AFF Member Gifts Platinum Status

From sharing their knowledge of frequent flyer programs to guesting other members into airport lounges, Australian Frequent Flyer members are known for their generosity.

Although AFF does not permit selling or soliciting for items, members are welcome to offer travel-related goods to the community for free. (When doing so, simply add the “Free” prefix to your post so it will appear in our list of available free items.)

Members regularly give away things like lounge passes, airline amenity kits and vouchers, but AFF member Matt_01 recently gave away Platinum status with Virgin Australia!

Velocity Companion Platinum Status

Through its Velocity Frequent Flyer program, Virgin Australia offers the ability to gift Companion Gold status to Platinum members that earn 500 status credits more than the threshold required to renew their status. In other words, if you earn 1,300 Velocity status credits within a year, you can gift somebody Velocity Gold status. Similarly, if you earn 1,000 status credits more than the required amount to renew Platinum status within 12 months, you can gift Companion Platinum status to anybody.

Matt_01 has previously given away Companion Gold status to two lucky AFF members, crumpet and debgow. But after earning 1,800 status credits this year, he was in a position to give away Companion Platinum status.

Matt_01 has Platinum status with Virgin Australia and Platinum One status on Qantas. As he catches the same flights almost every week, he is able to plan his flights around his Qantas and Velocity Frequent Flyer membership years, while also taking advantage of promotions from both airlines.

In February last year, Virgin Australia released a double status credits offer. At the same time, Matt_01 found a Virgin Australia discount code that reduced the Business class ticket price on his usual route to just $7 more than the Economy Freedom fare that would normally be booked. On the back of this, he earned 800 Velocity status credits – enough to retain Platinum status for another year – from just 8 one-way domestic Business class flights.

Through a combination of more discounted domestic Virgin Business class flights, a Singapore Airlines flight and family pooling, Matt_01 then earned enough status credits to gift Companion Platinum status with Virgin Australia. In total, it only took 24 flights to earn the 1,800 status credits required.

For reference, Qantas Frequent Flyer allows members to gift Gold status if they earn 2,400 status credits in a year. Platinum One members can gift Platinum status.

And the winner is…

Matt_01 did not expect to be in a position to gift Platinum status, and found there was nobody he could give it to that would use it. Matt_01 explains:

My Partner already has Qantas Platinum status (Platinum One benefit). Our wider family rarely fly (if at all) and most of my work colleagues already have elite status with various programs, so what to do?

The AFF community seemed to be the logical place to start as I just wanted it to go to someone who would get some value out of it.

AFF members were invited to apply by posting a picture of their favourite travel destination in the thread started by Matt_01. Dozens of AFF members applied, and there are some fantastic photos of interesting places throughout the thread!

Ultimately, VPS was chosen as the winner. VPS’s winning entry was a photo of the colourful opera house in the Chilean town of Frutillar.

VPS recently lost her Qantas Platinum status, but achieved lifetime Gold status on a recent Qantas flight to Chile, where she was travelling for a cruise to Antarctica. With Qantas Gold status now locked in for life, VPS plans to “visit the other side” a lot more. This member will also make good use of the Hilton Honors Diamond status that is complimentary for Velocity Platinum members.

VPS now hopes to “pay it forward” by giving something else back to the AFF community.

The final word goes to Matt_01:

I did read all the responses and after consideration created a shortlist based on what they had contributed to AFF and what I considered to add value to my experience as a member of the community. I gave the names to my partner, she went on to look at various threads that the shortlisted individuals had contributed to and made the final decision.

Since joining AFF think I have gained greater insight and found better ways to extract value out of offers and some of my booking habits have changed. I would have retained Velocity Platinum without using double status credits, but taking advantage of the offer has enabled me to gift it to someone who can use it.

You can see all the entries in Matt_01‘s thread on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Free Stuff – Who Wants to be a VA WP (Velocity Platinum)

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.