Flying Club AU for life

I don't follow the maths here. If someone has been Au for 10 years then by virtue of that they would have at least 400TP (or somewhere over 300 on the old counting). so why would you need 12/13 years ?

One could conceivably have less than that in VS earned TPs, if they had warned a number of TPs flying other airlines.

Precisely. Friend in question did a lot of flights with SQ. Booked directly with SQ rather than as VS codeshare. Hence a lot of tier points do not count towards the magic 300.

Joey, thanks for your ‘smiley’ response; however your answer is actually something that still needs clarification!

Do you bite your thumb at us sir?

Not a problem Paul and those with questions still, VS have left this ambiguous and my guess would be deliberately so to give them some wiggle room ii)

My take on it is hold Au for 10 consecutive renewals, whilst not a year by most standards, the renewals happen on and are subsequently called membership years..

As for the 300TP issue, it is a 2 part process to become eligible... 1. Hold gold for 10 years.. 2. Earn 300TPs.. when both parts have been satisfied (not necessarily at the same time) gold for life is yours... simple, no?

I don't follow the maths here. If someone has been Au for 10 years then by virtue of that they would have at least 400TP (or somewhere over 300 on the old counting). so why would you need 12/13 years ?

TPs are given away like smarties in the states with Credit Card spends, VS parter flights are not eligible and Amex Centurion holders get a free AU card for as long as they hold the amex - the 300 TP limit is to ensure that the VS gold for life's actually have shown loyalty and flown on VS metal. |:)

Cheers Joey

Well I’ll report next month what happens to me. Due to get my 10th AU card (ie 9th renewal) next month. Already have 450 TPs in the bank from just VS flights; all partner flights removed from that number. Obviously if I don’t get gold for life this year I will next, but I will see what happens in terms of extracting the VS rules. Will report...

But in general I’m sure many people would love greater clarity of the process.

Further clarification on when it is awarded...

...we will award you with Gold Membership for life at the end of the 10th year!

Sorry Paul, looks like you will have to wait another 13 months

Question is though, in that 10th year would you have to qualify for an 11th to receive the AU for life card and not be dropped to Ag?

Not sure if anybody can help clarify. The way the text reads is that you can become Gold for Life after 10 consecutive years of being Gold (I get that) but it seems to imply that you can also get Gold for Life IF you've flown over 1M miles. Does anybody know if that's true? I'm more likely to hit 1M miles sooner than 10 years consecutive Gold.

Also again it doesn't mention anywhere what the definition of base miles is i.e. I take it to mean miles flow on Virgin tin, so surely this includes reward flights as well? If so I only have 230k miles to go

Anybody know what the 1M mile gift is?

Thanks in advance

I spoke to the FC helpline about this as there is still reference on their website to just earning 300 VS TP in a 10 year period to get Gold for life. They confirmed that is an error and will be corrected and that 10 years Gold membership is also required.

The 1M miles are flown miles so don't include cabin bonus or any other miles allocation. But yes it's 1M flown miles over any time period.

Thanks ccarmock. My question really was whether the 1M miles flown is just for revenue flights, or whether it includes reward flights.

OK, just spoken to flying club.

First only revenue flight base miles (no reward flights) count. Secondly they've said that it's 10 years as Gold OR 1M revenue flight base miles flown that will qualify you for GFL. They couldn't tell me what the 1M miles special gift was.

They'll be emailing me the detailed breakdown however using my own spreadsheet the exact total revenue base miles (623,688) seems to match exactly, except for some each Freeway flights that weren't recorded properly.

A nice surprise today I got a model 747-400 and letter saying I was a million miler today

I am a lifetime Gold member and now feel I have little incentive to fly Virgin as I may as well build up to maximum status on other airlines, especially BA.

Whilst obviously happy to get the recognition, it does seem a strange customer retention strategy - have I missed something?

Presumably they've done the numbers, and seen a bunch of members on 6-8 years gold, but with declining numbers of flights, so pushing to keep those ppl flying on VS..?

I am a lifetime Gold member and now feel I have little incentive to fly Virgin as I may as well build up to maximum status on other airlines, especially BA.

Whilst obviously happy to get the recognition, it does seem a strange customer retention strategy - have I missed something?

This is a really interesting point.
I take it to be a soft landing for when you no longer travel as much and a thank you for past custom.
I have lifetime gold with UA but I seldom fly them now (as I switched to VS) so not terribly useful. I have lifetime Plat with starwood but the odd thing is since I got that I have started staying at Hyatt more as I no longer need to qualify for star wood. So to me it is a nice recognition of past custom but in practice it probably does not encourage extra brand loyalty.

However, I am sure that when I travel less I will fully appreciate the value of these things more.

I am a lifetime Gold member and now feel I have little incentive to fly Virgin as I may as well build up to maximum status on other airlines, especially BA.

Whilst obviously happy to get the recognition, it does seem a strange customer retention strategy - have I missed something?

BA run the same scheme so there must be something in it for them.

If it keeps high value elite passengers loyal for anything between 1 and 9 years it's presumably worth it as it keeps the bean counters happy in the short term - even if said passengers then take their business elsewhere after 10 years.

I would say there's a significantly higher threshold for BA lifetime gold though, effectively you'd be waiting over 20 years for it if you just about hit the renewal every year. Now THAT's a long service reward more suited to use in retirement...

I very much doubt I'll ever make that one, whereas I certainly could with VS if I choose to, and I'm sure many people will right at the point where they are still working and good revenue prospects. So not that I'm complaining, but VS are setting the bar quite low here and I hope it doesn't come back to bite them...