Little Red Mileage

[Pete]

Tasty mileage for that flight on Saturday...

31 Mar 2013 Virgin Atlantic, MAN-LHR Economy Class 750
31 Mar 2013 Gold Membership, 100% Miles Flown Bonus in Discounted Economy. 1500
31 Mar 2013 Domestic Double Miles Bonus miles offer 750

So not only did they credit the double mileage offer, but then doubled it again with Gold bonus - which as it says should have been a Miles Flown bonus. What's that - about 300?

3000 miles for a £50 one way fare. That's rather good value. Especially if you put the spend on a Virgin Atlantic Amex card. Given the tier point, you could renew Gold for £2K, plus earn enough miles for an Upper Class return plus have 20K+ miles spare.

Pete

As a not gold I didn't get quite the same, just this

31 Mar Economy Class 750
31 Mar Economy Class Double Miles Bonus 750

And surprisingly,

31 Mar Friends & More recommendation bonus 250

As a not gold I didn't get quite the same, just this

31 Mar Economy Class 750
31 Mar Economy Class Double Miles Bonus 750

And surprisingly,

31 Mar Friends & More recommendation bonus 250

Same for me on both flights flown on Sunday.

Tasty mileage for that flight on Saturday...

31 Mar 2013 Virgin Atlantic, MAN-LHR Economy Class 750
31 Mar 2013 Gold Membership, 100% Miles Flown Bonus in Discounted Economy. 1500
31 Mar 2013 Domestic Double Miles Bonus miles offer 750

So not only did they credit the double mileage offer, but then doubled it again with Gold bonus - which as it says should have been a Miles Flown bonus. What's that - about 300?

3000 miles for a £50 one way fare. That's rather good value. Especially if you put the spend on a Virgin Atlantic Amex card. Given the tier point, you could renew Gold for £2K, plus earn enough miles for an Upper Class return plus have 20K+ miles spare.

Pete

......a very generous credit.......I have the double mileage offer credited with the Gold bonus of 1500 too and then 250 miles for a friends recommendation on each flight too.

I have ended up with the 2 tier points and 6500 miles for the two flights on Sunday

[buns]

Niiice

Good on VS y)

buns

As a not gold I didn't get quite the same, just this

31 Mar Economy Class 750
31 Mar Economy Class Double Miles Bonus 750

And surprisingly,

31 Mar Friends & More recommendation bonus 250

Same for me on both flights flown on Sunday.

Same for me too... maybe they knew we were V-Flyers?!

[Decker]

Curiouser and curiouser

30 Mar 2013 Virgin Trains First Class. 102
31 Mar 2013 Domestic Double Miles Bonus miles offer 750
31 Mar 2013 Miles More Friends Enrolee Bonus 250
31 Mar 2013 Gold Membership, 100% Miles Flown Bonus in Discounted Economy. 1500
31 Mar 2013 Virgin Atlantic, MAN-LHR Economy Class 750

Not forgetting

Hilton Manchester Airport hotel pending 1000

So nearly 5K for a weekend jaunt

I forgot about my Hilton points! And my 78 Virgin Trains miles!

I had recommended someone join Miles More Friends - so didn't think it was out of the ordinary!

Sounds like a good lot of mileage. They have been fairly quick in the past to correct their over generosity, but lets hope they stick.

Just noticed something about little red actually. I was playing around with some dates in the booking matrix (killing time ) and the price is higher if you do a day trip than if you include a night's stay. Same flights outbound but those are the prices that increase when you select an inbound on the same day. Sneaky VS n(

[Pete]

I had the recommendation bonus too... just didn't think it was related. Until now!

P.

Sounds like a good lot of mileage. They have been fairly quick in the past to correct their over generosity, but lets hope they stick.

Just noticed something about little red actually. I was playing around with some dates in the booking matrix (killing time ) and the price is higher if you do a day trip than if you include a night's stay. Same flights outbound but those are the prices that increase when you select an inbound on the same day. Sneaky VS n(

Worked the other way around for us Joeyc, we booked 2 sets of flights on the same day, one a day trip, first flight to LHR, last one back and then a weekend leave MAN Saturday morning and return Sunday morning and the weekend trip was higher - but only by £7.

Shaz

Sounds like a good lot of mileage. They have been fairly quick in the past to correct their over generosity, but lets hope they stick.

Just noticed something about little red actually. I was playing around with some dates in the booking matrix (killing time ) and the price is higher if you do a day trip than if you include a night's stay. Same flights outbound but those are the prices that increase when you select an inbound on the same day. Sneaky VS n(

No great surprise, they probably assume that many/most people on day trips will be on business trips, so cost less of a consideration.

Good to see the TPs crediting, it's definitely something to bear in mind if I'm ever a few short of AU renewal. As for being able to get AU for about £2k just through those hops, I can't believe that VS won't slap on some restriction around annual domestic TP limits because that's less than half what I suspect the previous minimum would have been (e.g. 10 cheap Y runs to somewhere like DXB).

Once again, this seems to demonstrate the wild discrepancies in the 'cost per TP' calculation versus carriers like BA.

Although "cheap", it's a sure fire way to grab market share.

Although "cheap", it's a sure fire way to grab market share.

Agreed, but when you find that you can achieve VS AU for a significantly lower cost than BA AG, it does run the risk of damaging the perception of exclusivity of the program (to the extent that it still exists anyway...).

Still think that VS needs to make the whole TP structure more granular (e.g. multiply current numbers by 10) for it to work effectively in the short haul market. In the meantime of course, fill yer boots! ):

As a not gold I didn't get quite the same, just this

31 Mar Economy Class 750
31 Mar Economy Class Double Miles Bonus 750

And surprisingly,

31 Mar Friends & More recommendation bonus 250

Me too

I see a few flights on the books y)

Although "cheap", it's a sure fire way to grab market share.

Agreed, but when you find that you can achieve VS AU for a significantly lower cost than BA AG, it does run the risk of damaging the perception of exclusivity of the program (to the extent that it still exists anyway...).

Still think that VS needs to make the whole TP structure more granular (e.g. multiply current numbers by 10) for it to work effectively in the short haul market. In the meantime of course, fill yer boots! ):

Hmmm, that would add complexity. Unless they launch a Little Red scheme that trickles down to VS mainline. BA used to offer full miles on Loganair flights when they were BA Express (Wick - Kirkwall, full Y was £64!).

To be honest, I don't think many people will book 20 domestic flights to get gold status, unless they are frequent flyers who used to fly on BA... and for that I think VS would go the gold route as those pax would then more than likely consider VS for longhaul and in any event stops them flying BA.

I don't associate any frequent flyer scheme with 'exclusivity' - the main marketing ideas seem to be wine clubs and redemptions. Or maybe that's tailored to me!

[Pete]

I doubt anyone would be doing 40 legs on Little Red just to earn Gold. More likely that those mileage runs would be just to top up when you're a few points short - just like the old SIN-KUL runs back in the day.

you can fly on Virgin America LAS-SFO return for $140 or sometimes less, and that would give 2TP, so the UK domestic flights are similar

[Darren Wheeler]

Don't forget any AmEx miles too