Virgin Australia Restores Arrivals Lounge Access

Virgin Australia will finally reinstate lounge access on arrival for Velocity Platinum and Gold members from next Monday, 25 April 2022.

Before the pandemic, access to Virgin Australia Lounges after arriving at the destination was an advertised benefit for Velocity Platinum members and Business Class passengers. It was also offered, subject to availability, to Velocity Gold and Virgin Australia Lounge members. But this benefit has been suspended since 2020.

Qantas had also paused offering lounge access on arrival to its Platinum and Platinum One members in late 2020. But Qantas already reinstated this around a year ago. It’s not quite clear why it has taken Virgin so long.

From next week, Velocity Platinum and Gold members will once again be allowed to use any Virgin Australia Lounge for up to 60 minutes after arriving on an inbound flight. However, this is subject to capacity and the airline reserves the right to deny lounge access on arrival if the lounge is full.

Lounge access on arrival will also be available to members of Velocity Frequent Flyer’s new invitation-only Beyond program. This is Virgin’s new top-tier status level replacing “The Club”.

Access to the lounge on arrival is highly valued by some frequent flyers, particularly after flying out of a port with no lounge available or landing after a redeye flight. With more Velocity members travelling again and things slowly returning to normal, Virgin now recognises that the time has come to provide this benefit again.

Hopefully arrivals lounge access will also be extended over time to Business Class passengers and Virgin Australia Lounge members once again.

This is another step towards things returning to normal. But showers still remain unavailable in Virgin Australia’s seven airport lounges, despite Qantas reopening the showers in its lounges over a year ago. Virgin’s premium lounge entries in Sydney and Brisbane, as well as the premium exit in Melbourne, also remain closed for the time being.

Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Lounge access on arrival

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.