Welcome to another year of Velocity Platinum membership

[hydrabyss]

The reason the Priority Boarding lane is full is because everyone gets to use it (except for NB Saver Fares).

Personally - I would drop Flexi from the entitlement.

Priority Boarding is Gold,Plat and J only.
Very useful for getting overhead luggage space.

 

[koonyaflyer]

Hi dfcatch, I am assuming your commen about dropping Flexi from Priority Boarding was tongue in cheek, as it has neve been a benefit of a Flexi Fare. The only people who qualify for priority boarding are Platinum, Gold and Business Class.

At times in Sydney and Melbourne this appears to be up to 50 people in some flights. Status match year 1 is ok....no dilution of benefits as they shift their travel pattern. Comping in the 2nd year when no where near the required SC can dilute ..... Effectively you are increasing the pool who can use the benefit, some of whom simply do not qualify, but decreasing the actual experience for the requalified Plat and Gold!

 

[dfcatch]

Hi dfcatch, I am assuming your commen about dropping Flexi from Priority Boarding was tongue in cheek, as it has neve been a benefit of a Flexi Fare. The only people who qualify for priority boarding are Platinum, Gold and Business Class.

At times in Sydney and Melbourne this appears to be up to 50 people in some flights. Status match year 1 is ok....no dilution of benefits as they shift their travel pattern. Comping in the 2nd year when no where near the required SC can dilute ..... Effectively you are increasing the pool who can use the benefit, some of whom simply do not qualify, but decreasing the actual experience for the requalified Plat and Gold!

1/ Sorry my bad - I was thinking of Priority Checkin (where Flexi is included).

2/ Your point is right in theory.

But it fails in practice - and this is my point. If they aren't flying - then they're not in your Priority line.

Eg. I didn't fly VA in the last 2 months (I was platinum), I wasn't flying so I wasn't in your line. I wasn't in your lounge seat, I didn't take your award seat.

FWIW - I dropped to Gold (back to where I was before the SM).

Now - let's assume they comped me.... Next month I fly once for the whole year (or simply not enough to requalify - the actual amount is immaterial).

On that single day I fly - yes I'm in your line. But I'm not in your line all the other 364 days of the year. And seeing as you're an "earned status" member - that means lots of flights for you where I'm not there.

Not to mention I probably wouldn't have even considered Virgin without the status benefit - therefore VA wins (albeit only a day).

You're all overstating the actual, real, demonstrable impact on benefits.

And I'm clearly understating the impact on sense of achievement/entitlement as Trippin rightly pointed out.

Ultimately - VA has decided that when considering that trade off - the balance has tipped in favour of working to win over QF FFs.

 

[MichaelD]

On that single day I fly - yes I'm in your line.

(Not a personal comment on dfcatch - a general comment on comped status)
We don't want you in our line. Not any more. *That's* the point. You were welcome for the last 12 months, but your welcome has worn out.

Virgin clearly still wants you there, even if you've only flown 280SCs or 90SCs, for some unfathomable reason, so we must grudgingly make room for you when you do make an appearance.

With comped status, double SC offers, half price flexi upgrades, and innumerable J sale fares, Virgin have effectively devalued their premium product to the point where anyone paying "full price" for J will feel like a mug.

 

[dfcatch]

(Not a personal comment on dfcatch - a general comment on comped status)
We don't want you in our line. Not any more. *That's* the point. You were welcome for the last 12 months, but your welcome has worn out.

Virgin clearly still wants you there, even if you've only flown 280SCs or 90SCs, for some unfathomable reason, so we must grudgingly make room for you when you do make an appearance.

With comped status, double SC offers, half price flexi upgrades, and innumerable J sale fares, Virgin have effectively devalued their premium product to the point where anyone paying "full price" for J will feel like a mug.

You won't have a line if VA don't successfully get and maintain their program to a critical mass.

 

[pauly7]

You won't have a line if VA don't successfully get and maintain their program to a critical mass.

Good point - there won't be a plane at the end of the line either if they can't hang onto some high value flyers with all the costs they are injecting into the business to attract them in the first place!

Clearly they are losing a heap at the moment now lapping the status match offers and are trying to soften the blow by hanging onto some with the assumption they will fly more DJ....

The collateral damage is very clearly however the BIS DJ flyers as evidenced by this thread & the perceived worth of Velocity and DJ's premium offering which if you did the hard/'honest?' way you would feel like a bit of a sucker right now.

 

[markis10]

Good point - there won't be a plane at the end of the line either if they can't hang onto some high value flyers with all the costs they are injecting into the business to attract them in the first place!

Clearly they are losing a heap at the moment now lapping the status match offers and are trying to soften the blow by hanging onto some with the assumption they will fly more DJ....

The collateral damage is very clearly however the BIS DJ flyers as evidenced by this thread & the perceived worth of Velocity and DJ's premium offering which if you did the hard/'honest?' way you would feel like a bit of a sucker right now.

Losing customers or maintaining the gains they have made, after all in the last year they have exceeded mainline in pure passenger numbers, had steady RPK and ASK growth while the opposition has gone to a negative trend. I would say the latest comp is just another chink the game change plan, along with the leg ups for J flights and credit card apps etc etc, rather than a new jerk reaction to something that is just not there based on loadings!

Its been interesting to see how the status match campaign has turned out using the small sample on AFF, whilst some predicted it would have little impact, the sheer number of AFFs now flying DJ amassing a good SC hauls has been a sign that its been worthwhile for them, while lounge crowding even after the end of the ATA period has shown that the sample on AFF is indicative of the flying public in general taking to the offer very well.

 

[medhead]

Those interested in the cost situation should read the back page of today's AFR. DJ cost per seat (CASK I think they used) is up 4.5%, yield up 12%. QF cost down 3%, but yield margin (again I think that was the term used) is 30-40%.

Take home messages were: DJ are not losing money but have to ensure they keep or increase the margin between cost and yield. QF have a lot to play with and their costs are decreasing.


Sent from the Throne

 

[awilcockson]

We don't want you in our line. Not any more. *That's* the point. You were welcome for the last 12 months, but your welcome has worn out.

Wow. Just Wow.

And before anyone asks "how would you feel if QF were handing out free platinum memberships"? They are (to OOL members for instance), and it doesn't bother me one bit. Also, not that it should matter, but I re-qualified Gold on my own, so I would have been in "your" line anyway ... For that matter, anyone who was status matched to Platinum originally would still be in "your" line for the next 12 months due to the soft landing to gold.

 

[dfcatch]

Just for some perspective.......

I do genuinely empathise with the "sense of achievement" issue that hard-yard BIS FFs may feel.

But whining about comped SM FFs who clearly aren't flying and aren't "in the line" is immaterial.

I'll tell what would p... me off - and this is where I see the legitimate gripe if VA were to stuff it up........


IF I was a multi-year hard-yard BIS FF who NEVER took a match, never took a Dbl SC offer, never took a CC SC offer etc - and then one year fell short... I would be royally annoyed if I then didn't get looked after - that would be a legitimate gripe.

You are also allowed to be "slightly" annoyed at the current situation if you deliberately took "extra" flights or did a run just to maintain your Status - just to see that you probably would have been comped had you not taken the run. This is a legitimate annoyance - but no different to filling up with petrol the day before the price drops 10 cents!

That's life - accept it and move on.

If you don't like it - go back to that horrible QF offering that you clearly despise so much.


I hear all the arguments here - I don't want to sound like I'm not listening or balancing my views - but any objective analysis strips away most arguments in this thread.

The ones that are left are ego, jealousy, and all the other adjectives that make up that term that we like to call ourselves - DYKWIA?

 

[Fruitcake]

The collateral damage is very clearly however the BIS DJ flyers as evidenced by this thread & the perceived worth of Velocity and DJ's premium offering which if you did the hard/'honest?' way you would feel like a bit of a sucker right now.

Not this little black duck - VA made me an offer (the Velocity terms and conditions), I accepted by flying the required amount (well, half the required amount - I took my wife and stole her SCs ). They sent me a platinum card and have extended the platinum benefits to me. I don't really care how the person next to me in the Lounge came by their status or whether it cost them a lot or nothing.

Four Yorkshireman debates over status acquisition are meaningless.

 

[MichaelD]

IF I was a multi-year hard-yard BIS FF who NEVER took a match, never took a Dbl SC offer, never took a CC SC offer etc - and then one year fell short... I would be royally annoyed if I then didn't get looked after - that would be a legitimate gripe.

100% agree with you on this point. "Soft landing" just isn't good enough when so many are being freeloaded by Virgin.

And yet, there was at least one BIS flying pointing out in this thread how close they were to Platinum...and no comp for them.

Don't get be wrong - if *I* was offered something for free by Virgin, Qantas, or any other airline for that matter, I'd be onto it in a flash and not particularly care what anyone else thought about it. 90SCs for Platinum? Gimme. It's within "the rules" as defined by Virgin. Doesn't mean I have to agree with or like the rules.

 

[Grooba]

Here's another previously matched, now officially comped DJ WP. No need for a smiley face after that statement as I probably won't fly with them much.

 

[day-heg]

To all those SM’d and subsequently comp’d another year at elite status, good luck to you. If I need to wait another 30 seconds in the Lounge for my free coffee or beer because you’re ahead of me, then that’s OK. If Virgin think that you deserve it, then far be it for me to think I know better, because I don’t.

I am a BIS Platinum, from day one. Nearly 300 flights with DJ since Feb ’10, saver fares the whole way, so I’ve done it the hard way. Since August last year, (with the help of family pooling, a double SC offer and a trip to Europe), I’ve earned and retained Platinum for me & Mrs D-H, and we’ve been given a partner Plat and Gold between us too, so I fly a fair bit.

I guess only two things would pi$$ me off…

The first that is if someone who had been comp’d another year at Plat got an op-up before I did. Yes I know, it’s impossible to find out, but assuming that those who make these decisions don’t discriminate/can’t tell the difference between various types of Platinum, there is without question an increased likelihood of this happening. While I NEVER expect an op-up, anecdotally from this forum I know they happen – and with some frequency for some members. For the man who's earned 250SCs, half of which was on a partner airline to get that op-up before me or another proper BIS Plat, well that jars with my sense of fair play.
I reckon I’ve had 2 since VFF was relaunched (so from about 100 flights), and one of those was after I’d made a complaint about something else and something must have been recorded in their database as I was moved just before boarding, and no-one sat in my original seat, so not a true op-up IMO.

The second is this – and I think/hope that many people may be with me on this… when someone (comped or not) chooses the middle seat in row 3. Seriously? When the plane is only 75% full?? Surely 3B & 3E should be the very last seats on the plane to be filled (travelling buddies excepted)? Why anyone would choose to sit in the middle for a bit of extra leg room for a 60 minute flight is beyond me! Give me a window seat in row 17 before middle seat row 3.
With more comp’d high level fliers, there is more chance of that happening, and it really annoys me! Irrational? Probably. But nonetheless, the number of times it happens is frequent (for me) and this frequency is directly affected by the number of people that can choose those seats…

So in conclusion, don’t get op-up’d before me if you’ve been comp’d, and don’t choose 3B or 3E. Beyond that, fill your boots!

 

[SimonF]

I haven`t got an email stating my status has been extended or not but i just logged on and i seem to have another 4 comp upgrades so does this mean i`ve been extended? How should my account look if it`s extended vs back to gold? Status review now shows 2013 and status review was completed last week.

 

[docjames]

Apologies but another year of gold for me.

Earn was about 200scs on flex fares, plus an upcoming points flight in j. From zero over four years. No double sc earn (no travel during the offer period).

I also used the shop & earn store regularly, plus rolled some cc points in (not sure how much of a factor those are).

Fwiw comfortably retained sg on QF also (almost all on QF metal, and those that weren't were on QF codes). Zero SCs or flights one Onestar.

 

[SimonF]

I haven`t got an email stating my status has been extended or not but i just logged on and i seem to have another 4 comp upgrades so does this mean i`ve been extended? How should my account look if it`s extended vs back to gold? Status review now shows 2013 and status review was completed last week.

Any ideas from someone that has had their plat comped for another year? Or is my account just gitched up?

 

[serfty]

Any ideas from someone that has had their plat comped for another year? Or is my account just gitched up?

The 2013 indicates extension.

 

[SimonF]

The 2013 indicates extension.

Wow insane. I hate to say it but i wasn`t even a little bit close to even re-qualifying for Gold let alone Plat. I guess I`ll be flying them more now in the next year. I wish it was a calendar year not the system they have at the moment which just seems to copy Qantas.

 

[Fruitcake]

I wish it was a calendar year not the system they have at the moment which just seems to copy Qantas.

VA's status qualification/reassessment system is quite different to that used at Qantas, and neither of them use a calendar year. VA uses a rolling twelve month period, QF uses your membership anniversary date.

My understanding is this:
Consider that if you join both programs on 1 July 2012 and earn Gold around 15 December 2012.

On 15 December 2013 VA will look at your status credits earned since 16 December 2012 and extend/drop your status accordingly.

QF will set your status credits to zero on 1 July 2013, but you will remain gold until 1 July 2014, at which point your status is assessed.