Failed beg for platinum status consideration

[MooTime]

Thanks for this! Will be useful!

My experience mirrors bcworld’s… calls and emails + escalations have only ever been dealt with off-shore, and the results have been extremely poor. To the extent I have moved my flying away from VA except for the balance of my points.

Had the platinum email been notified to me earlier, this likely wouldn’t have happened. But this again goes to my gripe with VA. After 80 business class flights in a year, not a single auto-generated email to say ‘thanks for flying, here’s an email or phone number you might find useful’.

Yeah you should probably let them know your story, apart from being apologetic, little too late from team VA in your case.

They definitely should reach our to their most frequent flyers, at least once a blue moon.

They have all members flying stats on file, just have to look & act.

 

[ozstamps]

I'd be emailing the platinum email BEFORE you expire.

The Drones offshore read off script sheets generally

And I strongly disagree that elite contact emails should be publicity posted, hopefully Mods can disguise it or remove it.

Anyone entitled to access it can readily get it.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I'd be emailing the platinum email BEFORE you expire.

The Drones offshore read off script sheets generally

And I strongly disagree that elite contact emails should be publicity posted, hopefully Mods can disguise it or remove it.

Anyone entitled to access it can readily get it.

No one told me about it! Not the o/s call centres, help desks, or even the one time I got through to Brisbane - completely by chance - late last year.

Disagree it’s readily available for those who are eligible to use it!

 

[ozstamps]

I've used it 100 times - the only way to sort issues IME.

If every Ma and Pa Kettle start using it for all sorts of lame routine queries, they'll just cancel the system in this age of Virgin cutting everything possible. Seen that before. They get swamped with nonsense queries.

If you cannot locate if for some reason I am sure someone here will kindly pass it on by PM. should never be posted on a public board.

 

[kyle]

I don't think those emails are that sacred though

 

[MooTime]

@ozstamps Well if your not WP I don't believe the VA team will help you, they'll probably direct you to the gold email.
That's how it should be.

I do find it odd that your happy to use what your entitled to, but want to restrict others to what they're entitled to.

This is a forum where we help and share info to other like minded flyers.

 

[superM]

So I also received one of those survey emails last week after my call to the plat phone line, and I didn’t hold back on explaining how dissatisfied I was with the service for the reasons set out in my original post. I was asked whether given my level of dissatisfaction I wanted a call and said yes. It will be interesting to see if I actually get the call and then if I do whether there is anything done about it.

 

[andye]

I'm not usually a "rules are rules" person but VA status is not all that hard to attain and as it is rolling you should get up to Platinum quite quickly if you are a regular flyer. You're not really missing out on much (row 3?, some points) as Gold unless you're transiting AUH in the interim

 

[MooTime]

I'm not usually a "rules are rules" person but VA status is not all that hard to attain and as it is rolling you should get up to Platinum quite quickly if you are a regular flyer. You're not really missing out on much (row 3?, some points) as Gold unless you're transiting AUH in the interim

Ah another lovely dig into VA WP not being as lofty as some expect..... but the multiple rows of FREE extra legroom seats. QF now charge for them on the new A220 for WPs.

The fly ahead to any flight on the day by just calling up in the morning.

The WP 4 free upgrades can be very useful and $$ savings, just have to look beyond the golden triangle. Which many can't/don't.

Very handy perks those.

 

[andye]

Ah another lovely dig into VA WP not being as lofty as some expect..... but the multiple rows of FREE extra legroom seats. QF now charge for them on the new A220 for WPs.

The fly ahead to any flight on the day by just calling up in the morning.

The WP 4 free upgrades can be very useful and $$ savings, just have to look beyond the golden triangle. Which many can't/don't.

Very handy perks those.

Not saying it's useless, just not the end of the world if you miss out for a while till your normal flying allows you to requalify by the rules of the program

 

[slaussie]

Only work during Brisbane office hours.

I've been Velocity Plat for well over 10 years. In the early years, I was exclusively serviced from Brisbane, regardless of the time I called, not that I called all that often. As years went on, the ratio of calls handled by Virgin Brisbane team started to change. In more recent times, I can't recall when last I was serviced by the Brisbane team. In my early experience with o/s centres (Manila specifically), I dreaded those phone interactions - they were way too long, completely unproductive and ultimately resulted in nothing but pleasantries. But my impression of the service provided by Manila based staff has changed for the better. I admit conversations still feel awkward and stiff, but the knowledge of the call centre staff has vastly improved. Virgin is either deliberately recruiting staff with previous airline experience (not to be confused with airline call centre experience, although they are not mutually exclusive), or are investing more effort into training call centre staff to be also efficient airline staff. There were a couple of times when I walked away nothing short of impressed by their knowledge, ability to explain, and deliver solutions beyond polite language. The difference speaking to a knowledgeable staff member is just remarkable. In the QF world, this is the same as speaking to the Hobart based staff - you know you are in good hands with them, regardless of the end outcome being favourable for the caller or not. If I ever got a no answer from somebody who knew the airline business, I had no issue accepting such an answer. But I can't stand it when as a consumer I know more than the person representing the business I am dealing with. Regretfully, o/s call centres are often guilty of this (not specific to airline industry - insurance, banks, all sorts of services, are in the same boat).

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I’m glad that’s your experience, but what on earth, pray tell, could be that complex required of a VA call centre? They don’t have complex ticketing issues such as oneworld awards for example.

 

[jase05]

I’m glad that’s your experience, but what on earth, pray tell, could be that complex required of a VA call centre? They don’t have complex ticketing issues such as oneworld awards for example.

You still have to access the VA call centre to book some award flights and I’ve found most are deadset hopeless at it

 

[Up in the clouds]

There’s a platinum address?

I’ve sent emails and all I get back is ‘sorry, no’. And they acknowledge my status.

One of the biggest frustrations of VA is the inability for pax to get anything considered by head office… and the o/s agents have zero leeway for anything,

[email protected]

 

[slaussie]

I’m glad that’s your experience, but what on earth, pray tell, could be that complex required of a VA call centre? They don’t have complex ticketing issues such as oneworld awards for example.

For example, once I was meant to travel for work and was booked to fly Virgin through a TMC (travel management company, or a corporate booking agency as an alternative name they may be better known by). The trip got cancelled as no longer needed. Whilst the refund of the fare paid was for our company's travel team to manage, I had used my own points to upgrade into J cabin. So, the refund of points was for me to chase with Velocity. I needed those points for another transaction, so was eager to get them back ASAP and use up again. Of course I had other options like family transfer or top up by purchasing the shortfall of points but preferred the refund of points. When talking to the TMC, I was assured the booking had been cancelled, which was the first step of the process to make the points used for an upgrade also available for a refund. But when I called Velocity for refund of points, they insisted the flight 'coupons' associated with the original booking were still active in their reservation system and the points were therefore still attached to those active coupons. Based on my own knowledge of CRS and GDS (central reservation systems and global distribution systems) I recognised this was due to the delay in syncing or records between the reservation system used by the TMC (I suspect Amadeus because the TMC in question was QBT which stands for Qantas Business Travel and they, as the name suggests, are a Qantas owned corporate agency, likely using the same system as does Qantas) and the system used by Virgin (Sabre). So, my next question to the Velocity agent was how long it would take for the records to sync, which should then result in those active flight coupons to become inactive, and the points in turn available for a refund. The answer to my question is something I would consider an airline knowledge, not a call centre knowledge, although an experienced airline's own call centre agent (like Hobart for QF, and Brisbane for VA, generally speaking), may know it based on the comprehensive airline inhouse training they had received and many years of experience covering all sorts of tricky situations, not to mention real time access to the SME knowledge from their colleagues sitting at the desk to the right or left. Unable to answer my question, the Velocity person I spoke to transferred me to another area of the Virgin call centre (the next agent did have a foreign accent but I am not sure where she was physically located, however I recognised early in our conversation she had full command of CRS/GDS knowledge). This agent knew the answer exactly and told me it would take up to 3 business days for the syncing in the background of both reservation systems to happen, which would then release my upgrade points and make them available for a credit back into my Velocity account. I called Velocity again in just short of 3 business days, and was able to have the upgrade points returned to me with no fuss.