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.

 

[clifford]

Well, the American owners, management and consultants created this mess, but I doubt they have the smarts to fix it. Sounds like VA2 is slowly going down the gurgler, to re-emerge as Vigin BLUE. Well done guys.

IMO Americans don't understand we're not American and our culture is different, Thank goodness.

 

[ozstamps]

Well, the American owners, management and consultants created this mess, but I doubt they have the smarts to fix it. Sounds like VA2 is slowly going down the gurgler, to re-emerge as Vigin BLUE. Well done guys.

IMO Americans don't understand we're not American and our culture is different, Thank goodness.

Yes some overpaid talking head, in a lame attempt to vaguely explain some of the vague reasons why they decimated the Velocity program this year, might well in his PR spin when trying to explain the decimation away, have parroted something like -

'We would love less loyal past clients in lounges, so we will drive away 67% of our loyal Elites who cheerfully spent $1,000s a year with us for many years, but allow hoards of Amex cardholders in to fill those empty spaces, from whom we make little.' All spin and hot air.

Virgin Bain are short-sighted cheapskates. They have a good deal of near totally unused space at Sydney in that kerbsite security area, that they are paying a FORTUNE for, to Sydney Airport, and are locked into doing that for another year or so, on lease we are reliably advised.

They have barely opened it for the past 2 or 3 years, and are now closing it entirely. Cost to have it there for recent years will have BEEN mega dollars. If they really wanted space for another 100 or so visitors at any given time in the lounge - there it was, staring them in the face.

Too cheap to staff it, and too dumb to use it for more seating capacity. The Daily Double of Dumbness.

At least Sydney DOES have a lounge for domestic flights. Virgin are WAY too cheap to pay partner Air NZ a few bucks for top elites, and paid Biz Class pax, flying Virgin metal outside the country. Insane decision. ZERO lounge access out of Sydney and other main ports, is an insult.

Now the 'clean-up the nasty Mess in Aisle 4 Team' as we can see, are walking into once loyal businesses in panic, whose revenues have somewhat dramatically leaked to Qantas group.

To beg, and bribe them, to try and reconsider, and extending all current Virgin status gratis - hence filling lounges again - anyone see the irony here?

Cart before the horse. Bribing a few companies to stay put does NOT get back the loyalty and business of the vast number of self-funded fliers they are making no such offers to, many of whom have also jumped ship.

As I predicted 9 months back, the penny would drop in Q4 that they would take a serious hit from this loopy decision, and are now frantically trying to put the genie back in the bottle.

Way too late for many. The Virgin share price has slumped severely in recent months, so no-one in the professional markets is drinking the PR Kool Aid either.

They are the Number #2 Junior player in a 2 horse race. Radical and unpopular change was clearly commercial suicide. To all except a few in their Ivory Towers.

 

[Happy Dude]

A recent CBR-MEL-PER vv on flexi for work yielded just 96 SCs. Old system would have been nearer 150 (I’m guessing).

I just don’t fly often enough to maintain WP in the new system. I tend to travel with family so the BIS rule clips the usefulness of family pooling. I’m not prepared to take additional trips on high cost fares just to maintain any status. Some careful planning during DSC might be of interest, assuming I’m targeted, which is not always the case.

Recent sale fares to MEL were $144 so only 12 SCs, instead of 15, so the sale fares won’t be of interest if maintaining status is not a consideration. I’m not likely to engage with the program if the status is unattainable for me.

So knowing that I won’t have status in the future, I’ll start booking reward seats to use the status benefits. Once the status runs out, it’ll be BFOD I guess. Literally no reason to be loyal to VA, sadly.

 

[clifford]

As I've said previously, the American system just doesn't work here (or in the UK with BA for that matter). Bain and co (and the poor shareholders_ will find that out, though at little cost to Bain, as they've smartly protected themselves, but for shareholders, no such luck.

Oh, and I think that the QR influence will hasten the race to the bottom. Counter intuitive you might say, but QR have no interest in the everyday Virgin flyer. All they wanted is the extra flights to DOH (at inflated prices, it seens)

 

[moa999]

I don't see either BA or VA fully doing the American system.

The American system doesn't give elites lounges access on domestic itineraries full stop (you need paid club access).
And instead trades that for actual (or perceived) greater access to free upgrades.
The American airlines have however transitioned to mostly $ based system.

What BA and VA have done is more a variation on QFs simpler and fair (ie. Fairer for us but definitely not simpler) which creates a greater alignment of points/SCs to the actual revenue/ profit earned by the airline whether you fly on the home carrier or partner.
But still keeps the elite level access to lounges

 

[stm1sydney]

I don't mind the 1 x SC per $12, it's the 50% on VA that is the driver for me. I mostly fly int, so have stuck to VA partners like SQ. But if I can no longer make WP, I may as well fly QF for domestic and take advantage of their great alliance partners for int (just needing to fly 4 x QF sectors which will be dom) to make WP.

 

[simmomelb]

I don't mind the 1 x SC per $12, it's the 50% on VA that is the driver for me. I mostly fly int, so have stuck to VA partners like SQ. But if I can no longer make WP, I may as well fly QF for domestic and take advantage of their great alliance partners for int (just needing to fly 4 x QF sectors which will be dom) to make WP.

You do understand you can still fly with their partners and that fully counts? As long as it is a "marketed OR operated Virgin Australia flight"?
So if you fly Qatar, Singapore, United, Air New Zealand to a destination that is marketed by VA (sold on their own website) that counts.
Eg, all Qatar flights to anywhere in Europe count. Air New Zealand to Auckland counts.
Singapore Airlines to Singapore counts.
Why? Because these flights are marketed by Virgin Australia, with a VA flight number on their own website.
If you are ever unsure, just make sure you can book that exact route directly on the VA website with that airline, and that's a "marketed" flight.

 

[Bolter]

You do understand you can still fly with their partners and that fully counts? As long as it is a "marketed OR operated Virgin Australia flight"?
So if you fly Qatar, Singapore, United, Air New Zealand to a destination that is marketed by VA (sold on their own website) that counts.
Eg, all Qatar flights to anywhere in Europe count. Air New Zealand to Auckland counts.
Singapore Airlines to Singapore counts.
Why? Because these flights are marketed by Virgin Australia, with a VA flight number on their own website.
If you are ever unsure, just make sure you can book that exact route directly on the VA website with that airline, and that's a "marketed" flight.

Yes you can however there are a few issues to be aware of including:
- Huge mark up in price compared to the partner's price
- Difficulty in booking open-jaw tickets using the VA website
- possible issues with seat selection

 

[Caversham04]

Yes you can however there are a few issues to be aware of including:
- Huge mark up in price compared to the partner's price
- Difficulty in booking open-jaw tickets using the VA website
- possible issues with seat selection

Yep - definitely buyer beware on all of Bolter's points. I've recently booked on SQ via the VA website as I need the VA-marketed SC's; not much difference in price between the VA Choice fare and SQ's Standard Economy (luckily) but had to give up on getting an open-jaw flight, meaning I will need a domestic flight to get back to the airport to which I flew in, and I will have to try booking exit row seats over the phone as it's not possible on the SQ website, even with the SQ Booking Reference.