Virgin Australia Pick Your Bonus Promo - Double Points or Status Credits - Ends 13 June 2025

[simmomelb]

I dunno, that often gets brought, but there's a lot of complaints in the Qantas forum about inconsistencies within the alliance as well. Most recently of Cathay Pacific citing "overcrowding" to stop people going into certain lounges and the situation at Bangkok airport.

I've been *G for over ten years and there's often inconsistencies there as well. Lufthansa often goes above and beyond for *G customers, United not so much...

Sure, valid, but they aren't these types of inconsistencies, and these are just a handful of almost, bizarre ones.
- Fly ANA, no lounge, whatsoever.
- Fly ANZ to Auckland, get lounge access if you bought your ticket via VA, bought your ticket direct from ANZ, no access.
- Fly international on VA metal, no lounge for anyone, on their OWN aircraft.
- No third party lounge access from partner airlines.
- DSC not included in their "wet leased" service to DOH, which they promoted as their return to, long haul.

 

[SeaWolf]

Sure, valid, but they aren't these types of inconsistencies, and these are just a handful of almost, bizarre ones.

I do wish things were a bit more consistent with the partners, but I can understand the commercial realities of these arrangements. A lot of airlines and are not in an alliance and have various partners with various levels of services. Even carriers within an alliance have other partners with varying degrees of access to services. Some will be very close and offer a range of services, like QF and EK and others will just be simple code share or points arrangements, like QF and WS.

I get why some people are frustrated about it, but what's going on with VA and its partners all seems pretty normal to me.

Anyway, we've wandered a bit of the way off the topic of the thread.

 

[ols]

I’d be happy with less people in the lounges, far too overcrowded currently.
Status has been far too easy to earn in the past and although I do think they have probably gone a bit too far the other way it should at least sort the wheat from the chaff now

There will still be plenty of chaff from the Amex Velocity Platinum cardholders

 

[Must...Fly!]

Call a spade a spade.

They've decided the revenue from AMEX lounge visits is more financially valuable to them than offering the previous status arrangements.

I think it's ludicrous thinking and will backfire rather significantly for them, but I guess all we can do is wait, watch our status soft landings happen and see what results.

 

[aamslfc]

Their loads are pretty darn good

Yes, because they have spent years building a loyal base of frequent flyers.

Remove the frequent flyer incentives and let's see how darn good those loads become.

Yes I do think they have skewed it a bit far but at the end of the day they are rewarding their loyal customers

How incredibly insulting that a decade's worth of my family almost exclusively flying VA and their partners domestically and internationally - and the sizeable five-figure sum I've already funneled into this airline - does not constitute loyalty.

and there will still be plenty of those IMO but if it doesn’t work out then they can always rejig it

And there's the problem - alienate enough of the customer base, and it'll be too late to "rejig" it and create an offering that entices those customers back.

It's far easier to keep a customer than it is to win back a customer.

I’d be happy with less people in the lounges, far too overcrowded currently.

I agree - but I think that's a legacy of post-COVID flying and new people being exposed to FF points and lounges through social media/websites.

Status has been far too easy to earn in the past and although I do think they have probably gone a bit too far the other way

You still had to spend the money and do the travel to earn status - it wasn't exactly easy, it took a decent chunk of flying and spending to achieve and retain it, especially on an airline that has a limited footprint

it should at least sort the wheat from the chaff now

Seriously? They're opening up the lounges to everyone with a bloody credit card.

You think it's bad now, wait until they become 24/7 zoos with lines out the door like US domestic lounges.

 

[jase05]

Yes, because they have spent years building a loyal base of frequent flyers.

Remove the frequent flyer incentives and let's see how darn good those loads become.

There is a large percentage of people that choose BFOD so as long as VA’s prices are competitive their planes will be full.

VA’s status has been one of the easiest to earn for some time. With family pooling, DSC’s etc you could obtain Gold for pretty much nix.
They needed to tighten that up but whether they have gone too far remains to be seen

 

[MooTime]

Sure, valid, but they aren't these types of inconsistencies, and these are just a handful of almost, bizarre ones.
- Fly ANA, no lounge, whatsoever.
- Fly ANZ to Auckland, get lounge access if you bought your ticket via VA, bought your ticket direct from ANZ, no access.
- Fly international on VA metal, no lounge for anyone, on their OWN aircraft.
- No third party lounge access from partner airlines.
- DSC not included in their "wet leased" service to DOH, which they promoted as their return to, long haul.

The below has to be the worst status benefit of them all, especially as a Platinum member.

"Fly international on VA metal, no lounge for anyone, on their OWN aircraft"

One for the super Nova FF's is there any other frequent flyer program in the world that doesn't offer it's platinum, all but invitational members no lounge access on its own metal for international flights?
I mean really, this aspect absolutely stinks.

Thanks goodness for PP, limited as it's getting, still offers something.

 

[jguanine]

Does anyone know if bookings made via the velocity business website will also be eligible for double status?

 

[kevrosmith]

Does anyone know if bookings made via the velocity business website will also be eligible for double status?

I nearly always book through the Business Portal and have received DSCs in previous promotions.

 

[jguanine]

I nearly always book through the Business Portal and have received DSCs in previous promotions.

Good to know, thanks!

 

[straitman]

Except that lounge access now comes with the Velocity Amex card and many more people will get that than have status, I reckon, which still makes the lounges crowded.

... and/or the Amex Platinum Charge Card for access.

True, $5k or 10k for SG or WP respectively per year now..... Virgin lifetime lounge access can be bought for $9,750.

Comes with guest access & Arrivals access.

If I really wanted lounge access.......

Remembering that at the moment if you utilise the DSC offer it's $2.5k for Gold and $5k for Platinum.

 

[FlyingCasually]

BrainFart

Or... if I may...

BainFart


...I'll see myself out (apologies if someone has already come up with this in another thread)

Back on topic. As another data point, I won't be booking anything on this promo (only fly VA for work and currently have a freeze on travel). For personal travel, VA lost me as a customer when they enhanced their program to current spend based model. A couple of months before that happened, knowing I was going to have a year of more personal travel than usual, I was planning ahead to see which airline I should play the status game with. I had settled on VA as I would get to Plat (leaning heavily on the family pooling mind you). Then the enhancements happened and all of a sudden I wouldn't even make SG. So I took my money to QF instead where now both me and my wife would at least get SG and have ended up spending more than I would have (added an extra holiday in there) to eventually make WP. Much more benefits to status on QF and WP will only cost me and wife about $6k each.

 

[pauldab]

Saw the page, was already in Sydney last week with a flight booked and traveled inside the offer timeframes (so was with a good number of credits due to the cost) hit the "I want SC's" button and had the DSC bonus a couple of days later.

 

[Flyerwin]

I have a weird issue - I got the offer for DSC on the app - clicked on it, asked me to login, so I did - once logged in, I can't seem to choose double points of double status - can't click, can't confirm selection. Same issue on desktop, on both Safari and Chrome. So I can't choose? Or have I chosen and it's blocking me? I haven't received a confirmation email.

 

[Flyingwombat]

Virgin have lost me - I was a gold/platty for a while when flying Etihad and I often used VA over Qantas to top up my SCs. At the same time I had a reasonable engagement with QF for flights to Shanghai and tended to do some leisure flights with good old JQ on the bundles. So I got to LT silver with the roo and am about 5000 off LT Gold.

My engagement with VA has gone for several reasons:

• New SC earning rules make it too hard to maintain status
• The way they calculated Forever Gold is insulting to us long-term members who stood by them for a long time before 2013
• The service on board is nothing - and yet they spin this fly "wonderful" rubbish
• Out of Hobart, they are often the most expensive
• I have over 8000 SCs to earn with them to get F/Gold but Qantas I only need 5000 and they let all the SCs count equally

VA are making money now... and good time for Bain to exit. But long term, I think they are taking a risk with the changes to Velocity. I now don't worry about earning Velocity points either. All my credit cards are now Qantas earning. And I know QFF is about to become less attractive but it is still ahead of Velocity now.

 

[VALifetimeGold]

To be fair to VA, I think the object is to thin out the ranks for Silver / Gold / Plats. As any frequent traveller knows, almost every airline has gone too far in driving upper-tier status - to the point where lounges are over crowded and priority boarding is filled with almost half the plane!
That said, my issue is with VAs benefits for upper tiers, esp those who fly Business class. I’m four-times Plat and will have Plat Plus and lifetime gold come October, but even then the benefits are questionable. Fly ahead is scarcely available in Business class, the lounge offering is barely adequate (for Business class… a perennial problem), to say nothing of the now limited lounge network. The promised local Plat Plus call centre will be welcome, but it is only a return to what Plats used to enjoy in the good old Virgin Mk.1 days.
IMO VA management need to take more care to deliver meaningful benefits to upper tier fliers.

 

[cbourl]

Not worth it VA! ByeByeBirdie!
Cheaper and more value just to buy/redeem Business Class domestic! Benefits without the outrageous spend!

 

[RWJ777]

Many of the comments here are very interesting and accord with my own thinking. I used to chase VA SCs and Velocity points as a solid source of redemption. Since the program ‘upgrade’, flights are as expensive (or more so) in points as QF but with less availability. So I’ve switched over my credit card spending from Velocity points to QFF which, for all its faults, has more many options on more routes.

I think Velocity has really lost its competitive edge with these changes and turned themselves into QF but with lesser amenity.

 

[Steven of Mysore]

I am (was?) a loyal Platinum + Gift Platinum member and was about to book a few flights, my business is in Bali, to get double credits when I realised how few would actually be achieved with a Choice fare - I also used to go the longer two stop way...

It would be less than half and I have the Amex Platinum already. Was pretty 'annoyed' to see the lounge access appear a few months ago. Now not so much.

Surely, they thought this through?

NB: I also noticed there wasn't a Thursday specials the day after launch and wonder if there will be this week ie: the day before entitlement closes.

Post automatically merged: Today at 4:34 PM

Many of the comments here are very interesting and accord with my own thinking. I used to chase VA SCs and Velocity points as a solid source of redemption. Since the program ‘upgrade’, flights are as expensive (or more so) in points as QF but with less availability. So I’ve switched over my credit card spending from Velocity points to QFF which, for all its faults, has more many options on more routes.

I think Velocity has really lost its competitive edge with these changes and turned themselves into QF but with lesser amenity.

As much as it pains me, I am considering QF again too. I wonder if I can get my Platinum matched?

 

[Gary T]

What. A mess, went to sign up for my family neither my Velociity Nbr worked as did my password. Have had the same ones since I joined last century.