Will you still earn/retain Velocity status beyond 2025?

[aus_flyer]

Has this been open recently? I've been so used to seeing it roped off that I don't think it even registers for me to check.

Yes always open when I’m there

 

[Warks]

Has this been open recently? I've been so used to seeing it roped off that I don't think it even registers for me to check.

Yes for about the last six months. I'm the same, I stopped checking so it may have been open longer. They do announce it in the morning to encourage people up there though.

 

[ben95]

Has this been open recently?

Was open yesterday around 6PM when I was in the lounge. They even made an announcement about opening it up and people should go there if there’s no space in the main lounge.

 

[simmomelb]

Has this been open recently? I've been so used to seeing it roped off that I don't think it even registers for me to check.

It is open most business days, but during peak periods, when at capacity.

 

[straitman]

Sure... but that's because each booking category had a different earn rate as part of the encouragement to upgrade.

Now it's based on $ you have spent that Virgin receive. Except when it's not - in the case of lite, which just has some arbitrary devaluation of the $ spent. So they've taken away the carrots and just left the stick.

I really don't see your issue. Nothing is arbitrary. For the minority who fly the same routes regularly it's a 'little' harder. For everyone else it is the same degree of difficulty and you need to keep records of SC earning.

The earn rate for Status Credits on Virgin Australia, as of the changes taking effect from 2 April 2025:

• For “Choice”, “Flex”, “Business” (and Group) fares — you earn 1 Status Credit (SC) per A$12 spent.
• For “Lite” fares — you earn 1 SC per A$24 spent.

In other words:

• If you spend A$120 on a Choice/Flex/Business fare, you get 10 SC.
• If you spend A$240 on a Lite fare, you get 10 SC.

 

[Layslow]

I really don't see your issue. Nothing is arbitrary. For the minority who fly the same routes regularly it's a 'little' harder. For everyone else it is the same degree of difficulty and you need to keep records of SC earning.

The earn rate for Status Credits on Virgin Australia, as of the changes taking effect from 2 April 2025:

• For “Choice”, “Flex”, “Business” (and Group) fares — you earn 1 Status Credit (SC) per A$12 spent.
• For “Lite” fares — you earn 1 SC per A$24 spent.

In other words:

• If you spend A$120 on a Choice/Flex/Business fare, you get 10 SC.
• If you spend A$240 on a Lite fare, you get 10 SC.

But the rub with dynamic pricing is that, for instance I want to travel Melbourne - Sydney on the 29th (which I have to), the 'LITE' fare is over $600 one way. No seat allocation, and reduced status credits.

 

[simmomelb]

But the rub with dynamic pricing is that, for instance I want to travel Melbourne - Sydney on the 29th (which I have to), the 'LITE' fare is over $600 one way. No seat allocation, and reduced status credits.

4 Choice flights I'm seeing (seat selection included) $578 on the 29th Dec. Not bad for then with a short booking window and between Christmas and NY.
Lite is $535

 

[straitman]

But the rub with dynamic pricing is that, for instance I want to travel Melbourne - Sydney on the 29th (which I have to), the 'LITE' fare is over $600 one way. No seat allocation, and reduced status credits.

... and how has that changed?

 

[ben95]

But the rub with dynamic pricing is that, for instance I want to travel Melbourne - Sydney on the 29th (which I have to), the 'LITE' fare is over $600 one way. No seat allocation, and reduced status credits.

Except choice is always just a bit over lite, choose that you get the normal status credit and seat allocation. Your call whether that’s worth 40 bucks.

And in fact under the old system you’d get 5SC for this 600 spend. Now you get 25 even with lite. Sounds like for this specific case there’s no rub.

 

[Layslow]

Except choice is always just a bit over lite, choose that you get the normal status credit and seat allocation. Your call whether that’s worth 40 bucks.

And in fact under the old system you’d get 5SC for this 600 spend. Now you get 25 even with lite. Sounds like for this specific case there’s no rub.

Therein lies the rub...

 

[jakeseven7]

Well because our VA2 rep crawled (well zoomed!) into our company to find out why our bookings are sliding with them, we gave them considered feedback which is basically a sum of this whole forum as to why business & frequent flyers are reducing the amount of travel with them. Our team pretty much all self book and over last 1.5 yrs QF has seen a considerable gain in their share of our business.

We also were given a company wide status match, no restrictions to try and lure some bookings back. Not sure it will work but good on them for trying. I had heard they were out doing this to try and get some business bookings up.

So I’m WP on VA2 for a little bit longer (was about to fall to silver), but will soft crash down through the layers until VA2 match again.