Maybe I'm just tired and bored, but I don't understand the adding of even -more- slices of the economy cake. The differences between them are very case specific. Surely we could just have one, baseline,cheap discount economy and utilise add-ons for flexibility and other perks? Its what Jetstar does essentially, and as someone else has already said, this all smells very 'max bundle' to me.
Had a look at the description of the fare differences on the virgin site, pretty hard to spot much without a proper matrix of benefits, probably the closest I found for that was in the actual booking screen where it high level details some difference between the fares ... pretty much revolves around changes either pre or post 30 days, cancellations and whether you can, can't or need to pay for those things. Given a Getaway fare seems to almost always be less than half the price of a Freedom fare, you'd have to be thinking you'll do a lot of changes before you'd willing pay the Freedom price I'd have thought. And as for Elevate, minor variation around flight changes again, but pretty corner case - seems this fare only really exists as the 'max bundle' (ala Jetstar) fare.
Having said all that, they're hardly alone in fine slicing economy for some hard to really understand reasons. SQ has been doing it for ages with their "Economy Saver", "Economy Flexi Saver" and "Economy Flexi". Even now, after years, I barely know the difference. Less SC's on the cheaper fares which I always choose until they're sold out, then choose the next cheapest and so on.
I don't care much about the FF earn changes on the entry ticket - I earn very few points actually flying when compared to the hauls brought in via other means, mostly CC's. I'll never pay more for a ticket just to get a few thousand extra FF's. SC's are a different proposition though. Having a snoop, the difference in price PER-MEL or PER-SYD, my most often travelled routes, the getaway versus elevate price difference seems to be 40-70$, the SC earn difference in both cases is 15SC ...
Ultimately though, no-one except us OCD FFers will care. The general punter will simply ask for the cheapest ticket on any given day. Surely VA know this and its formed part of their strategy. SC's are essentially meaningless to someone who doesn't fly enough to ever attain any useful status. For me, it looks like I'll pay what I pretty much always have for trips over east, I'll just be annoyed now because a 'cheaper' option has popped up which I cant avail myself of because I'm hunting SC's and of those, more will be coming in for a given trip on the now 'Elevate' ticket that used to be called the 'saver' ticket