When your employer's airline changes from Qantas to Virgin - any tips?

[QF4L]

Hey all - I'm QF Gold (ex Plat!) that has spent the last years going all in on the QFF ecosystem; credit cards, insurance, electricity, the rest. My employer is changing from Qantas to Virgin, and I'm wondering what experience people have switching allegiances. I have a lot of points, but my main motivator is lounge access for all the flights I do, not redemptions or upgrades.

Interested to hear from people that have been in a similar position having an employer switch from Qantas to Virgin. Any tips, learnings, observations, general advice? If I'm going to be locked to Velocity, then Gold, ie lounge access, will be my immediate goal.

 

[gaz0303]

When our work changed, Virgin matched everyone’s status as part of the deal.

 

[TomVexille]

They should be status matching, at a minimum you should get pilot gold

 

[pauly7]

Is your employer moving to BFOD or VA exclusive? I ask because not many companies are on VA exclusively.

If BFOD you’ll find it relatively easy to game the system and stay flying QF as VA don’t have a huge price differential any more.

If VA exclusive then if I were you I’d be looking at crediting to SQ depending on how much you are flying and your international movements. Velocity is pretty woeful IMHO.

 

[QF4L]

If BFOD you’ll find it relatively easy to game the system and stay flying QF as VA don’t have a huge price differential any more.

I certainly plan to argue that point! Thank you for the advice.

 

[Pleb Status]

Is your employer moving to BFOD or VA exclusive? I ask because not many companies are on VA exclusively.

If BFOD you’ll find it relatively easy to game the system and stay flying QF as VA don’t have a huge price differential any more.

If VA exclusive then if I were you I’d be looking at crediting to SQ depending on how much you are flying and your international movements. Velocity is pretty woeful IMHO.

When the large company I worked for went 'VA exclusive' for domestic and trans tasman flights (must be one of the few, most likely not...), VFF offered a status match for all staff. I did not use it as I was already VA WP.

VA domestic and trans tasman flights (which are not SQ codeshare flights) credited directly to KF do not earn any KF 'elite miles' which are required for KF status accrual. So crediting directly to KF really only works if you do not want any future status or do not fly on VA domestic and/or trans tasman at all.

 

[pauly7]

I certainly plan to argue that point! Thank you for the advice.

VA will probably status match people but they have gotten a bit tighter on matching ‘all employees’ recently I have heard - only management sometimes get it... So hopefully you do get it.

Don’t worry BFOD is quite an easy game to play, especially on the golden triangle flights where QF have their 15 minute increment flights (Clue right there!)

 

[Pleb Status]

VA will probably status match people but they have gotten a bit tighter on matching ‘all employees’ recently I have heard - only management sometimes get it... So hopefully you do get it.

Don’t worry BFOD is quite an easy game to play, especially on the golden triangle flights where QF have their 15 minute increment flights (Clue right there!)

Where do you 'hear' things?

I would get a better 'source' if I was you, as almost everything you 'say' and/or 'experience' about VA is 'far' from reality. Why do you even fly VA (or purport to fly VA), as 'not many companies are on VA exclusively'?

As stated above, when the large company I worked for went 'VA exclusive' last year, the status match emails (including the follow ups) were addressed to all staff. As long as you had an email account on the corporate domain (@xx_x.com), you were included in the promotion.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Get all your fuel from BP/OTR (SA) to get the max fuel worth of VFF points, no SC earnt from these though, you can supplement points earn from Coles Express, also no SC earnt.
Buy all your food from Coles, alcy from Liqourland, ...
As far as I know, there are no bonus earning points systems with utilities, Lumo left the VFF system a while back.
Not sure if e-Rewards is still in the system, goss on here is they left, I haven't had any surveys let me knows of late.
Go and join SQ's KF system too, they have a tie in with VFF, and if you have to fly where VA don't fly to, you can still get VFF points and probably SC too flying with SQ, or fly DL if you have to go to the US/Canada, I would not go with AC at the moment, as min SC possibility flying them where there is no VFF/AC agreements in place.
I think PilotGold is a status match (?) to show VFF you are about to give them the rest of your flight/your business's flight business, so might as well think of flight earnings now, and also supplement it with Coles food shopping.
If you find Air NZ fares better for rec travel, you can still enter your SQ KF # into the AirNZ booking and earn that way, then transfer the points earnt to VFF.
Sorry for the waffly.

 

[Blinky]

The only thing I add has nothing to do with status and lounge access. In my view, and many, many flyers I talk to, VA staff enjoy their jobs more and treat you as a guest. Sadly I can’t say that for Qantas and Jetstar, which I’m forced to use on about one in four flights.

I’d be interested in knowing if others share this view.

 

[Blinky]

Get all your fuel from BP/OTR (SA) to get the max fuel worth of VFF points, no SC earnt from these though, you can supplement points earn from Coles Express, also no SC earnt.
Buy all your food from Coles, alcy from Liqourland, ...

Lumo left the VFF system a while back.
Not sure if e-Rewards is still in the system, goss on here is they left, I haven't had any surveys let me knows of late.
Go and join SQ's KF system too, they have a tie in with VFF, and if you have to fly where VA don't fly to, you can still get VFF points and probably SC too flying with SQ, or fly DL if you have to go to the US/Canada, I would not go with AC at the moment, as min SC possibility flying them where there is no VFF/AC agreements in place.
I think PilotGold is a status match (?) to show VFF you are about to give them the rest of your flight/your business's flight business, so might as well think of flight earnings now, and also supplement it with Coles food shopping.
If you find Air NZ fares better for rec travel, you can still enter your SQ KF # into the AirNZ booking and earn that way, then transfer the points earnt to VFF.
Sorry for the waffly.

AGL recently awarded me 50k flybuys points for moving to them, which as you know can be directly converted to Velocity points. I’m pretty sure that’s still available.

 

[jase05]

Is your employer moving to BFOD or VA exclusive? I ask because not many companies are on VA exclusively.

If BFOD you’ll find it relatively easy to game the system and stay flying QF as VA don’t have a huge price differential any more.

If VA exclusive then if I were you I’d be looking at crediting to SQ depending on how much you are flying and your international movements. Velocity is pretty woeful IMHO.

On what routes.
ADL-MEL and ADL-SYD are my busiest routes for work and QF is nearly always several hundred dollars dearer in J. If I went BFOD I’d estimate 99 times out of 100 that VA would be cheaper and offer a better service on those routes. It might be different for other routes and everyone has different circumstances though

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Re AGL and FB, yep, 1FB point per $1 spent, but then you still do need 2000 FB points to get 870 VFF points, or with the occasional 15% bonus, 1001 VFF points.
Just had a bit of time to look, not sure when it started, maybe it was when Lumo decided not to continue with VFF, but after a look around, turns out Energy Aust is now also linked to (directly) VFF, not via FB, haven't checked, but its also probably 1VFF point per $1 spent.
If OP is not with a contract with current energy provider, maybe a change is needed?
Even if with contract, maybe the break fee is not that bad, $250?
Probably then a disconnect and reconnect fee, ...

 

[Jobeki111]

Energy australia/velocity have ended their tie up from 1/4/19.

ENERGYAUSTRALIA Light up your Velocity Points balance with EnergyAustralia.

ou can light up your Velocity Points balance with your EnergyAustralia electricity account. If you’re an existing or a new EnergyAustralia customer, it is simple and easy to link your Velocity account and start using your household electricity bill to earn Velocity Points

experience.velocityfrequentflyer.com

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Oooooohhh, ta for that one, Jobeki111.

 

[pauly7]

On what routes.
ADL-MEL and ADL-SYD are my busiest routes for work and QF is nearly always several hundred dollars dearer in J. If I went BFOD I’d estimate 99 times out of 100 that VA would be cheaper and offer a better service on those routes. It might be different for other routes and everyone has different circumstances though

Absolutely down to the route, there is pretty interesting pricing out there, I agree.

I actually don’t fly J domestically on a BFOD policy, I’m a consultant so fly on whatever the paying company’s policy is. The only J domestic policy I currently fly with a company is QF exclusive so don’t really see the VA J comparisons, you would hope they would be cheaper and seem to be according to your experience.

From an economy point of view on the golden triangle especially for example there are lots of flights and instances where QF can be cheaper than VA and anyone wanting to skew their spend on a BFOD Y policy could easily do so

 

[jakeseven7]

I certainly plan to argue that point! Thank you for the advice.

When my one of my employers company moved to VA (100%) for domestic, about 18 months ago only a select number of people got status matched. A bunch of managers got an automatic gold membership then a bunch of plebs (lol) got pilot gold.

I think it’s all down to the deal your company hammers out with VA.

My other employer is on BFOD and yeah it’s totally easy to game to stay flying QF as well.

 

[jakeseven7]

VA domestic and trans tasman flights (which are not SQ codeshare flights) credited directly to KF do not earn any KF 'elite miles' which are required for KF status accrual. So crediting directly to KF really only works if you do not want any future status or do not fly on VA domestic and/or trans tasman at all.

This is important to remember you are right however if you have Lounge access through work then is VFF status that important to you? Up to the individual I suppose. Also depends how much International travel they are doing and if they can skew that towards KF...

 

[ja1]

Congrats ? In all seriousness, for domestic flying I've been VA for a few years now and if you're east coast based then it's a pretty good product and IMHO better than QAN for all the reasons people have outlined above.

If it's simply lounge access then I'd suggest you just buy (tax deductible) or get your company to buy you VA lounge and don't worry about making gold or plat as life will just be simpler for you - plus you can keep invested into the QFF ecosystem and see if you can keep that going.

The best thing Velocity has going for is family pooling and if QAN had that, I'd say they were a lot more even - but FP is the difference that allows those 'silver' fliers to make gold and the gold ones to qualify for Plat. I'd spent a decade making silver with QAN every alternate year.. and have been gold/plat with VA for about the last 5 years now.

 

[Pleb Status]

This is important to remember you are right however if you have Lounge access through work then is VFF status that important to you? Up to the individual I suppose. Also depends how much International travel they are doing and if they can skew that towards KF...

The VA status match is generally only for 12 months. For status benefits after that initial period (lounge access etc), you will generally have to earn them.

If you fly enough SQ/*A flights to earn KFG independently (without including any VA coded flights because they do not count at all) then that is fine. You will never obtain any VA WP benefits however.

Earning VA SG (even with only a minimal amount of VA flights in the mix) would mostly likely be easier than earning KFG, particularly now VFF appear to be dumping DSC promotions every few months. Earning the status bonus on Elevate and above fares and then transferring across to KF at a later stage may also be more lucrative in a lot of situations.

I would estimate that for >95% of VA flyers, the advice provided was poor or possibly negligent (as the one providing it probably does not know anything about the KF elite mile earning restriction).