Virgin Australia's latest double status credits offer has landed

Virgin Australia's latest double status credits promotion is good news for travellers keen to step up the frequent flyer ladder – from Silver to Gold, or more likely Gold to Platinum – or just wanting to lock down their current status and perks for another year.

The offer applies to all Virgin Australia flights and across all fare classes, from a budget-friendly Getaway economy fare between Sydney and Melbourne to a full business class fare from Sydney, Melbourne to Brisbane to Los Angeles: take your nominal status credits earn and double it.

The only exception is Virgin's new Brisbane-Tokyo route, which starts on 29 March 2020 and will see Velocity earnings of between 30-120 status credits depending where on the plane you're sitting, as tickets for those flights won't be on sale until sometime in December 2019.

But before you make any bookings, head to the Velocity double-status promotion page and sign up by 24 November 2019. Then, make your bookings – again the cut-off date is 24 November 2019.

Your travel can be anywhere from 18 November 2019 to 13 October 2020, so that's almost a whole year of advance planning for those business trips, customer visits, conferences and trade shows, and even working a holiday or two somewhere along the way.

Virgin advises that your double status credits will automatically be applied to your account within four weeks of your travel taking place.

Last week saw Virgin Australia launch a Velocity partnership with Optus, through which the telco's customers can pocket up to 40,000 points across range of mobile plans for smartphones, tablets and watches, although the countdown clock is ticking on the Velocity-BP partnership as the petrol giant prepares to switch its allegiance to Qantas in early 2020.

Virgin's own Velocity spend

Virgin Australia is also moving to take back full ownership and control of its Velocity loyalty program by purchasing the 35% stake of Affinity Equity Partners, which bought into the program in 2014 for A$335 million. The buyback is estimated to cost $700 million, which would see Velocity valued in total at around A$2 billion.

"We're thrilled to buy back the Velocity business and bring it back under the airline," Virgin Australia CEO Paul Scurrah says. "Velocity, with its 10 million members, is a very important part of our future."

Scurrah says the buy-back "allows us to move from a very successful member acquisition phase to one focused on improving the engagement and earnings quality of those members."

As exclusively reported by Executive Traveller earlier this week, Virgin is now considering the introduction of a paid subscription service for Velocity Frequent Flyer members which would unlock a range of additional perks and services for an annual fee.

Some of the mooted 'beyond status' benefits include early access to sales, discounts on non-sale fares, a 'concierge' to help assist members with finding points-based reward seats, bonus Velocity points and status credits and discounts on inflight WiFi

Read more: Virgin mulls paid Velocity Frequent Flyer 'subscription' service

David Flynn

David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.