Virgin Australia Extends Middle Seat Lottery

Virgin Australia has extended its Middle Seat Lottery promotion for another 11 weeks, giving more passengers the chance to win some great prizes.

The promotion was due to end last week, on 23 April, but will now run until 9 July 2023.

Nobody really likes sitting in the dreaded middle seat when flying. Originally launched in October 2022, Virgin Australia’s Middle Seat Lottery is a fun way to make it a little less terrible.

How the Middle Seat Lottery works

Until 9 July 2023, anyone who sits in a middle seat on a Virgin Australia domestic flight can enter a competition to win one of 37 “wonderful” weekly prizes. That’s a B or E seat in Economy on the Boeing 737.

This week’s prize, for middle seat passengers flying between Monday 24 April and Sunday 30 April 2023, is return Qatar Airways Economy flights to Europe for two people including a 5-star luxury stopover experience in Doha. Next week’s prize will be a North Queensland getaway.

Other prizes to be given away over the coming months include return flights to Vanuatu, flights to Samoa and bonus Velocity points.

You can see a list of past Middle Seat Lottery prizes and prize winners on the Virgin Australia website.

If you’re unlucky (or lucky!) to be sitting in a middle seat on a Virgin Australia flight, you’re over 18 and you live in Australia, you can enter the lottery within the Virgin Australia App up to 48 hours after your flight. You’ll be eligible regardless of whether you purposefully selected or were allocated a middle seat. But the middle seat will need to be reflected on your boarding pass.

Only passengers who are over 18 and Velocity members are able to enter. So if you’re travelling with kids, make sure an adult selects the middle seat. 😉

See the Virgin Australia website for the full terms & conditions of this promotion.

In a social media poll conducted in May last year, Virgin Australia found that around two-thirds of passengers preferred an aisle seat. Approximately one-third had a window seat preference. Less than 1% of respondents said they would intentionally choose a middle seat.

The Middle Seat Lottery was launched as part of Virgin Australia’s “Wonderful Flying” campaign last year.

Is this enough to convince you to select a middle seat?

In an AFF thread discussion, many AFF members said there would need to be a very good incentive before they would consider sitting in a middle seat by choice.

Posed with the question of what it would take to convince them to choose a middle seat, here’s what a few frequent flyers said…

Given many of my flights are transcon to/from PER, that’s a long time between people. But, for double SCs [status credits]…
– exceladdict

Something like what they do on the shinkansens – make the middle seat a little wider than the window/aisle seats.
– frodo

Keep the aisle and window seat free 😉
– kpc

So, over to you… would you select a middle seat in exchange for a lottery ticket?

Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: What could airlines do to convince you to choose a middle seat?

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.