Virgin’s Velocity Gold blue
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I’ve had a busy year of flying, having a job in North Sydney and a family in Adelaide. I’ve spent roughly $10,000 on flights which were divided 50/50 with Qantas/Virgin until Tiger started an Adelaide/Sydney route recently. In the process I became a regular reader of Ben Sandilands’ Plane talking blog to stay informed of an industry that was a large part of my week. Last Friday, the 13th of November, I was pleasantly surprised when an email from Virgin at 5:55pm titled “Surprise! You’ve turned Gold” arrived. I didn’t recall earning enough points for that, but the email assured me that they knew this and wanted to say thanks for my ongoing commitment:
Awesome, I thought — some recognition for all of those hours on planes. Virgin has just earned more of my future fares — I have a reason to stop choosing the cheap Tiger seats. My elation was short-lived. Two and a half hours later came an email at 8:26pm titled “IMPORTANT: please disregard our last email”, complete with the message “Oops!” and a witty Friday the 13th headline:
We all make mistakes, but personalising a free upgrade in writing and then rescinding it entirely is just a douche-bag move. I can only imagine that a competent manager wasn’t available to correct the situation (or manage it in the first place) on Friday night, but I hardly find their “Warm Regards” sincere when they’re taking something away. |
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7 Comments
I shot them off an email saying it was their mistake, and they should honour the offer. Worst they can do is say no, I’d suggest everyone does it
I received the same two emails - probably happened to their entire membership database!
Lack of diligence - how easy would it have been to review before sending email?
Oops! Sorry I booked that flight by mistake. Please disregard all the Confirm buttons I clicked on and give me my money back. Warm regards.
A loser response to a loser top-to-bottom company error. I hope the software on their planes is a bit more reliable.
Mostly I have to say Virgin give me less problems than Qantas, Tiger etc, in terms of flights being on time. But Velocity is a mess, I’ve currently got a large negative number of membership points.
I reckon it was a planned “mistake” as part of their clumsy marketing. I too got this, and have just bought my first VB tickets, since I usually fly QF for work. It is not good enough to blame it on Friday 13th. That’s just BS.
Silly me. I got the message and believed it so I booked a flight on the strength of the representation made. I am sure Virgin Blue won’t feel any obligation to honour the upgraded status so I will have to decide whether to stick by my rights or just let it go. There are plenty of ways to make up for such an egregious mistake and Virgin hasn’t done any of them.