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

[justinbrett]

Yes, a fair bit and have BAEC Gold plus status with other alliances/partnerships. All our OW travel is credited to my BAEC account due to the unfair QF tax.
For our 20+ domestic J trips each year though for leisure we just find it far cheaper and easier to stick with VA and these new changes to VA won’t alter that. I just can’t justify the nearly double in price difference every time I look at booking a domestic trip

That’s a completely different argument, who you fly with on a given trip. If you have BA status then use that when and if you fly QF.

If you’re travelling J anyway you get lounge access so why bother with Velocity at all?

 

[ferntree]

Existing bookings are fine, you'll earn at the existing rate. New rates are for bookings from April 2nd 2025 for domestic and October 1st 2025 for international partners.

Thank you!

 

[jase05]

If you’re travelling J anyway you get lounge access so why bother with Velocity at all?

Got to credit the VA flights somewhere I guess and the points earn plus CC spend points allows us to book award seats on Premium carriers in Premium cabins and availability is pretty good. The VA partnerships with other airlines works for us but YMMV

 

[zsw]

It's definitely possible to come out ahead on partner bookings under the new system - MEL-LAX on UA for example, today a return Y airfare on UA would earn 90 SCs, an average ($1500?) airfare earns 125 with the new rules.

J is an even bigger difference, today that same flight gets 320 SCs, in future you'd pick up 750 on a $9000 fare, which is almost enough to retain WP and easily meets the 50% VA marketed quota.

Ultimately it's all about how much cash you have to drop on airfares, sadly for me the days of using SQ PE trips to retain WP have probably come to an end.

This was my initial thought as a potential benefit, but having a look at the earning tables on the partner pages even with a VA flight number it's still on a mile based redemption table rather than a spend table. Which is very frustrating as if that was $ spend then it would be a nice sweet spot.

The real kicker is the big reduction in partner status earn when booking direct with the partner as they've re-done the mile bands as well. J impact isn't as large, but quite significant for Y.
SIN - SYD: Was 30 SC for base economy, now only 15 SC
SIN - LHR: Was 40 SC for base economy, now only 20 SC
SYD - AUH: 40 SC for base economy. Now 20 SC (economy value)


This is quite a significant devaluation and makes getting Virgin status significantly harder. This is especially so for those of us who look to maximise SC earn with connection routings (HBA - MEL - BNE) for example. This has lost all benefits with these latest changes.

I've been hovering between 950 and 1000 SC for past 4 months after the TSC promo trying to hold out before triggering Platinum to maximise amount of time with lounge & priority boarding. Once I trigger that over early next year I'll be enjoying the year of Platinum and then soft drop to Gold before evaluating what the best path forward is, probably settling for Gold and just accepting that it costs what it costs to maintain Virgin status.

 

[PERLHR]

That’s a completely different argument, who you fly with on a given trip. If you have BA status then use that when and if you fly QF.

If you’re travelling J anyway you get lounge access so why bother with Velocity at all?

Many reasons to have both. Routes, frequency and advance pricing. Additionally QF while unfortunately One World are generally rubbish compared to VA. I have BAEC Gold, I seldom fly QF. Am today ironically, on a delayed flight to Canberra.

 

[aaronm]

This was my initial thought as a potential benefit, but having a look at the earning tables on the partner pages even with a VA flight number it's still on a mile based redemption table rather than a spend table. Which is very frustrating as if that was $ spend then it would be a nice sweet spot.

Good pickup, this does make things more difficult. Suspect I'll probably manage to retain gold under the new rules but platinum will be unworkable.

 

[Must...Fly!]

The real kicker is the big reduction in partner status earn

Wow that's a real smack. It's not exactly easy to book the VA marketed option either in many cases!

 

[clifford]

Bye bye Velocity. I've already requalified for Plat, but this will be the end of most of my spending with VA. Should be Plat until May 2026, and will just let the membership bleed out from there. As I have lifetime Plat membership with UA, that will give me lounge access at least.

And then there is the issue of burning my 300,000 Velocity points, which obviously I must do before next January.

Very sad, but I guess it had to happen.

 

[skiaplg]

Partner Airline devaluation (both earning & redemption) is really disappointing. Virgin already has a weak network by not being in an alliance. Having no partners for intra-Europe flights, no lounge access with ANA, United on domestic flights etc.

If I'm going to have to spend more/fly more to keep status, I may as well consider moving to QFF and get better benefits.

 

[SheikYerbouti]

50% status earn on VA is a big ask when their network doesn't extend further than Bali at the moment. I don't mind booking codeshares but the current VA booking engine usually throws up much worse options than booking direct with UA, SQ etc, and there's limited ability to book PE and multi-city itineraries.

That's the thing. I recently managed to book Sydney to New York on a VA flight number with United, but find it's often impossible to Europe - 90% of the time the VA engine only shows me Qatar flights (we will not fly Qatar) and I have found it extremely hard to get onto a VA codeshare flight with SQ by just using the VA site. Then, flying any other airline's internal network on a VA booking is again frequently very difficult even when those flights clearly codeshare as SQxx_ and VAYYYY.

Fix this, and show us ALL overseas codeshare flights, and this might not be so bad.

 

[FlyingKangaroo]

SIN - SYD: Was 30 SC for base economy, now only 15 SC
SIN - LHR: Was 40 SC for base economy, now only 20 SC
SYD - AUH: 40 SC for base economy. Now 20 SC (economy value)

This is laughable -- makes even QF's punitive treatment of e.g., CX look generous!

 

[SheikYerbouti]

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

That might be for APS, in NSW it's not the case, except when I fly every 2-3 weeks on NSW regional flights, I have to fly QF since VA's regional routes were all closed. Even then we often get put on Rex.

 

[MooTime]

Early AFF consensus have delivered majority fail on today's announcement.

Forever Gold barely gained a mention, focus been on the devaluation side & SC increase cost.

VA you say you listen......let's see.

 

[engbren]

The new Forever Gold is at least something to aspire for. I've flown almost exclusively with VA for over a decade and in that time have been mostly gold. I would still have quite a way to go for Forever Gold.

 

[FlyingKangaroo]

At the end of the day, just another joy of our effective duopoly.

One carrier somehow manages to charge upwards of double on many routes even where it's up against its only real competitor, and those who aren't prepared to pay that premium don't have another choice, leaving that second carrier free to do whatever it likes: "OK - yep, now it's harder to earn/maintain status, you get less with that status, you earn fewer points and it costs more to use them, no alliance, limited international partner benefits, limited lounge access, etc., etc. So what? What are you going to do about it?"

I'm just as annoyed about the changes as most everyone else, but am I really going to start paying nearly double for most of my domestic flying to spite them (and myself in the process)? Of course I'm not -- and they know that.

I do suspect, however, that this will result in some shifts in my international flying. I flew SQ up to Singapore this week as part of my VA status strategy -- I might not in future, which would mean reconsolidating to OneWorld.

 

[homer simpson]

Does anyone know how much the point increase will be from Melb/Syd - SIN and SIN-LON with SQ? (J Class)

Seeing a points lift and possible fee lift also, sucks for redemptions.. may need to really start thinking about krismile collection from here on.

 

[justinbrett]

Early AFF consensus have delivered majority fail on today's announcement.

Forever Gold barely gained a mention, focus been on the devaluation side & SC increase cost.

VA you say you listen......let's see.

I was actually thinking a walk back of some of the changes might not be out of the question.

Can’t help feeling VA zigged when it should have zagged. Just when it looked like VA had put QF under some serious pressure it blows it all away.

Got to credit the VA flights somewhere I guess and the points earn plus CC spend points allows us to book award seats on Premium carriers in Premium cabins and availability is pretty good. The VA partnerships with other airlines works for us but YMMV

You don’t need status for that.

 

[zsw]

Does anyone know how much the point increase will be from Melb/Syd - SIN and SIN-LON with SQ? (J Class)

Seeing a points lift and possible fee lift also, sucks for redemptions.. may need to really start thinking about krismile collection from here on.

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.

 

[SeaWolf]

That might be for APS, in NSW it's not the case, except when I fly every 2-3 weeks on NSW regional flights, I have to fly QF since VA's regional routes were all closed. Even then we often get put on Rex.

It's specific to parliamentarians and their staff, not the broader APS.

MPs, staff favouring Qantas despite ‘best possible price’ rule

More than 90 per cent of air travel booked by parliamentarians and their offices were on the carrier and its low-cost subsidiary, the highest level in a decade.

www.afr.com

 

[jase05]

You don’t need status for that.

Correct, although the Platinum bonus points come in handy.
The status is just a by-product of flying though. I don’t chase the status as such. I’m going to be taking those flights regardless of status and these new changes won’t affect our travel patterns.