Virgin rolls out a lifetime of Velocity Gold perks

So any Status Credits that I earn but family-pool to my wife (or vice versa) don't count for either of us in terms of the SC's needed to get to Forever Gold? Is that correct?

A bit disappointed that the first 10 years of Velocity membership counts for nothing. also disappointing is the fact that Virgin had been offering raw deals on Virgin booking with Partner airlines. numerous flights to Europe I had to book directly with Singapore Airline or Etihad's as Virgin could not offering seat selection and 3 times I finished up with the worst seats on the Plane even so paying for Flexi in Economy. So now I am retired and taking higher tier flights with SQ I will not book with Virgin simply for getting raw deals doing so.

Yeah, I think that's the 'sweet spot' Pete SW, reward yourself when you can by booking Business Class fares on VA's domestic flights thus getting all the perks Virgin give Platinum members, and do likewise with Star Alliance partners and/or Qatar Airlines when flying out.  VA has shifted the 'point of indifference' (a marketing term) too far this time.  They'll learn. 

All the changes to Velocity has made it really unattractive, over priced and not aligned to their "value" approach under the new virgin. All the exclusions and caveats make retaining status and especially forever status pretty unattractive versus any "benefits". Family poling has now lost a huge amount of value for even annual renewals. From a long term Virgin supporter they have really lost their way on velocity. It will probably take 2 years for them to work out their mistakes. Only upside is the lounges will be less chaotic and the premium queue might actually be shorter than the general queue :). Probably worth thinking about only using them for the odd business class domestic to get the same benefits from pay as you go rather than the spend to retain status on both carriers.

With some downtime yesterday, I compared status credit earning between international and domestic routes.

•Sydney–Doha–Rome return – approx. $9,000 for 350 status credits, equating to about 3.89 cents per status credit dollar.

•Domestic flights – approx. $4,200 for the same 350 status credits.

This shows a significant disparity in value. My advice to Virgin would be either to reduce international fares or increase the status credit offering to bring international travel in line with domestic value.

Singapore Airlines has long benefited from Australian travellers at premium pricing, but I expect they’ll soon reduce fares to keep seats filled. Likewise, Turkish Airlines is becoming increasingly attractive—after my wife’s shopping trip in Turkey this year, I can see us preferring Istanbul over Singapore as a stopover in the future.

The reality is that competition is tightening, and these shifts will inevitably put greater pressure on Velocity’s status credit value proposition. Now is the time to strengthen it. Beef it up, Nick!

This is a croc. VA claims it can’t track SCs before Feb 2013, yet knows your membership status since Velocity started in ’05. I’ve been Gold or Platinum since ’06, only lapsing to Silver post-COVID, then regaining Gold for ’24. You’d think VA could at least average SCs ’05-12 according to membership status. My ‘lifetime’ score is less than half of what’s required, with no prospect of reaching Gold Forever now that I’m retired and not flying more than a few times a year. Currently VFF Silver, about to fall back to Bronze. In contrast, am QFF Lifetime Silver as it has records of SCs back to the late 1980s. Few perks, but at least some status and an annual lounge pass. My two decades of loyalty to VA will go unrewarded, which means that after next month, my patronage will return to QF – on principal, if not price. VFF needs to add Forever Silver level to retain long-term members who haven’t achieved FG under its arbitrary qualification calculation. FS with two lounge passes a year would be enough to keep me, along with Economy X option – good value for a 193 cm (6’4”) senior.