Surprise! You've turned Gold!

[AnonymousCoward]

Total nonsense, sorry.
...
If they made the DJ vouchers good for a year, at any club, and only in conjunction with a flight .. a tiny blip each day is all any club will see.

Frankly you're not in a position to gaurantee this, so it's a bit hard to claim that's "total nonsense".

Potentially only a few people will turn up. Potentially thousands of people would turn up over the first days of said promotion.

I'm sure DJ can do their own analysis of the situation and work out what might end up being an acceptable cost.

Having been in DJ lounges, and actually flown DJ more than a handful of times (unlike some others here), the lounges aren't empty at the moment (certainly not Sydney) and adding a few dozen people a day is going to make them just as bad as the dom QPs.

 

[markis10]

I do not see anyone suggesting their 'entire FF base" be involved.

Do you?

Their entire frequent flyer base were emailed from what we can tell, word would soon get around to most of them that it was worth an "ask" should such a crazy idea take off!

 

[ozstamps]

Their entire frequent flyer base were emailed from what we can tell, word would soon get around to most of them that it was worth an "ask" should such a crazy idea take off!

Nope.

It will be part of 1% in such cases.

Pa Kettle in Mr Gambier reads it and deletes it. End of story.

Most of them would konw there was a Gold level, mich less what it entails.

 

[medhead]

Personally I think it was finalised but the notification was just sent to an incorrect distribution list. I doubt they would draft up this type of communication if the project was still on the drawing board.

Given the number of people on who got the offer who rarely or never fly virgin, it can't even be called an incorrect distribution list. Even a basic amount of vetting of the list would have told them not to send the email. Clearly their was a lack of basic checks. Meaning not finalised.

There is also the fact that this might just have been intended as a viral advertising campaign for the benefits of gold. Especially, given the excessive number of people who got it who have only 1 or 2 flights with DJ.

 

[haydensydney]

Given the number of people on who got the offer who rarely or never fly virgin, it can't even be called an incorrect distribution list. Even a basic amount of vetting of the list would have told them not to send the email. Clearly their was a lack of basic checks. Meaning not finalised.

There is also the fact that this might just have been intended as a viral advertising campaign for the benefits of gold. Especially, given the excessive number of people who got it who have only 1 or 2 flights with DJ.

You obviously don't understand what I am trying to say. I give up. :shock:

 

[oz_mark]

I love it when things like this happens, it just goes to show what people are really like. They'll try to pounce on things and claim what they're not really entitled to.

The entitlement generation is out in full force.

It was a major and very public mistake, and surprising coming from a company that is normally very careful in the way it communicates.

But how much inconvenience has it caused anyone? Who has lost anything as a result?

Those that may be ticked off include those that really were close, and those who asked not to be sent emails. For these, then maybe something should/could be done, but I wonder why people nowhere near gold didn;t see it was a mistake.

 

[Mal]

Who has lost anything as a result?

I think a few people have lost the sense of reality.

 

[medhead]

You obviously don't understand what I am trying to say. I give up. :shock:

No, I do understand what your trying to say, but I obviously don't agree with what you are saying. You think the fact they send an email means the project was finished. In my experience, I think that is not possible. I think that the email was so poor directed that they couldn't possible have finished their project. Or there is the possiblity of a viral advertising attempt, but that would discount the option of special treatment for people to get gold, anyway.

 

[haydensydney]

You think the fact they send an email means the project was finished. In my experience....

In my experience, Comms are one of the last pieces of work for a project - i.e. not sent out before a project hits production / handed to the business by the project team.

 

[Ms Lucy]

I think a few people have lost the sense of reality.

Yep. This seems to have become a very big deal for some.

I thought that it WAS a pretty big stuff up (but a pretty amusing one, given my two flights in recent memory) and that the tone of the retraction email was a little flippant but, really, not a huge deal. Granted, there may have been a small number of their members who had been close and thought that the email was a genuine offer, but for most of us who were WAY off such status, it was just a blip.

I'm sure we all make mistakes; it's just that our audience isn't generally quite so big!

 

[straitman]

I am sure there are a few people here who have dusted down some of their (greedy) posts from the infamous Amex thread and just changed a few minor details. :shock:

 

[Leumas]

I don't really care they give me Gold or not. At this moment in time, I don't care about DJ. Their apology is consistent with the whole Virgin casual, happy-go-lucky image. Mistakes happen, and I don't mind that. It probably disappoints me a little on how casually worded their apology was. Friday the 13th had nothing with the price of fish.

If they're serious about their apology, I'd give those people that bought flights between the time the original email was sent and the retraction email. There may be people that really believed they were given Gold and bought flights to try out the lounge. I realise they won't be able to please everyone, but the way they just brush the whole thing off was just an insult to people's intelligence, IMHO.

Perhaps they were lucky with the timing of the whole thing - Friday afternoon/evening, so no main stream media picked it up. Maybe if someone talks to some high quality programmes like ACA or TT, something may be done. I suspect we haven't heard the last of it though.

 

[PineappleSkip]

I'd agree with Mal that this thread has taken a rather unreal turn.

The ACCC's website has a fair bit to say about mistakes and misleading and deceptive conduct; you'll find lots of commentary there along these lines:

"... we stress that when you become aware of a mistake, you should take immediate action to rectify it—not only so that the offer of sale is withdrawn, but also to ensure that the false or misleading representation is rectified..."

This is exactly what DJ has done. No doubt rushed out in a climate of mounting hysteria :!: and perhaps a bit tactless as a result. But they had an obligation to correct the misleading advice and that is what they did.

Cheers skip

 

[oz_mark]

This is exactly what DJ has done. No doubt rushed out in a climate of mounting hysteria :!: and perhaps a bit tactless as a result. But they had an obligation to correct the misleading advice and that is what they did.

No doubt there was a bunch of folk in a world of hurt on Friday night.

 

[777]

Well, i'm on the 7am MEL-NTL flight tomorrow. What do you reckon the odds are that the lounge and the premium lines will be full of people attempting to argue the point?

 

[odysseus]

Well, the story surrounding Virgin Blue's stuff-up is starting to gain some real traction in marketing & communications circles and mainstream media. All in all, they agree that DJ really screwed the pooch over the entire incident.

Quote:
Virgin Blue "error" upgrades passengers to gold status - CRN

Airline Virgin Blue has blamed an IT system error for accidentally upgrading ineligible members of its Velocity rewards program to “gold” status.
Virgin Blue "error" upgrades passengers to gold status - CRN

Airline Virgin Blue has blamed an IT system error for accidentally upgrading ineligible members of its Velocity rewards program to “gold” status.

I'm quite surprised by this. It does sound more like a Marketing mistake than an IT mistake - so is this another glib attempt at trying to palm off an error, like claiming something is just a 'typo?'

 

[odysseus]

I think that their follow up was more around getting a retraction out fast, rather than letting it sit over the weekend. So, while we could argue over the finer points of the wording, they must have felt a need to do something quickly.

Certainly, in the couple of hours between the initial email, and the retraction, they would not have done an ananlysis of the costs of any other option that has been floated here (free pass for everyone etc). If they did come up with any such thing, it would have obviously incurred some expense, so that would need approval.

A mistake of such magnitude I would expect to have involved the involvement of their chief executive once discovered, so I don't think approval would be a concern.

 

[AnonymousCoward]

I'm quite surprised by this. It does sound more like a Marketing mistake than an IT mistake - so is this another glib attempt at trying to palm off an error, like claiming something is just a 'typo?'

I'd say it's an IT issue. Someone (maybe in Marketing/Retention) decided that a select number of people should be offered this promo. Whoever put together the data filtering (or perhaps whoever put together the mass email app, or whoever extracted the data to send to the organisation that would do the bulk mailing) failed. I suspect that's probably someone in IT. Or perhaps an extract of the entire 2m member database was handed over to someone in marketing, and they failed to send in the filtered list to the bulk mailer.

 

[Blackswan]

Love this comment on Twitter re: DJ's advertising saturation on Ch 7's Sunday Night;

"Of all the great ideas the best we did was issue thousands of valuable Silver customers with a GOLD reward & then steal it back..Virgin Blue"

 

[oz_mark]

A mistake of such magnitude I would expect to have involved the involvement of their chief executive once discovered, so I don't think approval would be a concern.

Depends on what they decided to do. It would be a stretch to think that they would just agree to give everyone a free pass. Two million members got the email, and given they sell for $30 each, that's a big number to just get ticked off.

I suspect they felt it important to get the retraction out as soon as possible. I am sure though that they are in for some hard work this week dealing with the fallout.