VS changes Delta flight earning

Not been through the detail yet but at first glance it doesn't look good for TP collectors.

http://www.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/fly ... campid=238

In business <3000 miles the TP collected drops from 75 to 20 in Z.

Miles collected for premium cabins when Gold seem to have increased but points needed for rewards seems to be much higher now

[mitchja]

This was inevitable really. It was mentioned in the Flying Club changes post that this 'loop-hole' was been closed.

It was a ludicrous system when you could earn more Flying Club status by flying on a partner airline!!

I honestly thought it wouldn't take VS this long to close up the loophole, as Mitchja said it was/is a daft system. Taking an indirect route in Upper/First (e.g. LHR-BOS-JFK) gave almost double the TPs of a direct one. Timing of this makes sense what with DL beginning to roll out their own PE on certain routes.

I'm disappointed that they didn't use this opportunity to drop the threshold a little to 2,500 (or 2,600) so that the expensive transcon routes (JFK-LAX/SFO) counted as long(er) haul flights, but alas.

Definitely fair they're making a change IMO. However, I agree that the 3,000 threshold is harsh given you only earn 1/5 of the TP. BAs threshold is 2,000 and you earn 2/7 of the TP for "short haul"

Personally unfortunate as based in NY I earn about a third of my TP on Delta/AA, which has enabled me to retain gold on both VS and BA (leisure travel, not business). If I have to pick one, it's going to be BA given the above breakdown.

If I'm not misreading the small print, any trip PURCHASED before Sept 1st will earn the old TP? I have a JFK-PHX-ORD-LGA trip that I need to take after that date, which would get me over the 1,000 TP mark. But if I'm only going to earn 5 TP per leg I will do it on AA - they are considerably better connected out of PHX

Yes, tickets purchased before Sept 1st will earn at the existing rates.

BAs threshold is 2,000 and you earn 2/7 of the TP for "short haul"

BA, however, insist that you complete 4 BA-marketed sectors to earn silver or gold, so they're guaranteed to get some of your money if you want to earn status.

VS have no such rule so you can easily become gold without spending a penny with them, which seems an odd way to run a loyalty scheme.

Thanks for this. Plenty of time to cram in some domestic flights to harvest the last of this loophole's fruits.

Kind of saw this coming but a bit of a disappointment nonetheless.

What I was hoping for is to be able to use Virgin miles to upgrade on a Delta flight. Maybe as the two schemes become more aligned this could be on the cards - be good to hear any thoughts or inside information from people on here.