Big pass going forward with VA…..
Same here.
I got to the 12,000 SC easily, but these clueless cheapskates adding in the
'9000 on Virgin' leaves me short.
'50% on Virgin' or even '75% on Virgin' would get me and many other ONCE loyal flyers well over the line. An arbitrary number is dumb .. a percentage is far smarter, and simpler, and fairer.
A pretty heavy duty flyer doing 20,000-30,000 SC to date, but with only 6000 on Virgin now gets told
he is not valued - Crazy. Little brother VA should have learned from big brother UA how things are done in the real world, with Lifetime Elite levels.
I am Lifetime Star Gold on UA anyway, so get all the Virgin boarding, baggage, check-in and lounge benefits even if I have ZERO status with Virgin, but I can empathise with the vast number of other once loyal Virgin flyers who do not have that back-up, who will be
insulted by this clueless system.
My feeling is they'll tweak this a bit, if the feedback is strongly negative.
This fairly basic 'Gold for life' is hardly giving away Platinum for life for goodness sakes. And now after SIX MONTHS, that they have
finally figured out how to load it to the website, it will p!ss off MASSES of once loyal flyers who likely assumed they bolted it in.
Never in the past did it matter if one booked Etihad Biz flights on Etihad or Virgin .. some I did, some I did not. Was easier dealing with sked and seating changes etc if booked with Etihad. Price was usually the same ~$8000 per ticket etc.
Dumber than dirt.
After 10 quite profitable years for Virgin, I'm done with playing the Chasing Virgin Platinum game from this year on, and will not be alone, as heaps of posts on this board show. Double qualified for Platinum this year already, but with this cheapskate ill-thought through deal, and the new silly SC earn Regime, just of no interest to chase.
We will now just book Lite fares or use miles if we need to fly Virgin - making them way less money, but getting all the Platinum benefits. Win for me - LOSE for Virgin - clever stuff from our American owners.
''Upgrade to Gold. For life.
To qualify for Forever Gold, your balance (calculated from 1 February 2013 onwards) must reach a total of 12,000 Status Credits, with a minimum of 9,000 Status Credits earned on eligible Virgin Australia marketed flights, flown by you*.''