Will you still earn/retain Velocity status beyond 2025?

What impact will the Velocity changes have on your status beyond 2025?


  • Total voters
    346
The system tells you when you will lose status credits but does not tell you when you lose rolling sector totals
You can do this manually. Check your velocity activity over the last 365 days:


Generally, an eligible segment can be discerned where you have a transaction showing a VA flight number that earned both points and SC - just tally the number of such lines for the previous 365 days.
 
Your rolling status credits change all the time as they drop off after 12 months or grow again as you gain more credits.
Aware of that, had a brain fart as I meant the sector's.
As long as you have earnt either the 4 or 8 sectors since the last review date is all that matters, in addition to having enough status credits, which each lot of status drops 12 months after they were earnt.
Of course, none of this sector stuff will matter in a couple of months anyway (perhaps a small positive change, along with a bunch of negative changes).
 
Last edited:
Aware of that, had a brain fart as I meant the sector's.
As long as you have earnt either the 4 or 8 sectors since the last review date is all that matters, in addition to having enough status credits, which each lot of status drops 12 months after they were earnt.
Of course, none of this sector stuff will matter in a couple of months anyway (perhaps a small positive change, along with a bunch of negative changes).
OK
Thanks for your replies
Just got email back from Velocity
They said I lost a sector on the 13th with 12 month expiry and agreed it’s confusing on their Velocity status page as it focuses more on rolling status credits
They will upgrade me to Platinum after today’s flight after seeing four gory pictures of the progress of my hand operation understand why I could not fly over the last 10 weeks
So all’s well that ends well
Well done Virgin Velocity
Here’s a picture of my hand at the one month stage for those who like their gory pictures and have never seen 150 stitches in a hand before
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0916.jpeg
    IMG_0916.jpeg
    2.1 MB · Views: 24
I knew when I participated in the poll that I would not be retaining WP with Virgin. But I dropped off in a much bigger way than anticipated. Only 95 SCs over the last 12 months, compared with 960 in the previous year. Most of that was due to no longer being interested in VA status given the increased cost, but it was also a year where other commitments prevented some extra flying.

As a side note, on 1 August I'll also drop off QF WP. I'm about 250 SCs short and can't do any flying in the next fortnight. And I'd need more total SCs to re-qualify by 31 July than I would to get back there after dropping to SG (and getting 1,400 next time). I think it will be the first time I'm not WP in 1 of the 2 programs for maybe 15 years.
 
Interesting data point. I recently received my annual statement from VA. This tells me that over the last twelve months I've spent a whisker over $24k with them. Currently this would give me 2000 SC's. Comparing this with my last 12 months status credits, currently 3607, gives an indication of the de-valuation in earning. Recent SC earning has been under the new regime so it's not unreasonable to conclude that it's very close to a 50% reduction. My previous year's earning has been straight flying. I haven't taken advantage of any double or triple SC offers so it's a fair assessment.
 
Interesting data point. I recently received my annual statement from VA. This tells me that over the last twelve months I've spent a whisker over $24k with them. Currently this would give me 2000 SC's. Comparing this with my last 12 months status credits, currently 3607, gives an indication of the de-valuation in earning. Recent SC earning has been under the new regime so it's not unreasonable to conclude that it's very close to a 50% reduction. My previous year's earning has been straight flying. I haven't taken advantage of any double or triple SC offers so it's a fair assessment.

Based on your spend, you have nothing to be concerned about, you'll maintain your Plat status, + some :)
You are the exact customer they want. I am not sure how many of you there are; that is the question.
 
Based on your spend, you have nothing to be concerned about, you'll maintain your Plat status, + some :)
You are the exact customer they want. I am not sure how many of you there are; that is the question.
For me, the question will come down to whether or not WPP (:)) provides any real benefit. Traditionally, I've maintained interest in SC's in order to reach the companion platinum point. As far as I can see, this now needs a $24k spend. I spent that in the last 12 months, as I've been busy and prices have risen, but normally it's more like $20k.
I'm about 200 SC's shy of reaching Forever Gold and once that point is passed, it really comes down to whether WPP is worth it and is maintainable. I might fly strategically but I'm not going to spend extra to gain SC's, so if maintaining WPP is out of reach, the platinum handcuffs come off and it comes down to price and service. Price and service took me from Qantas to Virgin a few years back and the same can take me the other way. Locking status to spend cuts both ways.
 
I'm about 200 SC's shy of reaching Forever Gold and once that point is passed, it really comes down to whether WPP is worth it and is maintainable. I might fly strategically but I'm not going to spend extra to gain SC's, so if maintaining WPP is out of reach, the platinum handcuffs come off and it comes down to price and service.
You're in an excellent position!
 
Elevate your business spending to first-class rewards! Sign up today with code AFF10 and process over $10,000 in business expenses within your first 30 days to unlock 10,000 Bonus PayRewards Points.
Join 30,000+ savvy business owners who:

✅ Pay suppliers who don’t accept Amex
✅ Max out credit card rewards—even on government payments
✅ Earn & transfer PayRewards Points to 10+ airline & hotel partners

Start earning today!
- Pay suppliers who don’t take Amex
- Max out credit card rewards—even on government payments
- Earn & Transfer PayRewards Points to 8+ top airline & hotel partners

AFF Supporters can remove this and all advertisements

I thought I’d share this, perhaps it’s linked to the Velocity devalualtion / softening business bookings etc etc but our Virgin Account Manager approached our Procurement team as they’ve noticed a drop off of our bookings with Virgin. (Note our total domestic travel is actually +18% so clearly teams booking elsewhere).

We’ve just been offered 12M status match (no exclusions, even if we’ve had it before!) to QF to try and get Virgin bookings up.

We are have a sizeable % of our team travelling regularly and we are a very large org so this will tip lots back into Velocity elite levels if the team take it up… maybe this is an early sign of a turning tide with what they did to Velocity…

(We are historically close to Virgin, we worked on them very closely through the administration and Bain acquisition - but only do basic ops strategy for them now, so wouldn’t say we are closely aligned now, I don’t think this is a ‘mates deal’)
 
I thought I’d share this, perhaps it’s linked to the Velocity devalualtion / softening business bookings etc etc but our Virgin Account Manager approached our Procurement team as they’ve noticed a drop off of our bookings with Virgin. (Note our total domestic travel is actually +18% so clearly teams booking elsewhere).

We’ve just been offered 12M status match (no exclusions, even if we’ve had it before!) to QF to try and get Virgin bookings up.

We are have a sizeable % of our team travelling regularly and we are a very large org so this will tip lots back into Velocity elite levels if the team take it up… maybe this is an early sign of a turning tide with what they did to Velocity…

(We are historically close to Virgin, we worked on them very closely through the administration and Bain acquisition - but only do basic ops strategy for them now, so wouldn’t say we are closely aligned now, I don’t think this is a ‘mates deal’)

Quick question, is that total domestic travel figure a +18% in the travel budget or a simple number of flights taken by your company?

I expect that your Virgin account manager has identified a problem in forward bookings and potential cash flow so will be interesting to see what happens there. Just as a question, if you can answer, what is the condition of the status match? How much money/or percentage of the travel budget are Virgin asking for? And is this a case-by-case person-by-person deal, or an across-the-board organisational thing between your procurement team and the Virgin account manager?

Either way, this isn't surprising to anyone as the changes to Velocity look like they have successfully disengaged quite a number of existing status members and potential passengers who are now presumably sending their corporate spend and business solely towards Qantas. I am guessing your co-workers aren't directing their flying towards Jetstar, right? So they've just sent the higher yield corporate flyers into the arms of Qantas, so thats a slow clap there.....👋

Once they wake up to themselves and/or when Bain and/or the architect of this brain fart are gone, they will have to either walk back some of the changes like the ridiculous spend requirement to retain Velicity status and/or go through a period of some sort of status matching and/or double status credit offers in the future, if their forward corporate and higher yielding discretionary bookings have fallen off a cliff.

Sounds like they have not emptied the lounges and thinned out the ranks yet, but have cut off their forward bookings and customer engagement with Velocity, and have not made the connection in their minds between the two.
 
Either way, this isn't surprising to anyone as the changes to Velocity look like they have successfully disengaged quite a number of existing status members and potential passengers who are now presumably sending their corporate spend and business solely towards Qantas. I am guessing your co-workers aren't directing their flying towards Jetstar, right? So they've just sent the higher yield corporate flyers into the arms of Qantas, so thats a slow clap there.....👋
Wasn't VA already there on regards to the 'high yield' corporate market as Bain had decided to cede/gave away/withdraw from the entire 'high yielding corporate market' segment to QF post-administration and decided to push for the SME market/flyers to fill up their J seats instead of the said 'high yield' corporate market.

High yielding FIFO contracts in WA aside, there would be very few (if any) high yielding East Coast based corporate contracts at VA left.
 

Become an AFF member!

Join Australian Frequent Flyer (AFF) for free and unlock insider tips, exclusive deals, and global meetups with 65,000+ frequent flyers.

AFF members can also access our Frequent Flyer Training courses, and upgrade to Fast-track your way to expert traveller status and unlock even more exclusive discounts!

AFF forum abbreviations

Wondering about Y, J or any of the other abbreviations used on our forum?

Check out our guide to common AFF acronyms & abbreviations.
Back
Top