Is velocity platinum worth it anymore? Especially for international.

[jakeseven7]

Thanks so much for the info. It’s a lot to think about. So much uncertainty.

VA platinum was always a marginal jump v gold even before the collapse, VA2 even more so with so much uncertainty around the their international plans.

 

[lexical_regatta]

Yeah too bad you can't pool sectors. Still needing 8 sectors on VA metal I imagine would all but negate a lot of the benefit from family pooling.

I never understood the whole “sector” thing. It just kinda happened. Most of my trips that got me from silver to gold and then platinum in a 2 year period were SYD-BNE (the lions share. Would do it every week), maybe SYD-MLB twice a year and SYD-DME (Moscow) via Etihad twice a year.

Post automatically merged: Dec 30, 2021

VA platinum was always a marginal jump v gold even before the collapse, VA2 even more so with so much uncertainty around the their international plans.

I always regretted hitching my wagon to VA when I started flying more frequently. I chose them over qantas as they were the “fun” airline.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Platinum might be worth a stack when they join Star Alliance (sorry couldn’t let that one pass)

When or if.
I would nod, nod, nod, as what the people do in publicity photos behind state premiers, and the PM.
Very hard to say what their plans are, and they are not even giving us snippets, and letting gossip or speculation run "riot".
In the past, JB has said he had no plans for VA1 to join *A, and PS didn't have the chance to say much either.
Now the baton has been passed to JH, but she too, hasn't said too much what her or Bain's plans are, *A wise, or ST wise.
Sector thing, if you think of it as "true" loyalty, that is what it is, ie, you fly with that airline, and that airline's code itself, not a partner, and only in eligible classes, with VA, it used to be nearly 90% of every fare class they sold, ...
Not shock horrors, the lower cheaper fares now don't count as sectors.
But if you live in Aust, and still want to keep your VFF account alive, its not hard, as now Bunnings and Officeworks are FB partners, and you can earn FB points, then which are transferrable to VFF points.

 

[Matt_01]

My partner made platinum and unfortunately she couldn't care less. For sometime she just had her old red card with her and figured there was no need to change them over. I always find it funny when she needs to call velocity and has no clue what she is doing and has some notes jotted down as she tries to ask the right questions. To make things worse I will drop to gold in 12 months while she retains platinum.

Amen brother, I have one of those +1's QF WP based on my status.

SYD+1 has never set foot on a VA plane but has collected the whole set of cards and bag tags thanks to a one-off Companion Platinum gift and subsequent soft landings…

If your +1 does not fly VA why gift the status to them. I would prefer to gift it to someone for a leg up and have gifted x2 VA SG and x1 VA WP on this site to other AFF members.

Actually, A* tend to map their SG/WP levels to the same A*G level - so no diff (other than any special benefits you get from your own FF program). I always found that a bit odd.

Anyway, your comment also reminds me of one useful aspect of VA FF - “Family pooling”. Without being too clever, you can halve or more the individual bum in seat flying to attain/retain status (although the cost would be similar).

With VA Family pooling and their DSC offers VA WP can be achieved with little or no effort.

 

[antycbr]

Amen brother, I have one of those +1's QF WP based on my status.

If your +1 does not fly VA why gift the status to them. I would prefer to gift it to someone for a leg up and have gifted x2 VA SG and x1 VA WP on this site to other AFF members.

With VA Family pooling and their DSC offers VA WP can be achieved with little or no effort.

Especially when a short J sector is $299.

 

[HS-TQE]

Each to their own I guess.
There probably isn’t a great deal of difference between Gold and Platinum which is why I’m hoping for another level one day. I have to fly QF for work but most of our leisure travel is on VA and both my wife and I have already retained Platinum and with the flights we have left this status period I should well and truly have enough to gift a Platinum.
I definitely don’t agree with all the constant negativity about VA being a LCC as to the contrary I think they do a lot of things very well and a lot better than QF but I also realise they can still improve in some areas. Who knows what the New Year brings and what their partnerships with other airlines look like


Platinum might be worth a stack when they join Star Alliance (sorry couldn’t let that one pass)

Or when they bring back the belated Krisflyer transfers in any form

At this point, we do not know, if VA and EY/SQ will continue their FF partnership, if you always go up those ways, ...
VA has not officially renwed the FF/JV agreement as of now.

Any EY/SQ renewed agreement will likely be a simple codeshare and FF agreement (which requires no ACCC approval) like the new VA/UA agreement.

As they say any JV requires both parties to lift their weight together (alongside sharing the costs and profits). It was commonly known that NZ were not happy with the old NZ/VA JV with NZ doing most of the work, and VA weren't happy with DL sticking only to SYD in their old JV and soon to expire partnership.

So it's unlikely that VA will get involved in JVs for the foreseeable future, with their future international partnerships being restricted to a simple codeshare and FF agreement, alongside their own international flying being basically limited to short haul international to Bali and Fiji, with potential expansion into NZ: Queenstown and Auckland (basically a feeder for the UA flights ex-AKL for those from BNE/Qld not willing to to use VA/UA via SYD or fly the QF non-stops).

 

[Harthagan]

I never understood the whole “sector” thing. It just kinda happened. Most of my trips that got me from silver to gold and then platinum in a 2 year period were SYD-BNE (the lions share. Would do it every week), maybe SYD-MLB twice a year and SYD-DME (Moscow) via Etihad twice a year.

Well that's just it, that sort of regular weekly domestic flying plus a couple of international trips per year which you describe is more than enough to get you to platinum comfortably without family pooling anyway.

If someone is relying on family pooling in order to scrape by with the points to maintain platinum then quite often they will struggle to make the 8 sectors unless they intentionally break up their journeys with layovers in order to make up the sectors aka turning their holidays into status runs (something which I personally hate doing because flying for me is just a means of transport)

The classic example to demonstrate it would be a family of 5 going for an annual trip to the states. That would be 80 X 5 X 2 = 800 tiers points, which is just enough to maintain platinum. However in this example they would still be 6 sectors short.

And even if they did domestic flights in America with delta (or now United) they still don't count towards the sectors as it's not on VA metal.

 

[HS-TQE]

Another question for VA's international operations & partners would be the question of the costs of setting up individual JVs (which include approval from the competition bodies of the ACCC and the other country) vs the membership fees for Star Alliance.

Before the "why not both" question comes into play, Bain are conservative when it comes to CapEx and aren't likely to do both unless if they outline that they are confident that both "makes a return on investments".

Choosing one out of either spending the CapEx on setting up Individual JVs (a relic starting back to the VB's BGodfrey era with the signing of the DL JV, which was continued by JBorghetti through the SQ and EY equity stakes and subsequent JVs), versus having Star Alliance membership taking care of their potential and former JV partners (which are largely Star members anyway) would depend on VA 2.0's aspirations outside of their current International (short haul) ops, and whether if Long Haul gets considered (if at all).

If Bain considers Long Haul to be off the radar for the medium term (if not almost permanently),

'It may be ultimately cheaper to spend the CapEx on Star Alliance membership to replace the Individual (now former) JVs',

and let the revenue from Alliance membership take care of it, considering most former/potential JV partners are now largely Star members.

I would assume Bain (and/or new partner UA) would be negotiating hard on reducing those fees (if they were interested), as well as negotiating for VA to keep the remaining outside codeshare relationships (EY and HA) whilst allowing room for potential future codeshares outside of Star like KE and GA.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

If for now, VA3 under Bain is not saying anything, this will only embolden Rex when they bring out their FF program.
What ever the Rex type of FF program will be like, time will tell.

 

[lexical_regatta]

Well that's just it, that sort of regular weekly domestic flying plus a couple of international trips per year which you describe is more than enough to get you to platinum comfortably without family pooling anyway.

If someone is relying on family pooling in order to scrape by with the points to maintain platinum then quite often they will struggle to make the 8 sectors unless they intentionally break up their journeys with layovers in order to make up the sectors aka turning their holidays into status runs (something which I personally hate doing because flying for me is just a means of transport)

The classic example to demonstrate it would be a family of 5 going for an annual trip to the states. That would be 80 X 5 X 2 = 800 tiers points, which is just enough to maintain platinum. However in this example they would still be 6 sectors short.

And even if they did domestic flights in America with delta (or now United) they still don't count towards the sectors as it's not on VA metal.

Thanks for the explanation! I always wondered how it worked.