V-Flyer

Hi all, forgive me if this has been asked previously, I just can't locate a thread.

I'm curious as to what happens when you hit 100 tier points?

A. Does anything special happen with 100 VS tier points?
B. Does the same thing happen if 100 tier points consist of VS and DL?

I've read various other threads elsewhere but can't seem to find a definitive answer.

I've basically renewed gold 9 months ahead of due date, therefore in a quandary as to whether to continue flying VS, or rack up elsewhere..

Any help would be appreciated. thanks

You get extra benefits at 60 (Clubhouse invites) & 80 (cabin upgrade) but, AFAIK, nothing official at 100.

There is another status level that is or was called UNIQ but that's not awarded automatically on TPs - as you say the exact details are kept pretty quiet but I believe it's awarded on a case by case basis to customers VS believe deserve special recognition, be it because of sustained big spending and loyalty over many years or maybe because they're a prominent businessperson or celebrity whose custom is deemed to be beneficial to the brand.

So if you've already renewed Au and aren't fussed about the 60 & 80TP benefits I'd seriously consider flying with someone else and earning elite status with them.

(Incidentally BA also have a special, unadvertised status level, each new membership of which apparently has to be approved at board level.)

To qualify for UNIQ you need at least 100TP on VS (code shares/partner TP do not count for this purpose).
As for the benefits - there is plenty written here about it. Whilst some of the benefits may seem unquantitfiable there are not many that would relinquish it without a struggle !

Thanks so much. I managed to get an official response from VS, which they've kindly asked me not to share.

I'll continue to fly VS/DL. ;-)

Well I'm at 116 tier points and have a further 3 long haul to do in the next 6 weeks before my end of year. I have to decide whether to fly with BA and gain GGL (I'm a normal Gold card holder) or whether to keep crediting with VS which, unless I qualify for UNIQ, will be down the drain.

So I emailed VS customer services asking if there are any other incentives, like BA do, above Gold with additional tier thresholds for vouchers etc. They sent me a snotty email back saying we're sorry you don't find your Gold status with Virgin beneficial, then copy and pasted from their website the benefits. Not terribly impressed by that i have to say.

I think it's generally accepted that UNIQ doesn't trigger automatically at 100TP, rather that's the point at which someone in Crawley starts taking a bit of interest in your account and considering your worth to the airline.

Because of course there are many ways to earn 100TP. You can do it without spending a single penny with VS and just flying with partner airlines, in which case I suspect they'd lose interest pretty quickly as you're clearly not worth making UNIQ.

If, however, you're spending £5,000 a pop on full fare UC to LAX once a month you'd presumably be considered beneficial and could expect a call.

Is UNIQ for life? And does it automatically confer all the benefits of Au?

getinjonathan wrote:Thanks so much. I managed to get an official response from VS, which they've kindly asked me not to share.

I'll continue to fly VS/DL. ;-)

I'm going to assume it's a lifetime supply of jelly babies

evanspa1 wrote:Well I'm at 116 tier points and have a further 3 long haul to do in the next 6 weeks before my end of year. I have to decide whether to fly with BA and gain GGL (I'm a normal Gold card holder) or whether to keep crediting with VS which, unless I qualify for UNIQ, will be down the drain.

So I emailed VS customer services asking if there are any other incentives, like BA do, above Gold with additional tier thresholds for vouchers etc. They sent me a snotty email back saying we're sorry you don't find your Gold status with Virgin beneficial, then copy and pasted from their website the benefits. Not terribly impressed by that i have to say.

You don't / can't apply for UNIQ (just as you can't apply for Premier status with BA) it is awarded to you. There are lots of factors involved not just how many TPs you earn.

On BA GGL/CCR card are a published part of their programme.

UNIQ is not a published element of the VS scheme.

I earned 106 VS TP's last year and currently have 61 7 months into this year. All UC flights but most Z's with a few D's. Hoping I might meet the criteria soon.

tontybear wrote:

evanspa1 wrote:Well I'm at 116 tier points and have a further 3 long haul to do in the next 6 weeks before my end of year. I have to decide whether to fly with BA and gain GGL (I'm a normal Gold card holder) or whether to keep crediting with VS which, unless I qualify for UNIQ, will be down the drain.

So I emailed VS customer services asking if there are any other incentives, like BA do, above Gold with additional tier thresholds for vouchers etc. They sent me a snotty email back saying we're sorry you don't find your Gold status with Virgin beneficial, then copy and pasted from their website the benefits. Not terribly impressed by that i have to say.

You don't / can't apply for UNIQ (just as you can't apply for Premier status with BA) it is awarded to you. There are lots of factors involved not just how many TPs you earn.

On BA GGL/CCR card are a published part of their programme.

UNIQ is not a published element of the VS scheme.

Agreed. The point i'm trying to make is that BA and others have lots of published reward milestones in place way above Gold level e.g. 241, GGL, CCR. VS have lounge invites at 1.5x Gold renewal, single cabin upgrade at 2x Gold renewal, and that's it.

For those of us who are unlikely to get UNIQ status flying on lots of Z tickets we need to make a decision above 80 tier points; do we continue giving business to VS (typically paying a premium over BA etc) and getting no additional recognition, or do we spread our earning with secondary airlines and getting rewards from them. If they introduced published incentives at 100, 120, 140, 160 TP then that would be something for me to aim for. Getting a shitty email back from customer services when I ask doesn't help.

Evanspa1. I fully agree. I luckily made VS lifetime gold two years ago which made options slightly easier admittedly. At that point I also had a few bad experiences with VS. It was a time to make a decision.

My choice was to fly BA knowing that the volume of flying I do would mean I would make GGL. In fact have been GGL now for the last month. Virgin may not regard me as one of their best customer but my decision has cost them most of my flights. If I knew what UNIQ would have done I would have been able to have directly compared the options.

Sounds like a no brainer to me - you spread your loyalty and go for elite status elsewhere.

I agree it would seem logical to offer more incentives for very frequent fliers. What's supposed to be a loyalty scheme actually doesn't reward the most loyal customers very much at all as once you've reached Au there's very little to encourage you to keep spending. And for those who only fly UC there's even little point in being Au as you get the best benefit - lounge access - anyway. It almost seems like a reverse loyalty scheme!

Having said that at least VS still make it relatively easy to achieve elite status. With their recent devaluation of the EC, BA have made attaining Au - or even Ag - a pipe dream for all but the most frequent fliers or high spenders.

gumshoe wrote:Sounds like a no brainer to me - you spread your loyalty and go for elite status elsewhere.

I agree it would seem logical to offer more incentives for very frequent fliers. What's supposed to be a loyalty scheme actually doesn't reward the most loyal customers very much at all as once you've reached Au there's very little to encourage you to keep spending. And for those who only fly UC there's even little point in being Au as you get the best benefit - lounge access - anyway. It almost seems like a reverse loyalty scheme!

Having said that at least VS still make it relatively easy to achieve elite status. With their recent devaluation of the EC, BA have made attaining Au - or even Ag - a pipe dream for all but the most frequent fliers or high spenders.

Agree. In many ways in retrospect I regret staying completely loyal to VS as long as I did. All it achieved was to make my miles balance bigger!

I now realise that so many more benefits are available when a programme is part of a full network such as oneworld. There really are then perks when flying with other oneworld airlines, whereas there are no real perks when flying with VS partners other than collecting points. Even flying delta doesn't give many benefits such as lounge access etc etc unless on same day international itinerary.

I don't fly enough nowadays to get near this level , buts it's quite clear that Unique level is the same as GGL with BA. The difference here is that BA publish the benefits and a clear qualification level for their scheme. Prems are completely different and it can be awarded/ achieved without any pre-qualification if BA think it would be of commercial benefit to BA for example major Plc heads who might not fly regularly but their corparate business is high spend or the rich and famous who can attract great publicity.

As for the requalification for gold, for my part nothing's changed as all my flights are in F or J which still give the same tier points and if people have the time you can still achieve gold for less than 2K by doing a tier point run.

NYLON wrote:Is UNIQ for life? And does it automatically confer all the benefits of Au?

No, you have to re-earn it every year.

Note there are also at least three UNIQ schemes that I know of, one of which is TP based but not solely on TPs. It is by invitation and for those who mention that on BA it's fairly clear what the benefits are on VS it is much more individual, tailored, and about what you put in and what you ask for. It can and is much more personal, and that says something about the VS approach that I like.

slinky09 wrote:

NYLON wrote:Is UNIQ for life? And does it automatically confer all the benefits of Au?

No, you have to re-earn it every year.

Note there are also at least three UNIQ schemes that I know of, one of which is TP based but not solely on TPs. It is by invitation and for those who mention that on BA it's fairly clear what the benefits are on VS it is much more individual, tailored, and about what you put in and what you ask for. It can and is much more personal, and that says something about the VS approach that I like.

Good info, thanks Slinky!