Velocity introduces Forever Gold lifetime status tier

[kpc]

A lot of my SCs earned previously were from partner airlines and family pooling so I reckon I will be a long way off...

 

[antycbr]

Question: they state that flights from pooling won’t earn for the recipient, but what about the donor, that did the actual flying?

Or do these just vanish for both the donor and recipient?

 

[AIRwin]

A number of wishes coming true?

M

Thread 'Velocity - Lifetime benefits'

Jan 17, 2011

One thing I would like to see is some form of lifetime benefits for velocity members similar to Qantas' Lifetime Gold etc.

After so many SC's are earned you get lifetime Silver and the same with Gold.

Maybe Crazydave can answer whether or not it's in the pipeline.

• Mogul
• Replies: 56
• Forum: Virgin Australia | Velocity

Thread 'VFF lifetime status'

Apr 18, 2013

Please Virgin, bring in lifetime status.

Does anyone know of any plans?

I think this is a real plus QF have over VA especially over getting government travel.

Thoughts?

• Virgin Bart
• loyalty program
• Replies: 21
• Forum: Virgin Australia | Velocity

• 

Thread 'Does VFF have any lifetime Status awards to aim at?'

Apr 8, 2021

I must have been a Virgin Plat for 10 years or so. Partner ditto.

Qantas have well-defined Lifetime status targets for Lifetime Gold and Plat etc. Most airlines do.

I cannot recall ever seeing any Virgin equivalent - is there?

I got Lifetime Star Alliance Gold for me and a partner many years back for flying 1.5 or 2 million real paid miles or whatever the bar was.

Such carrots give flyers something to work towards, but not sure if Virgin has any?

Seems a WIN-WIN for both flyers and airlines, if such plans are in place and clearly outlined.

Not too late to set up something along...

• ozstamps
• airline status loyalty program
• Replies: 9
• Forum: Virgin Australia | Velocity

 

[ozstamps]

''To recognise the loyalty of our members over the past decade, all Status Credits earned since 1 February 2013 will be counted when calculating eligibility for Forever Gold.

To qualify for Forever Gold, you must have earned at least 12,000 Status Credits, with a minimum of 9,000 Status Credits earned on eligible Virgin Australia marketed flights flown by you''

So - been non-stop Platinum since before 2013, and I have often booked Etihad and SQ and Hong Kong Airlines long haul Biz Class flights on EH and SQ websites etc, as frankly they were simpler to deal with many times.

Sometimes I booked direct with Virgin - it made no difference to us - the SC were all I was seeking.

Added my Velocity number to the booking, and the miles and SC all accrued the same to Velocity, as if I booked on Virgin sites. There was no good reason to have used the Virgin site. It was all the same.

So they seem to be now saying - 11 years later, THOSE bookings do not count??? Are they 'Virgin marketed flights' For these calculations?? If not, they should be. Who is to know in 10 years time they'll come up with this crazy wording?

 

[jeppetto367]

''To recognise the loyalty of our members over the past decade, all Status Credits earned since 1 February 2013 will be counted when calculating eligibility for Forever Gold.

To qualify for Forever Gold, you must have earned at least 12,000 Status Credits, with a minimum of 9,000 Status Credits earned on eligible Virgin Australia marketed flights flown by you''

So - been non-stop Platinum since before 2013, and I have often booked Etihad and SQ and Hong Kong Airlines long haul Biz Class flights on EH and SQ websites etc, as frankly they were simpler to deal with many times.

Sometimes I booked direct with Virgin - it made no difference to us - the SC were all I was seeking.

Added my Velocity number to the booking, and the miles and SC all accrued the same to Velocity, as if I booked on Virgin sites. There was no good reason to have used the Virgin site. It was all the same.

So they seem to be now saying - 11 years later, THOSE bookings do not count??? Are they 'Virgin marketed flights' For these calculations?? If not, they should be. Who is to know in 10 years time they'll come up with this crazy wording?

Same as me, almost 10 years VA Platinum including long haul EY/QR/SQ almost every year, now VA decide to say that my loyalty isn't good enough due to a new metric they've decided to introduce (also similar for the people that relied on Family Pooling).

I'd understand if they just separated VA and non VA/partner credits moving forward, but to tell customers who have been loyal and followed the rules (that were set by VA!) that their previous loyalty doesn't really count is quite frankly insulting.

Here's a solution, count every previous Status Credit from a certain date (say today) as a VA credit no matter how it was earned to keep current customers happy.

And then say moving forward you need 12k SC with 9k SC either on a VA ticket from today OR earnt by any method before today. This would be a way to keep people purchasing VA tickets moving forward but not annoy your customers who have been following the rules (and spending the most $$).

 

[Scarlett]

Question: they state that flights from pooling won’t earn for the recipient, but what about the donor, that did the actual flying?

Or do these just vanish for both the donor and recipient?

After reading all the rules and fine print, this is now the thing I’m keen to find out. It would seem incongruous to not allow VA earned SCs which were pooled to you and then also not count those you earned but pooled to someone else.

In any event, I doubt I’ll be 50% of the way there as I reckon 60-70% of my VFF SCs have come from partners (EY and SQ J predominantly).

 

[ozstamps]

Same as me, almost 10 years VA Platinum including long haul EY/QR/SQ almost every year, now VA decide to say that my loyalty isn't good enough due to a new metric they've decided to introduce (also similar for the people that relied on Family Pooling).

I'd understand if they just separated VA and non VA/partner credits moving forward, but to tell customers who have been loyal and followed the rules (that were set by VA!) that their previous loyalty doesn't really count is quite frankly insulting.

Here's a solution, count every previous Status Credit from a certain date (say today) as a VA credit no matter how it was earned to keep current customers happy.

And then say moving forward you need 12k SC with 9k SC either on a VA ticket from today OR earnt by any method before today. This would be a way to keep people purchasing VA tickets moving forward but not annoy your customers who have been following the rules (and spending the most $$).

Yes they are free to state that GOING FORWARD, the rules will be whatever to FOREVER GOLD status.

But for those us who booked on EH website etc in the past decade, as there was no reason NOT to, as SC were all credited to Virgin, should not affect the SC tally from 2013 for 'Forever Gold'.

In most cases the COST was the same to me - it was just more convenient as more outings choices showed etc.

This will cost me several 1000 SC if it is enforced strictly as per the new wording.

 

[SYD]

I was adding up my LT (or is that FT?) tally from my records starting from Feb 2013 and of course realised that there’s another ~4 yrs of VFF activity not being counted (and another 8 years flying during the DJ days….).

Needless to say, I won’t get FG (and unlikely ever to). I’ll probably get QF LTP before VA FG….

 

[twentyfive]

Maintained gold since 2016. Minus the 1.5 to 2 year extension during covid, should have at least 2400 SC. Didn't fly much in the years before that, probably total 400 SC. Would take me another 23 goldie years to reach forever status A lot closer than the 13,000+ I need for qantas lifetime but wouldn't bet on ever achieving it.

Doubt I can retain gold past 2026 with the higher requirements anyway. More than half of my SC earned are from pooling.

 

[RooFlyer]

So they seem to be now saying - 11 years later, THOSE bookings do not count??? Are they 'Virgin marketed flights' For these calculations?? If not, they should be. Who is to know in 10 years time they'll come up with this crazy wording

in the bit you quoted it says that all SC earned in the past from 2013 will count, but then it says you’re only going to be allowed to count 3000 on non-VA flights.

Contradictory, but 3000 out of 13,000 is a pretty big chunk to be able to count.

 

[kamchatsky]

Playing devil’s advocate here.

This is VA 2.0 which is post 2020. They do not have to include any SCs during VA 1.0 at all for the Forever Gold calculation. So maybe VA (2.0) is actually generous?

After all, they want people have something to aim for. If a lot of people already get Forever Gold due to flying on partner airlines during VA1.0, then they will simply stop flying VA going forward, and which defeats the purpose of Forever Gold?

 

[SYD]

in the bit you quoted it says that all SC earned in the past from 2013 will count, but then it says you’re only going to be allowed to count 3000 on non-VA flights.

Contradictory, but 3000 out of 13,000 is a pretty big chunk to be able to count.

Pretty ordinary compared to QF LTS/G/P!

 

[moa999]

They could have started points counting from 2025.
I agree it's fairly generous.

Note that while the main group went into administration, certain entities including VAFF (thanks to it's cash backed structure) and VAInt didn't.

 

[ozstamps]

I suspect the number of pax with 12,000 SC in 10 years under these current guidelines will be VERRRRY few. A high bar already.

And of those, most will be serious road warriors who will qualify for the new Platinum Plus level already, and will not be stopping flying Virgin with that cool card in their pocket.

 

[justinbrett]

Pretty ordinary compared to QF LTS/G/P!

QF requirement is 0%. There’s an edge case where someone was Bronze all their life but then gets LTS and LTG. Without ever setting foot on a QF aircraft or giving a cent to QF.

 

[SYD]

QF requirement is 0%. There’s an edge case where someone was Bronze all their life but then gets LTS and LTG. Without ever setting foot on a QF aircraft or giving a cent to QF.

Yep, that’s my point!

 

[CaptJCool]

Playing devil’s advocate here.

This is VA 2.0 which is post 2020. They do not have to include any SCs during VA 1.0 at all for the Forever Gold calculation. So maybe VA (2.0) is actually generous?

After all, they want people have something to aim for. If a lot of people already get Forever Gold due to flying on partner airlines during VA1.0, then they will simply stop flying VA going forward, and which defeats the purpose of Forever Gold?

Depends if you consider SC fall within Loyalty as the points collector was spun Orf from VA1.0 and survived the bankruptcy

Of course there’s a lot of punters midstream who want something to show for their longevity flying with VA & partners

 

[RooFlyer]

Pretty ordinary compared to QF LTS/G/P!

The consequence of not being in one of the three alliances!

BTW, anyone looking behind the grassy knoll to see the hand of QR causing the devaluation of VA flyers going to other internationals?

 

[kamchatsky]

I suspect the number of pax with 12,000 SC in 10 years under these current guidelines will be VERRRRY few. A high bar already.

And of those, most will be serious road warriors who will qualify for the new Platinum Plus level already, and will not be stopping flying Virgin with that cool card in their pocket.

I actually think it is much higher than Verrrrrry Low. Family Pooling is a big factor here. All you need is family of 4 doing a few trips here and there and you get VA Platinum.

 

[kamchatsky]

Depends if you consider SC fall within Loyalty as the points collector was spun Orf from VA1.0 and survived the bankruptcy

Of course there’s a lot of punters midstream who want something to show for their longevity flying with VA & partners

They could, but they don't have to. VA 1.0 never had Forever Gold so no one here was actually aiming for it at that time.

So they are providing something to the loyal VA flyers who actually flew VA with their own bums on seats since 2013.

And they want those people to keep flying VA with their bums on seats going forward.