

Yep, I didn't think this would impact me as I currently earn between 1800 - 2000 status credits per year, by my calculations, I will be lucky to reach the 800 status credits (to maintain plat) per year under the new earn rates. Ouch.
I agree, when I am not in J, which is about 50-60% of the time, I value the Econ X perk a lot.
Very disappointing to be honest.
If they lowered the status earn rates a little, I would have accepted that much more, such as J 80SC routes down to 60SC or thereabouts, still achievable and may have encouraged me to spend a little more, but these changes require my annual spend to double or triple, which isn't going to happen, particularly if the quality of the product remains the same.

 

[clifford]

Many will find it impossible to maintain their status after these changes, but that is clearly the plan, they want to award status to genuine high $ customers.

Many will find it possible but not sensible, and will take their $$$ elsewhere. Me Included. I think the architect of this great work will be gone within a couple of years, when it becomes clear that it isn't producing the promised outcomes.

 

[MooTime]

Yep, I didn't think this would impact me as I currently earn between 1800 - 2000 status credits per year, by my calculations, I will be lucky to reach the 800 status credits (to maintain plat) per year under the new earn rates. Ouch.
I agree, when I am not in J, which is about 50-60% of the time, I value the Econ X perk a lot.
Very disappointing to be honest.
If they lowered the status earn rates a little, I would have accepted that much more, such as J 80SC routes down to 60SC or thereabouts, still achievable and may have encouraged me to spend a little more, but these changes require my annual spend to double or triple, which isn't going to happen, particularly if the quality of the product remains the same.

I suppose in your individual case, if you still manage 800SC, then continue on for a few years to Forever Gold if that's achievable & your plan.
Then you have a comfort level.

It's a good thing that VA have finally added this Life Time benefit. The magnet handcuffs that it's known as.

Key point you made, they don't seem to care much for improving the product, new MAX planes though which more essential than anything.

 

[clifford]

It's a good thing that VA have finally added this Life Time benefit. The magnet handcuffs that it's known as.

Of course, this is VA's lifetime, not yours.

 

[ozstamps]

Yes, WHOSE lifetime!