A member of Virgin Australia’s Velocity Frequent Flyer program received a surprise upgrade from Red to Gold status last week as one of Velocity’s “top points earning members”.
Normally, you would need to earn 500 status credits and fly at least 4 eligible Virgin Australia sectors to upgrade to Velocity Gold status. But like most like many Australians, AFF member kaktusdigital was grounded for much of the past year. So they were pleasantly surprised to receive an email out of the blue from Velocity, informing them that their status had been upgraded to Gold for 12 months.
“As one of our top Points earning members we think you deserve a step up in Status, so we’re upgrading you to Gold membership for 12 months,” the email said, noting this member was in the top 1% of members earning Velocity points.
This member estimates they’ve earned around 70,000 Velocity points over the past year.
It’s not clear whether Velocity gave complimentary status upgrades to all of its top points-earning members who don’t already have Gold or Platinum status, or whether this was just targeted to a very small number of members. It’s nonetheless interesting as this is the first time we’re aware of Virgin giving complimentary status upgrades to Velocity members based on the number of points they have earned.
In the past, Velocity Frequent Flyer has given “comp” upgrades to a higher status tier to members who were already really close to upgrading (e.g. Gold members sitting on 992 status credits – 8 short of upgrading to Platinum status). But this is quite different.
Qantas Frequent Flyer has a Points Club program that rewards top points-earning members. This program makes it slightly easier for members who earn a lot of Qantas points to also earn Qantas status, via the ability to earn status credits on reward flights and benefits like status credit rollovers. Qantas Frequent Flyer members who earn 350,000 points in a year and achieve Points Club Plus also receive complimentary Qantas Club membership.
But Velocity Frequent Flyer doesn’t have a formal program to recognise top-earning members. Perhaps surprise status upgrades are the next-best thing.
Velocity is currently giving away status credits on Virgin Australia Reward Seat bookings flown until March 2022 as part of a limited-time promotion.
Meanwhile, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer is currently running a promotion where KrisFlyer members can earn Singapore Airlines Silver or Gold status by earning miles in a variety of ways that don’t involve flying. For example, KrisFlyer members could earn Gold status by transferring the equivalent of 250,000 KrisFlyer miles from a credit card rewards program by February 2022.
Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: VA Gold upgrade
