Is the "Fly Ahead" benefit removal actually being enforced?

[Freq Flier 2013]

A question for the people who as employees book the last fare of the day.
Does the company reimburse you for your time after hours? How do most companies deal with employees traveling outside their working hours? Either in the morning or evening?

 

[grubbidok]

A question for the people who as employees book the last fare of the day.
Does the company reimburse you for your time after hours? How do most companies deal with employees traveling outside their working hours? Either in the morning or evening?

My company allows an unofficial level of 'flexi-time'. If we spend a few more hours on the weekend or night then they tend to let us take a few hours off elsewhere to compensate.

That being said, I do work in a field with high expectations but a high degree of autonomy (academia). It is also 'task-based' more than needing 'face-time' at the office. Though in saying that, I can't think of anyone I know who works less than 60hrs/wk (and enjoys it, largely because of that autonomy you get if you meet your targets).

As someone who took my wife to Argentina (and stayed free in hotels) recently on those points and moves my family around Oz pretty frequently on those points it is a benefit that we should acknowledge that not all employees would have (I estimate we get at least one international trip out of my work travel each year). So I do think you have to look at the totality. I think TBH, the companies turn a blind eye to the points & miles we accrue on flights and hotels because if they didn't we'd probably start invoicing them more formally for travel time, which would cost a hell of a lot more for them than the free flights and nights they miss out on.

Also, just a clarification, while 70% of the time I would book last fare, often it was other times. I thought of the flight I booked as the "if all goes to plan finish time + 2 hours", rather than "the last flight", it just happened to often be the last fare (and as discussed previously - not always the cheapest!!).

 

[grubbidok]

A question for the people who as employees book the last fare of the day.
Does the company reimburse you for your time after hours? How do most companies deal with employees traveling outside their working hours? Either in the morning or evening?

Also - as most of those "last flights" were returns from Melbourne, I probably wouldn't have even needed the wriggle room if Melbourne hurried up and built a bloody airport train!

 

[Jack_OC]

A question for the people who as employees book the last fare of the day.
Does the company reimburse you for your time after hours? How do most companies deal with employees traveling outside their working hours? Either in the morning or evening?

No reimbursement or time in lieu for me (not just in my current company - same deal in every company I've worked for). The reality is though, like Grubbidok, my job is by no means 9 to 5 in the first place, whether I'm travelling or not.

This is written into my Employment Agreement, which states that I must work a minimum of 38 hours per week "plus reasonable additional hours" etc. I don't have any problems with this - I enjoy my job and get well paid for it, and although I work way more than my minimum hours, I do have some flexibility that allows me to get things done during so called "office hours" when I need do.

 

[pauly7]

As I typed at the time, if Virgin were smart, they'd have removed the Bennie for Golds if they were concerned too many flyers were using it.

There is precious little difference between Gold and Plat, and like Row #3 this would be yet another reason for folks to spend money with Virgin and get to Platinum.

It is called carrot and stick, and ALL Elite Plans globally use that concept - except Virgin now it seems, by and large.

Fly a lot and get a few crumbs as Bennies.

Virgin offer near zero crumbs now, and that is not wise.

Good idea but the problem is that VA made platinum too easy to get, have comped and matched so many members that I think the numbers even at a 'plat only fly ahead on all fares' might honestly be too much for them!

Also this decision was made in conjunction with them significantly downsizing their fleet and passing routes off to Tiger = less seats all up available to play with for this sort of benefit...

 

[Milboo]

A question for the people who as employees book the last fare of the day.
Does the company reimburse you for your time after hours? How do most companies deal with employees traveling outside their working hours? Either in the morning or evening?

My trip this week involved around 6.5 hours of time outside the 9-5 from door to door. It's simply part of my job - I get no time in lieu or recognition formally of it. Just like overseas flights for work are generally done over a weekend.

Trade off is the ability to extend overseas trips for a personal side trip (some companies don't allow this) but more generally it is the swings and roundabouts approach. By this I mean, there is never an issue needing to leave the office early or come in late if have an appointment, delivery etc as a trade off for working well beyond out 38 hour paid week.

 

[Jack_OC]

Good idea but the problem is that VA made platinum too easy to get, have comped and matched so many members that I think the numbers even at a 'plat only fly ahead on all fares' might honestly be too much for them!

Also this decision was made in conjunction with them significantly downsizing their fleet and passing routes off to Tiger = less seats all up available to play with for this sort of benefit...

The benefit was always subject to availability of seats (and officially only seats in the same fare class) on the earlier flight, so I don't really see what you mean. It was always a self limiting benefit, which would have been difficult to exploit if either (a) most of VA's flights were fully sold and/or (b) too many people were entitled to Fly Ahead. However, IME Fly Ahead was available more often than not, which suggests that neither of those things happened. And that was when this benefit was available to both Platinums and Golds. As such, I see no reason why it could not have been limited to Platinums only if they wanted to limit it at all - despite it being easy to get Platinum, there are still clearly a lot more Golds than Platinums.

As for it being too easy to get Platinum - I think that is true, but the solution to that problem is not to strip away the benefits of Platinum. If that really is what VA were concerned about, then they should have focussed their efforts on increasing the hurdles to attain/retain status, or even introduced a new Platinum One or equivalent status level, with additional benefits. To provide context, over my three previous membership years, I earned over 5,500 Velocity SCs, averaging over 30 sectors per year on VA metal, in addition to a lot of OS travel with their partners. So I am sure you can understand why I'm not happy with my benefits being stripped away because of a perception that other people got Platinum status too easily.

The fact is, Velocity have removed almost any incentive for me to pursue Platinum status, so I'm no longer bothering. Half way through this membership year I have 560 SCs, but 520 of those came from one EY trip that I booked before the changes were announced. I have flown only 2 eligible sectors, and I have no forward bookings on VA or their partners. I might still end up retaining Platinum, but I'm not going to make any special effort to do so. So the losers here are VA, and the winners are QF. I got QF Gold very quickly through a status challenge, and I should get to Platinum by the middle of next year. I realise QF are not perfect either, but as things stand they are way higher in my estimation than VA, and that means VA will no longer get much of my business - unless their fares are significantly cheaper, but the fact is that they rarely are these days.

 

[grubbidok]

As for it being too easy to get Platinum - I think that is true, but the solution to that problem is not to strip away the benefits of Platinum. If that really is what VA were concerned about, then they should have focussed their efforts on increasing the hurdles to attain/retain status, or even introduced a new Platinum One or equivalent status level, with additional benefits.

It's also worth remembering that in addition to stripping benefits VA have *also* made it much harder to reach WP for those "undesirables and road warriors" using BFOD Y travel, by halving SC earn on those travelling on cheaper fares (and yes, yes I know there are more SCs for other - more expensive - fares, but I'm sure these are absorbed by the additional cost of those fares, given the premium paid and the fact there hasn't really been a decrease in prices on cheaper fares).

So it's not really accurate to say "why didn't they do this instead?" - they did both!

 

[Jack_OC]

It's also worth remembering that in addition to stripping benefits VA have *also* made it much harder to reach WP for those "undesirables and road warriors" using BFOD Y travel, by halving SC earn on those travelling on cheaper fares (and yes, yes I know there are more SCs for other - more expensive - fares, but I'm sure these are absorbed by the additional cost of those fares, given the premium paid and the fact there hasn't really been a decrease in prices on cheaper fares).

So it's not really accurate to say "why didn't they do this instead?" - they did both!

Yes you're absolutely right. I didn't actually mean to come across as saying "why didn't they do that instead", I just meant that if the problem was that too many people have Platinum status, then why not just make it harder to get/retain Platinum status, rather than eroding benefits as well? They could actually have done that to a large extent by getting rid of double SC promotions, reducing SC earn with partners (a la QF) and maybe even (dare I say it) limiting Family Pooling to some extent.

FWIW, I don't think the problem (from their perspective) was too many people with Platinum status. I think the objective was to push business travellers to the higher fare classes. I suspect they thought "if they book the Elevate fare, there is no change to SC earn and no loss of Fly Ahead, so nothing will change, except for the fact that they will all be paying for more expensive fares, and that's not an issue for the FF member, since the company is paying". However, the reality is that this was a completely naive assumption (as both of us have illustrated above). In other words, I think the erosion of benefits and the fact that it has become more difficult to earn status are unintentional consequences - even though they could have been predicted by anyone with a clue about how things work in the real world!

 

[JohnK]

Asked for fly ahead on Friday night at OOL as a Gold travelling with wife and daughter on separate bookings. I wasn't sure but thought I was on Elevate airfare. Looks like checkin staff use a complex algorithm to determine eligibility. Got the fly ahead this time but certain it would have been refused had I booked Getaway.

There were af least 6 empty seats around us. I am still of the belief that airlines should allow people to fly ahead at last minute if there are empty seats. An empty seat on earlier flights is wasted and they could possibly sell last minute seats on later flights.

If Virgin believes this benefit was being overused they could easily check if there were repeat offenders and bar them from using this feature.

 

[Milefest]

If Virgin believes this benefit was being overused they could easily check if there were repeat offenders and bar them from using this feature.

There is absolutely no evidence that this benefit has been overused. Banning "repeat offenders" is such an ambiguous policy, pax are using a benefit they've earned, can't blame them for utilising it.

 

[JohnK]

There is absolutely no evidence that this benefit has been overused. Banning "repeat offenders" is such an ambiguous policy, pax are using a benefit they've earned, can't blame them for utilising it.

If you book the 9:00pm flight every week and turn up at 9:00am and expect to fly ahead then this is abuse and if you do it more than once then it is overuse.

And I know some who have done this same thing intentionally.

 

[grubbidok]

If you book the 9:00pm flight every week and turn up at 9:00am and expect to fly ahead then this is abuse and if you do it more than once then it is overuse.

And I know some who have done this same thing intentionally.

I'd agree this extreme would be abuse if done repeatedly, but I hardly think this was "normal" - definitely more exception than rule. If this was an issue, why not work towards some sort of fair use policy?

The thing that I find absolutely gobsmacking about this whole fiasco, is that VA clearly doesn't understand the BFOD policies their corporate clients ar enforcing!

 

[Hvr]

<snip>

The thing that I find absolutely gobsmacking about this whole fiasco, is that VA clearly doesn't understand the BFOD policies their corporate clients ar enforcing!

Actually it could be argued they understand the BFOD policies very well and are ensuring they get as much money as possible from corporate fliers.

 

[ap_spd]

well i still dont understand the logic of it because the plane leaving in 1 hour with empty seats will not magically fill itself..
whatever is served in the lounge if eaten for a few hours will still coat VA more.. I have flown to cities only to have meetings cancelled / rescheduled leaving me with no option but to fly back..
well someone has still thought about it all so wont commwnt much..

Merry Christmas (belated) and wishes for happy and properous new year to all.

 

[Milefest]

If you book the 9:00pm flight every week and turn up at 9:00am and expect to fly ahead then this is abuse and if you do it more than once then it is overuse.

So status pax who always use priority boarding are overusing this benefit too? Flying ahead from a 9pm to a 9am flight affects no one (if you're willing to risk the flight may be full), you're utilising a seat that otherwise would have been vacant and you open up seats later in the day that VA could use for pax that have suffered delays/cancellations & missed connections. If Fly Ahead were really being overused, they would have put a limitation on how far you're allowed to fly ahead, much like they have a policy on how early you're allowed to arrive at the lounge as a member.

 

[OzEire]

So status pax who always use priority boarding are overusing this benefit too? Flying ahead from a 9pm to a 9am flight affects no one (if you're willing to risk the flight may be full), you're utilising a seat that otherwise would have been vacant and you open up seats later in the day that VA could use for pax that have suffered delays/cancellations & missed connections. If Fly Ahead were really being overused, they would have put a limitation on how far you're allowed to fly ahead, much like they have a policy on how early you're allowed to arrive at the lounge as a member.

A lot of sense here. VA seem pig headed determined to peeve off their best (ie. high spending) customers, I can't fathom it.

 

[oz_mark]

A lot of sense here. VA seem pig headed determined to peeve off their best (ie. high spending) customers, I can't fathom it.

Only the high spending customers that book the bargain basement fares

 

[**TBA**]

So status pax who always use priority boarding are overusing this benefit too? Flying ahead from a 9pm to a 9am flight affects no one (if you're willing to risk the flight may be full), you're utilising a seat that otherwise would have been vacant and you open up seats later in the day that VA could use for pax that have suffered delays/cancellations & missed connections.

Not quite, the Fly Ahead benefit directly impacts fare revenue.
When a passenger is purchasing a really cheap fare on the 9pm service instead of spending more $$ on the 9am service.. That's an issue for any airline.

 

[TheInsider]

A lot of sense here. VA seem pig headed determined to peeve off their best (ie. high spending) customers, I can't fathom it.

High spending customers wouldn't need the fly ahead benefit, as they would have the flexibility to change anyway.