In a lot of cases the LAST flight is
not the cheapest. First fallacy that is being quoted as Holy Writ above pretty often.
FIRST flight of day mostly yes, but not always the LAST one.
I fly to ADL a lot and SYD-ADL has only a few direct flights a day. Early afternoon is often lower cost than last flight as biz guys have meetings and fly home after them.
2 weeks back we were booked on the LAST Monday flight - about 6pm.
As our work was done I'd have PREFERRED to have got onto the 2.30pm or whatever it was, but due to this silly rule did not bother asking or getting there early.
Get to airport about 4.30pm to be advised the LAST flight was delayed for 2 hours due to SYD storms. GREAT.
Asked if we might possibly re-route and agent was happy to look. Getting to BNE at 9pm meant we missed their last flight to SYD. Same with CBR. And the only MEL flight that would get us there before last Sydney flight had just closed at gate in ADL.
Arrived near midnight in Sydney.
2.30pm flight was lightly booked, as I asked.
Yes it
was a benefit for Plats and Gold.
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.