VA status extensions

[antycbr]

Any thoughts on when/if VA will do some form of status extension, following from the QF announcement today?

My partner and I both requalified for platinum in Jan 2020 on a Double SC business promo to NZ, our requalification dates are Sep 20 and Dec 20 respectively so the status extensions and status gifts didn’t really yield any benefits.

It’s a long slog to retain when the furthest you could fly recently from SYD was BNK, let alone those in Victoria.

Curious as to what people think VA might and should do to keep us interested in flying VA...

 

[Obzerva]

Qantas’ move was smart, logic would suggest that Virgin will have to if they want to be competitive, let’s face it, some people were flying enough to have some status with both.

The danger in Virgin not doing it is that it gives those doing MEL-SYD a reason to try Rex, and for everyone else, a chance for Qantas.

I would be happy do a similar model, have people need to buy a new ticket, as its a win for the traveller and revenue for Virgin

 

[a330j]

My understanding on reading the Virgin Australia extension from March is that a 12 month extension will be granted from your review date. Which would mean Sep 21 and Dec 21 extensions on the dates above. I stand to be corrected but this earlier AFF discussion thread seems to confirm it. Virgin Australia launches 'coronavirus status extension' plan.

 

[antycbr]

My understanding on reading the Virgin Australia extension from March is that a 12 month extension will be granted from your review date. Which would mean Sep 21 and Dec 21 extensions on the dates above. I stand to be corrected but this earlier AFF discussion thread seems to confirm it. Virgin Australia launches 'coronavirus status extension' plan.

That didn’t happen to my partner, his review date is Sep 21 but he has to start requalifying from Sep 20 to earn 800 SC. Is that right in your understanding?

 

[a330j]

You might want to confirm this with Velocity, but my understanding is that his platinum status would/should have been extended from Sep 2020 to Sep 2021 without any requirement to earn status credits. Yes if he wanted to then extend Platinum to Sep 2022 he would need to earn the required SCs within the extension year. If the SCs aren't achieved he would drop to gold at the Sep 2021 review.

 

[Cddc]

I'm in the same boat, requalified platinum on my own steam back in February before the 'rona status extension/gifts announcement was made. My review date was June and as I had already requalified the status extension and status gift meant zip to me.

I'm based in Melbourne so haven't flown at all since. Velocity account currently saying I still need to fly 8 eligible sectors and achieve 800 status credit before my review date in June 2021 to maintain for a further year.

I've been trying to give the new owners the benefit of doubt but they appear to be asleep at the wheel in keeping their status passengers incentive to stay so I've started booking my travel with QF.

 

[Bagpuss]

I'm in the same boat, requalified platinum on my own steam back in February before the 'rona status extension/gifts announcement was made. My review date was June and as I had already requalified the status extension and status gift meant zip to me.

I'm based in Melbourne so haven't flown at all since. Velocity account currently saying I still need to fly 8 eligible sectors and achieve 800 status credit before my review date in June 2021 to maintain for a further year.

I've been trying to give the new owners the benefit of doubt but they appear to be asleep at the wheel in keeping their status passengers incentive to stay so I've started booking my travel with QF.

As I have previous commented before (as I was in the same boat), the cards are always for 12 months in advance. If you had already obtained re-qualification e-mail Velocity and they will confirm you have the extra 12 months as you received "no benefit" from the 12 month extension.

 

[Cddc]

As I have previous commented before (as I was in the same boat), the cards are always for 12 months in advance. If you had already obtained re-qualification e-mail Velocity and they will confirm you have the extra 12 months as you received "no benefit" from the 12 month extension.

I'm not sure where your previous post is but by your reckoning those of us that had already re-qualified should have our status extended for another year after this 'benefit period' finishes (so into 2022)?

However anecdotally and as evidenced by previous posts in this thread this is not happening. Do we need to call up at the end of this 'benefit period' to get the extension (in my case June 21)?

In any case, I didn't receive my generic 'welcome to another year of benefits' email until my review date 28 June 2020 and my new card didn't arrive in the mail until sometime in September even though I re-qualified back in February. I interpret the status extension as "here is your extension to your next 'benefit period', pity you had already re-qualified" and nothing in the status extension emails sent back in April has anything to the contrary.

C'est la vie, switching to QF anyway.

 

[AdMEL]

My partner is in he same boat too - her review date is in April, but she had already requalified gold before the status extension announcement in March. To date, she has received nothing to suggest that her gold status will be extended beyond April 2021. As already mentioned by others, she only received her renewed gold card a couple of months ago with April 2021 expiry and her account shows that she needs the qualifying sectors and status credits before then to requalify. Hope the comments here are correct and her gold status will be extended another year - it may be the last though, as her employer jumped ship to QF months ago. If only VA communication and IT wasn’t so appalling!

 

[SurryHillsFlyer]

This is what I received in April:

Hi SurryHillsFlyer, Some of you have been asking us questions about how your Status extension will work. Sorry we weren’t clear in our email to you a few hours ago. Your current Status will be extended for a further year1. Since we weren’t planning on reviewing your status until 8 January 2021, you’ll get a further 12 months once you reach that date. You don't need to do anything and once your bonus year of Status begins, you'll be able to see this on our Website and in the Velocity App.  You will of course still receive the Status Credit gift2 we offered you in our last email. We hope this is now a little clearer.​

 

[Bagpuss]

I'm not sure where your previous post is but by your reckoning those of us that had already re-qualified should have our status extended for another year after this 'benefit period' finishes (so into 2022)?

That is correct.

The email I got from Platinum:

Membership number: xx_xx_xx_XX

Dear Bagpuss

Thank you for contacting us about your membership status.

Ive reviewed your account and I understand where youre coming from.

In line with the status gift extension, well be maintaining your Platinum membership until DD Month 2022 as youve reached the requirements on your current benefit period.

I hope this solves your query. If theres anything else we can do for you, please call the Membership Contact Centre on the number below or visit our website velocityfrequentflyer.com.

Kind regards

 

[antycbr]

That is correct.

The email I got from Platinum:

Membership number: xx_xx_xx_XX

Dear Bagpuss

Thank you for contacting us about your membership status.

Ive reviewed your account and I understand where youre coming from.

In line with the status gift extension, well be maintaining your Platinum membership until DD Month 2022 as youve reached the requirements on your current benefit period.

I hope this solves your query. If theres anything else we can do for you, please call the Membership Contact Centre on the number below or visit our website velocityfrequentflyer.com.

Kind regards

Thanks everyone for the advice about my specific situation, will send off some emails.

How about everyone else? Are we expecting something to be done more broadly?

 

[Obzerva]

Thanks everyone for the advice about my specific situation, will send off some emails.

How about everyone else? Are we expecting something to be done more broadly?

Based on Bagpuss' email (thank you Bagpuss) I've contacted Velocity to see what the go is.
I had one status credit more than I needed for requalification, so I've asked the question does the courtesy apply after that.

 

[Muppet501st]

I'm not sure where your previous post is but by your reckoning those of us that had already re-qualified should have our status extended for another year after this 'benefit period' finishes (so into 2022)?

However anecdotally and as evidenced by previous posts in this thread this is not happening. Do we need to call up at the end of this 'benefit period' to get the extension (in my case June 21)?

In any case, I didn't receive my generic 'welcome to another year of benefits' email until my review date 28 June 2020 and my new card didn't arrive in the mail until sometime in September even though I re-qualified back in February. I interpret the status extension as "here is your extension to your next 'benefit period', pity you had already re-qualified" and nothing in the status extension emails sent back in April has anything to the contrary.

C'est la vie, switching to QF anyway.

My review date is end of June,
Just like you, i had re-qualified back in December 2019, so the status extension was useless for me ( perfect for my better half, as i had gifted her WP in Jan 2020, so that runs out in Jan 2022 )
I sent off an email just after my review date and received confirmation that i would be gifted a year of WP.

I have switched over to QF- and have completed their SG status challenge, and havent stepped foot on a VA plane since September. Was pretty peeved off after VA wouldnt give me my $$ back from an overseas trip, ( which i successfully charged back on my CC )

 

[Matt_01]

This was a handy thread to come across, I was another that had already re-qualified for the period May 20-May 21 and at the time of receiving the status extension email I just thought to myself that is of no value. After stumbling across this thread I called VA to find out what email address I should send an email to to put forward a case for an extension to be applied until May 22. To my surprise the agent just looked into my account history, confirmed that I would have been a WP to May 21 and then extended for an additional 12 months. The entire call was less than 10 minutes so a pretty good outcome.

It is most likely that I will continue to travel with QF however I now have another option.

Edit. Quick update within a few minutes of the call ending I received an email confirmation for the extension.

 

[Obzerva]

This was a handy thread to come across, I was another that had already re-qualified for the period May 20-May 21 and at the time of receiving the status extension email I just thought to myself that is of no value. After stumbling across this thread I called VA to find out what email address I should send an email to to put forward a case for an extension to be applied until May 22. To my surprise the agent just looked into my account history, confirmed that I would have been a WP to May 21 and then extended for an additional 12 months. The entire call was less than 10 minutes so a pretty good outcome.

It is most likely that I will continue to travel with QF however I now have another option.

ahh good to know about calling them.

Also tried it, and less than 5mins sorted!
They looked in to it straight away, saw I requalified for Sep '21, and said that the courtesy extension will add on after that (but won't show on the account).

so yeah, kudos to Virgin and Velocity.

 

[SeaWolf]

Mine currently shows I'm good until Feb 21 and based on what others are saying it sounds like it'll just add on the courtesy extension without me having to do anything when the time comes.
I'll be curious to see if Virgin offers any roll over of status credit or 'single flight' re-qualification like QF has just done. The rollover would be of particular interest to me.

 

[Obzerva]

The impression I got is they're getting a few calls on this, they seemed a little too armed with the info.

 

[Matt_01]

Mine currently shows I'm good until Feb 21 and based on what others are saying it sounds like it'll just add on the courtesy extension without me having to do anything when the time comes.
I'll be curious to see if Virgin offers any roll over of status credit or 'single flight' re-qualification like QF has just done. The rollover would be of particular interest to me.

@Obzerva makes a good point that VA seems to have this in hand, at the moment I am not convinced they are proactively managing additional extensions for those who had already re-qualified, but who knows. Given the QF announcement I suspect VA will be planning something.

 

[Stealthflyer]

My anniversary date was last month. I haven’t flown since February when I was well on my way to requalifying but was a hundred short with 8 months to go - an easy number in normal times. Considering the state borders have been closed since then and Virgin stopped flying to Tassie during that time, there’s been no opportunity to earn points beyond Flybuys. I assumed with the extension that we’d have two years to requalify (ie we have to earn 800 points over two years) yet apparently I’m back to 0 and have to somehow earn 800 status credits within the next year. There’s no way I’ll earn that many without flying overseas. The uncertainty surrounding border closures also means I’m unlikely to fly domestically any time soon. If I only had to earn 100 odd points, I might have some incentive to give requalifying a go, but 800 is impossible and quite frankly it’s pointless to try. I’m sure I’m not the only one in that boat.

As an aside, has anyone got new cards on their anniversary? It’s been a month and there still nothing in the mail.