Two reasons I can't take Virgin & Velocity seriously

[cove]

Sounds like I have been really living the life with zillions of points and an unblemished Red Status. I still just go A330 in business class and tend to book about a fortnight ahead of time on points.
The 15% bonus transfers have been nice.
Last time I bought a ticket it was Virgin Blue to get me out of Tassie.

 

[Matt_01]

I think the OP summary is on the mark, however I would suggest that the priority boarding is now just becoming a scrum. Everyone seems to be in the PB line, J, WP, SG and now economyX. I get that PB is for SG and higher, but with family pooling, partners and earning SC’s from shopping it is relatively easy to rack up 500 SC before even getting on a VA flight.

The snacks are a joke and often decline them but I have found that the economy seating is not good especially for WP as it is free and now have at least 3 rows of better seating.

I also think VA still has issues with food on sort haul J when you use the fly forward service. Over the past month I had 4 VA J flights (paid) for 2 of the flights I had managed to get to the airport early and got on an earlier flight also in J but with the standard catering not guaranteed. On one of these flights the CSM offered drinks and pretzels and let me know that she would be back after attending to the other passengers. On the other, the CSM seemed to go out of her way to ignore me then and when finally asked what would I like, I was told I can have X or I will get you a snack from economy. When flying forward with QF they also let you know that that catering is not guaranteed however I am normally just treated like every other passenger in J.

 

[Strategic Aviation]

This almost sounds like culinary torture. Rather than give you nothing we'll give you just enough food to make you hungry then you can sit there for the next 45mins+ with your mouth watering and locked in a tube at 25,000ft.

Maybe they could start selling pizzas like United Will Sell Uno's Deep Dish Pizza In Economy... Yay? - One Mile at a Time. What could go wrong locked in a tube at 25,000ft?

Apparently the only flavor available will be spinach and garlic

 

[eastwest101]

Maybe VA are monitoring these forums? Saw this on a survey about a revent VA domestic flight - note the way that the question is couched:




Lots more further questions about getting food at the lounges/gate and even pre-ordering online - so maybe someone is re-thinking the onboard catering at VA after all?

 

[Deleted member 29185]

I had a survey sent to me after a QF flight and it asked some pretty odd questions using all the airlines with different selections including price, lounge, food, drinks, baggage etc.

Seems they are thinking, but I doubt it's about what we want.

 

[andyhui01]

The survey is interesting. Given the 3 options, I'd prefer for it to stay where it is now. Having a "quality" snack and no drinks is just stupid, but I am guessing some might prefer having better beverage and no food.

 

[eastwest101]

The survey is interesting. Given the 3 options, I'd prefer for it to stay where it is now. Having a "quality" snack and no drinks is just stupid, but I am guessing some might prefer having better beverage and no food.

Yes I thought that was an interesting logic at work too - you could only get nicer food if you lost your drinks or nicer drinks if you lose the snack. Given that the cost of most snacks and drinks on VA could only be in the order of 50c to say $2-4 this is just penny pinching. Rather than quantifying and weighing the olives and toothpicks I would prefer that VA looked at some of their larger fixed expenses and improved their business strategies - if they are that desperate - rather than scrambling down the back of the couch or 1 and 2c coins.

It would have been nice if they had designed the survey to allow for some imagination and/or of the requests here that they just serve a proper meals in a limited window of flight departure times and free water tea/coffee and juice all other times, with say a 7 day a week happy hour from 6-8pm for all drinks and buy on board for all other times.

 

[SheikYerbouti]

I'm a bit confused. With status, you get into the lounge before your flight. There's plenty to eat, and alcohol... so why not have something there so you don't notice the lack of food/beer on the flight itself?

 

[eastwest101]

I'm a bit confused. With status, you get into the lounge before your flight. There's plenty to eat, and alcohol... so why not have something there so you don't notice the lack of food/beer on the flight itself?

What if you're connecting from one flight to another with a short turnaround, or don't have the time to spend hours in an airport or what if you're tired of the very limited choice of food in the VA lounges? You know - the kind of things that frequent flyers or higher tier members might be.

 

[ajd]

I'm a bit confused. With status, you get into the lounge before your flight. There's plenty to eat, and alcohol... so why not have something there so you don't notice the lack of food/beer on the flight itself?

Enough people on AFF have status on QF but not VA, and this is exactly the kind of thing that's not really going to help as far as pulling them over to the other side.

 

[Strategic Aviation]

I had a survey sent to me after a QF flight and it asked some pretty odd questions using all the airlines with different selections including price, lounge, food, drinks, baggage etc.

I had that as a Red Planet survey rather than a post-flight survey.

Project Air, one of the few I wasn't screened out of and quite extensive, modelling hypothetical QF, JQ, VA and TT offerings. Other variables included were carry-on bags, change flexibility and flight schedules.

 

[pauly7]

The survey is interesting. Given the 3 options, I'd prefer for it to stay where it is now. Having a "quality" snack and no drinks is just stupid, but I am guessing some might prefer having better beverage and no food.

It is interesting but I think what VA define as 'small' and 'quality' differ quite dramatically from the general public

 

[neverhappy]

what is the point of this thread?

If va and their partners do not provide what you want, move all your travel to qf/ow then. Pretty simple....

amen!!!!!!

 

[neverhappy]

The food on VA is a total joke in Y. The amount of times I've written to Richard after a coast to coast flight complaining about the meagre portion of tasteless slop I've had to suffer through on a 5 hour flight... Never changes and never get a decent response...

But - and I presume I'm similar to many - I don't do enough flying to reach gold with QF most years, and VA WP is quite attainable with a mix of work (economy) travel and personal travel plus family pooling. The 4 upgrades are great on coast to coast, and things like priority boarding & baggage normally work very well. I would much prefer a oneworld style international network with lounge access, but based on the amount of flying I do its VA or nothing...

One of the downsides of this forum and becoming more points wise (read cc churning) is that vacation flights and long weekends are now often J awards which while fantastic for flying, has had a decent impact on SC earn and future status for work travel! A Euro trip for me and +1 a few years back netted us over 400 SCs flying return on SQ in Y...

Writing to Richard....

 

[Liu]

I will stay with Virgin for little longer..

 

[marki]

When flying around Australia I generally prefer Qantas, and have held status with Qantas ever since I started flying regularly. But I've now had Gold status with Virgin for around 6 months and during this time I've done a fair bit of flying with Virgin, as well as its international partner airlines.....snip

..............I will continue to fly Virgin domestically where it makes sense to do so - but I won't bother chasing status with them. I will also be sticking to Oneworld when flying overseas.

Mattg another great thread........The experience (VA)for miss Piggy has been disappointing.....she does expect some special treatment. Miss Piggy ( me ) was booked on on a virgin flight in Business and the business was scored via a competitive upgrade process for real cash. However being delayed (only) 1/2 min due to overlong delays due to Tulla upgrades was denied boarding and any help or sympathy whatsoever. Virgin were devoid of any sympathy no matter what. ( Miss Piggy was gold and business class). This is how they treat premium customers. So walking over to the Qantas ticketing desk asked for flight to my Western Seaboard city. Money taken and upgrade given with points despite being a closed flight ( it was boarding already) they took my luggage and with a smile. I fly with Qantas ever since and will only fly the VA when it actually makes sense to. Meals never have been a problem on QF flight though occasionally they do offer Pork which I refuse to eat its cannibalism(lol)

 

[Oneworldplus2]

But there are two things that make me struggle to take Virgin Australia and Velocity Frequent Flyer seriously:

1. (What) catering on Virgin Australia flights
2. Virgin's clunky international partner airline network

To add to OP, this is my limited opinion on VA

VA - what's not so good -

• No lifetime status
• Their inflight entertainment app (as OP mentioned) is a joke and needs to be expanded - they have Ross Greenwood podcasts that are over 4 months old, no updates? Movie selection is limited/dire and more variety needed. Someone else needs to be put in charge. Update at least monthly and expand movie selection - BNE-PER is a long sector.
• Website needs updating - the mobile app isn't the best and has very limited functions
• Points and SC's takes ages to land in account, even with a claim put in
• As OP mentioned, their VN (Virtual Network) is all over the shop. Haven't tried it yet, but case in point - inferior partner lounge in SIN, QF sh*ts all over it
• Have done BNE-PER vv monthly for 1 year, same breakfast - some variety would be good
• Some of the armrests/seats feel like they are way past their use-by date
• Limited European destinations
• If you bid for an upgrade and are successful, you don't get J SC's - thats a turn off for me.

VA - what's good -

• BNE + PER Lounges, nice and fresh (but lacking spirits). Staff at lounges are great too
• BP on mobile
• Red Eye supper variety - great (the quiches are better than the gumboot toastie l had a few months ago - l couldn't even chew it)
• VA staff are always happy, friendly and more than willing to help - makes for a great flying experience

 

[ajd]

chuckle, chuckle, chuckle ... a person after my own heart!

Last week I went for my first VA flight of 2017, primarily to check out the VA lounge in CBR now that I have very temporary Explorer Gold status.

The lounge visit was nice enough and I was just rethinking my aversion to VA, until I actually climbed aboard my beloved ATR 72 and realised that yes, it's still just as bad as I remembered it last time.

 

[Justinf]

• Points and SC's takes ages to land in account, even with a claim put in

This times a thousand. QF somtimes have the points and SCs appearing an hour after a flight.
VA takes days and days.

 

[Oneworldplus2]

Just to add to my previous post.

BNE DOM Bag drop/check-in procedure - compared to QF, VA is in the stonge age....