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

[Steven of Mysore]

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.

I had that occur all last week. Drove me nuts. Couldn't get in at all.

 

[DazMel]

In 2011 I used status match from MH GOLD to VA GOLD withinn 3 months I hit Pt on VA and have maintained Pt since. I'm retired now and have to pay for my own tix, so I guess this is my last year at Pt and I'll just buy Lite fares as I drop to Forever GOLD

It's annoying that as in retirement I plan long haul o/s travel, only flights on VA metal are counted. Oh well at least I got to enjoy the "golden years" on the wide-body A330 and B777

 

[ozstamps]

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

Velocity have totally blown it this year. As the current AFF Editor's newsletter points out, the clicks and posts on this thread is at YAWN level compared to usual DSC offers. In general, no-one is especially interested in flying more, with the new oppressive program changes.

A verified 30% LESS engagement re a major promo offer, is a TOTAL DISASTER for any airline, no matter how the Virgin Groupies here may try and spin it. That is apples against apples, and is a massive disengagement. Only 4 pages of posts in total.

The number #2 player, aggressively driving once VERY loyal passengers to the Qantas Group, is as smart a move as the 'New Coke' brainfart.

Sadly (for the investors), the IPO will take place before the inevitable disastrous Q2 revenue bookings will be publicly reported.

The primary objective for any airline is to INCREASE bookings, and INCREASE and lock in tight, the spending engagement of their higher level Frequent Flyer members. They have done neither.


'The numbers don’t lie

Obviously, only Virgin Australia knows how the current promotion is performing – in terms of actual revenue and flight bookings – compared to its previous ones.

But we do have access to some other data that may be of interest. One interesting point is that the number of clicks on last week’s Frequent Flyer Gazette article about Velocity’s new double status credit offer was 30% lower than the clicks on our article about Velocity’s last bonus status credit offer before it announced the program overhaul in 2024.

In fact, our internal statistics show that more people who read last Thursday’s Frequent Flyer Gazette were interested to read about Emirates’ fifth-freedom routes than Velocity’s double status credit offer.

Emirates fifth-freedom routes are apparently more interesting to AFF readers than earning double status credits with Virgin Australia.

Here’s one more stat that might be interesting: Our story about Qantas’ latest double status credits offer in March got three times more clicks than last week’s article about the new Velocity promo.

Matt Graham'

 

[MooTime]

Every VA DSC offer i'd drop a thou+ on a trip to see mates,family or take our family for a cheeky hol.

Not a single booking except cancelling a single VA flight I had as a Flexi & rebooked so that'll count as fake revenue towards this offer as just a travel credit from existing flight.

 

[straitman]

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.

I found that the place to click was actually further down the page and not particularly obvious.

 

[im.daniel]

Datapoint for those invested in VA crediting the DSC in a timely fashon;

Flew ADL-SYD 3 days ago, Original flight credit and DSC credited this morning together - meaning Plat requalification for probably the last time for me.

 

[Revenge]

For the first time ever, I selected double points instead of double SCs. VA SCs are not worth anything to me now.

 

[Flyerwin]

I found that the place to click was actually further down the page and not particularly obvious.

You're right - managed to do this. Thanks!

 

[Steven of Mysore]

For the first time ever, I selected double points instead of double SCs. VA SCs are not worth anything to me now.

I realised this after automatically clicking SC. What a dope and like others, reconsidering QF now. Apparently Platinum+gift platinum customers means nothing much now.

 

[hakkinen5]

VA Platinum for 9 or 10 years here. I've just started my new Platinum year but likely won't get it (or probably even try) again as I previously contributed a lot of SC's from international partner flying and they now only count towards 50% of the total. If VA had their own bigger international network then I may give it a go but flying domestically in economy I'm unlikely to get the 400SC's required to put with the 400 from international partner flying for requalification. I'm also only a few thousand off LTG with Qantas but would still need over 5000SC's from VA only flying to hit that with VA. So concentrating on Qantas from now on I think.

 

[Balad2005]

For the first time ever, I selected double points instead of double SCs. VA SCs are not worth anything to me now.

Yes , this is a bit of backpedalling by Virgin , after the changes to Velocity and the pruning out of numbers of gold and silver members ( including yours truly ) they are trying to make up for lost custom.

 

[Berrocca]

Going on previous years, what's the likelihood of another double (or maybe triple) status credit promo happening before the end of the year?

 

[kevrosmith]

For the first time ever, I selected double points instead of double SCs. VA SCs are not worth anything to me now.

This is my dilemma. Haven’t chosen one or other yet… I’ll get Forever Gold already when it comes in, and doubt I’ll requal Platinum this year, so not sure whether to bother even trying with the SCs.

 

[aamslfc]

Going on previous years, what's the likelihood of another double (or maybe triple) status credit promo happening before the end of the year?

2023 they did Feb, July, Oct for DSC.

2024 they did Feb and July for DSC, and triple in June.

If this thread is anything to go by, they'll be desperate to keep frequent flyers, and chase forward bookings and guaranteed cash/loads in the 2nd half of the year, so I'd bet on another round of double before year's end (and possibly even triple if they need to incentivise bookings).

 

[Steven of Mysore]

2023 they did Feb, July, Oct for DSC.

2024 they did Feb and July for DSC, and triple in June.

If this thread is anything to go by, they'll be desperate to keep frequent flyers, and chase forward bookings and guaranteed cash/loads in the 2nd half of the year, so I'd bet on another round of double before year's end (and possibly even triple if they need to incentivise bookings).

The issue is still the same, we get vastly less than we did before. Imagine Virgin making QF seem appealing! Ironic.

 

[aamslfc]

The issue is still the same, we get vastly less than we did before. Imagine Virgin making QF seem appealing! Ironic.

Exactly - it'll take time for them to realise that the Velocity changes are the actual problem.

If the next DSC campaign has as poor a response as this one, they'll have to reconsider their approach for next year if they want to keep their cashed-up elite base. Triple SCs might be sufficient, as it would be a much better value proposition than Double SCs, but who knows what the vulture capitalists are thinking.

I don't think there's anybody inside VA today that has the institutional knowledge and market understanding of how VA won all those customers from QF in the Borghetti-era and kept them for a decade.

 

[ozstamps]

If this thread is anything to go by, they'll be desperate to keep frequent flyers, and chase forward bookings and guaranteed cash/loads in the 2nd half of the year, so I'd bet on another round of double before year's end (and possibly even triple if they need to incentivise bookings).

Bain will have floated the company in a few weeks, and will not really care - they've doubled or trebled their investment already thanks heavily to Qatar.

Bain will gallop back to the good ole USA end June with saddlebags bursting with cash, looking for the next Corporate corpse to 'save'.

The future income will be the problem of the new lucky 'investors', (especially Qatar who will take an immediate huge loss/dilution) if bookings crash, and Elite level flyers have left in droves in total disinterest in spending vast sums to keep an Elite card, as clearly is occuring this year. Bain will still hold a nice slice of the listed stock, but it is all gravy, on top of gravy, on top of more gravy at that point, whatever they get, whenever they finally cut loose.

NOT decimating Velocity in any way, would have ensured a far stronger company, with the same large core of loyal elites, for the 'lucky' new stock buyers. Dumber than dirt, touching it in this year, of all years.

I don't think there's anybody inside VA today that has the institutional knowledge and market understanding of how VA won all those customers from QF in the Borghetti-era and kept them for a decade.

 

[gfurlong]

I'm with the general consensus here also regarding this promotion. Not worth it. I'm currently platinum Virgin (requalified based on flights) and platinum Qantas ... upshot, will drive my spend to Qantas which is probably the opposite of what Virgin were intending.

 

[antycbr]

Bain will have floated the company in a few weeks, and will not really care - they've doubled or trebled their investment already thanks heavily to Qatar.

Bain will gallop back to the good ole USA end June with saddlebags bursting with cash, looking for the next Corporate corpse to 'save'.

The future income will be the problem of the new lucky 'investors', (especially Qatar who will take an immediate huge loss/dilution) if bookings crash, and Elite level flyers have left in droves in total disinterest in spending vast sums to keep an Elite card, as clearly is occuring this year. Bain will still hold a nice slice of the listed stock, but it is all gravy, on top of gravy, on top of more gravy at that point, whatever they get, whenever they finally cut loose.

NOT decimating Velocity in any way, would have ensured a far stronger company, with the same large core of loyal elites, for the 'lucky' new stock buyers. Dumber than dirt, touching it in this year, of all years.

Note that even after this sell down Bain still own 40 percent so not exactly no interest.

 

[ozstamps]

Bain will still hold a nice slice of the listed stock, but it is all gravy, on top of gravy, on top of more gravy at that point, whatever they get, whenever they finally cut loose.

Not sure what part of this was hard to understand? Where did I state Bain held 'no interest' after the float?

And as stated, they have already doubled or trebled their initial $$$ stake AS WELL.