Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class)

[greynomad]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

[
"You are currently a Flying Club Gold member with 0 miles.

WOW! Free Virgin Atlantic Gold for 1 year![/QUOTE]
Thanks very much I joined without any problems and I am a Flying Club Gold also with 0 points. In a few weeks flying with Singapore airlines with a very long wait between flights looking forward to lounge access.

 

[markis10]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

[
"You are currently a Flying Club Gold member with 0 miles.

WOW! Free Virgin Atlantic Gold for 1 year!
Thanks very much I joined without any problems and I am a Flying Club Gold also with 0 points. In a few weeks flying with Singapore airlines with a very long wait between flights looking forward to lounge access.

I would check your status closer to the date to make sure its still OK, and you may need a card to get lounge access, apparently they only send out cards when there is activity on the account. Looks like they got around 7000 new GOLD members Friday, given they are just getting back to work this afternoon since the weekend it will be interesting to see whats done.

 

[anat0l]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

So it seems some people after the "deadline" when others were getting Red are still signing up for Gold accounts?

FWIW I was an existing member and tried to say I had no online access (there is a link on the application form), but even though it was "...you've signed up for some great promo" I was still Red. (There was one report on FT that this 'upgraded' a member to Gold). I didn't try cajoling my parents or sister into it after that; perhaps I should've (although there have been other new members who signed up and also got Red).

 

[greynomad]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

I would check your status closer to the date to make sure its still OK, and you may need a card to get lounge access, apparently they only send out cards when there is activity on the account. Looks like they got around 7000 new GOLD members Friday, given they are just getting back to work this afternoon since the weekend it will be interesting to see whats done.[/QUOT

I forgot to say in my post I joined up on Friday night. Thanks for your advise. I am considering transfering 2000 points from Amex to Virgin Flying Club to get a card. Any advise would be appreciated. Can I take a guest into the lounge?

 

[repete]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

OK, so now it seems they've done a virgin blue ... arrgh. I signed up and got the gold, now I get an email today telling me they've got new terms and conditions (that I'll never meet) and that if I don't fulfil them, my membership will be returned to base level. Anyone else get this...??
I still have my gold little 'temporary' card but probably no use to print out if they change my membership status?

 

[james4321]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

(OK, so now it seems they've done a virgin blue ... arrgh. I signed up and got the gold, now I get an email today telling me they've got new terms and conditions (that I'll never meet) and that if I don't fulfil them, my membership will be returned to base level. Anyone else get this...??)

Here are the terms:

“Qualified Customers” are defined as UK residents aged 12 years of age or over who are new to Flying Club and hold existing ‘elite’ status membership of another airline’s frequent flyer programme. “Elite” status is defined as the airlines’ top tier/level within its programme.

Qualified Customers should be booked onto, and have flown in, a Virgin Atlantic Upper Class flight in J, D or R booking classes (“Qualifying Flight”) between 1 March and 31 May 2010 (inclusive).

Qualified Customers who are eligible for this incentive will receive complimentary Flying Club Gold Membership and 5,000 Flying Club miles. 2,500 bonus miles will be awarded to the traveller after their first outbound sector and if the traveller is making a return journey an additional 2,500 bonus miles will be awarded on the inbound sector.

Qualifying Flights are those flights ticketed on a Virgin Atlantic flight or with a Virgin Atlantic flight prefix (‘VS’) on the Virgin Atlantic codeshare arrangement with Continental Airlines Inc; or Singapore Airlines.

Flights with a Continental flight prefix (‘CO’) but operated on the services of a Virgin Atlantic flight are not Qualifying Flights.

All Flying Club enrolments and bookings will be validated by the Airline. Invalid enrolments will be disqualified. Virgin Atlantic reserves the right to remove Gold membership without notice on invalid enrolments. Virgin Atlantic’s decision shall be final and no correspondence shall be entered into.

Bookings made must be in accordance with Virgin Atlantic’s fare conditions and all travel will be subject to the Airline’s Conditions of Contract and Conditions of Carriage.

These Terms & Conditions are subject to English law and the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

All a bit of a scam really????

 

[samh004]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

Those were the conditions of the offer in the first place though…

1. Be top tier of something already.
2. Fly Upper Class within a certain period.

I knew those were the rules when the thread popped up, so didn’t bother signing up. If you somehow failed to read those rules, where’s the problem?

 

[ejb]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

So all the people who signed up for Gold got nothing except advertising emails from Virgin.

It always does pay to read the T&C's.

ejb

 

[samh004]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

So all the people who signed up for Gold got nothing except advertising emails from Virgin.

It always does pay to read the T&C's.

ejb

Well, provided you were already an elite and were going to take an applicable flight with them, you would have got Gold for a steal, what you weren’t getting was Gold for nothing.

And as for having to be a UK resident, considering the website that had the offer had a “.co.uk” ccSLD, it was sort of obvious who the offer was meant for.

 

[james4321]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

And as for having to be a UK resident, considering the website that had the offer had a “.co.uk” ccSLD, it was sort of obvious who the offer was meant for.

Nothing was mentioned about having to be a UK resident - I'm guessing that would knock out most of the applicants right there.

Dont agree that "it was sort of obvious" - what about all the websites with a .com suffix - using that logic are we to assume that anything on them is for US only? - Cos that would be such a wrong assumption !!!!!

Still think it is a slightly underhand way for Virgin to act.

 

[markis10]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

Interesting how the UK resident thing has appeared, I agree that just because it has a .co.uk address we should not assume its for UK only, after all .com does not mean US only.

 

[kamchatsky]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

Well I did get into SIA SilverKris lounge last month with my Gold status last month flying in SQ Y. So that is at least one benefit I get from this offer.

If they actually send you a permanent VS Gold card surely you can just use the card to go into DJ/SQ lounges, as they won't cross reference it?

 

[anat0l]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

If they actually send you a permanent VS Gold card surely you can just use the card to go into DJ/SQ lounges, as they won't cross reference it?

It depends. Sometimes they check and sometimes they don't.

For example, when I go into a QF domestic J lounge, I just flash my WP card and I have never been pulled up once to have my card checked or BP scanned in. But the AKL D Koru Club, you need to scan in either your BP, ePass or mPass (not card) to get in, or you would manually have to show the lounge attendant your status card (G/GE/*G) and boarding pass. In the latter manual check, I'm not sure if they would check if the number is valid.

On one hand, scanning a BP with your FF# on it doesn't verify that it is correct, although whether you can add an invalid FF# to a BP - is this possible? Especially if, say, you ask SQ to add your VS number to a BP, would they be able to check your validity?

Moral of the story: if you can get away with it, fine, but don't get grumpy if you get pulled up. And, if they do pull you up, I wonder how it looks to be trying to enter a lounge with an expired/invalid card (how would you excuse yourself out of that one)?

 

[markis10]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

Given the amount of people that took up the option, I would suspect any Gold card will get close scrutiny moving forward as a result.

 

[JohnK]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

So all the people who signed up for Gold got nothing except advertising emails from Virgin.

It always does pay to read the T&C's.

People were just expecting to get instant VS Gold status for 1 year just for signing up to VS Flying Club with this promotion? Sure it helps to read the terms and conditions but I really do not see the fuss.

 

[samh004]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

Dont agree that "it was sort of obvious" - what about all the websites with a .com suffix - using that logic are we to assume that anything on them is for US only? - Cos that would be such a wrong assumption !!!!!

Interesting how the UK resident thing has appeared, I agree that just because it has a .co.uk address we should not assume its for UK only, after all .com does not mean US only.

Not really, it was one of the original TLD’s, and was meant to show commercial entities, not the US. With the advent of .us not long after, that’s for Americans.

All this is about is trying to get elite membership to Flying Club for free for a year, when there were obviously conditions attached. Throwing out the UK residency, as you might be able to list an address that a friend can pick up the card at, as long as you fulfil the other requirements, that were listed from the start, you shouldn’t have a problem.

Just like with the Velocity Gold scandal, you can’t get something for nothing, and I don’t see why anyone is complaining they should do!

 

[markis10]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

Sam

The UK residency was not made clear in the offer, and these days just because a website has a .co.uk in it does not mean its offer is for only UK customers, I get my ebooks from a Virgin FF partner all time using their .co.uk website. The website in question happily takes worldwide customers and the conditions of the offer as stated on the website were: " The only condition is you must be an existing ‘elite’ status member of another frequent flyer programme and you must book a Virgin Atlantic Upper Class flight (J,D or R booking classes) between 1 March and 31 April 2010 for outbound travel until 31 May 2010. "

I object to Virgin trying to move the goal posts after the event by adding the extra requirements to be a UK citizen, but given I wont be flying with them this month I dont expect it to be something I will have past May 31, as I cautioned earlier in this thread I expected it to be pulled, and unlike the DJ mistake, at least anyone taking up the offer had lounge access for two months should they have been flying an eligible DJ/SQ flight.

 

[samh004]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

It’s true that the UK residency wasn’t made clear, but I don’t think it’s that hard to fool them now if you really want it. We’re all travellers, and if you’re going to have to fly Upper Class anyway, you should know someone that can hold your mail for you briefly in the UK. You still need to do the flying though, and somehow prove you’re already elite?

The quoted text above suggested that some members were unaware they had to fly Upper Class, or already hold an elite level with another FFP. That simply isn’t true though, everyone knew you didn’t just get it for signing up

 

[markis10]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

The quoted text above suggested that some members were unaware they had to fly Upper Class, or already hold an elite level with another FFP. That simply isn’t true though, everyone knew you didn’t just get it for signing up

I suspect quite a few emails were sent to friends and family saying "Log on to the following link and get free Gold membership to Flying Club", using the link as posted by Edison on the first page, that link had NO T&C's:

Now the original page has been pulled, but I still had the link to apply. But not sure if you can get instant gold though:

Virgin Atlantic Airways - Popup

This campaign appeared on AFF very late in the piece, so while anyone who read it hear would have seen the T&C's in the first post of the thread, the viral effect could have well resulted in many customers not being aware of the terms and conditions if they were made aware of the offer by other means, which is why Virgin prefaced their email with "You recently applied for Instant Flying Club Gold membership through an unofficial online channel. As a result, you were not made aware of the terms and conditions or criteria to qualify for the offer."

 

[kamchatsky]

Re: Join Virgin Flying Club: Instant Gold (and get 5,000 bonus miles for Upper Class

I suspect quite a few emails were sent to friends and family saying "Log on to the following link and get free Gold membership to Flying Club", using the link as posted by Edison on the first page, that link had NO T&C's:





This campaign appeared on AFF very late in the piece, so while anyone who read it hear would have seen the T&C's in the first post of the thread, the viral effect could have well resulted in many customers not being aware of the terms and conditions if they were made aware of the offer by other means, which is why Virgin prefaced their email with "You recently applied for Instant Flying Club Gold membership through an unofficial online channel. As a result, you were not made aware of the terms and conditions or criteria to qualify for the offer."

Well if they do take away the Gold because conditions not met, then I fully understand. But I certainly did not see the condition of being an UK resident.

But yes, I can see people passing links to each other without the T&Cs, as we are AFFers and/or FTers, that is what we do well!

Oh well, at least I did get a benefit out of this Still prefer the AirNZ SYD lounge though