Lifetime Gold Questions - any other benefits

Hi, I'm closing in on Lifetime Gold this year, assuming I understand it right: 10 consecutive years as Au, plus 7500 total VS Tier Points. (must be bum-in-seat VS Tier Points, not partner TPs like Delta/whomever, not credit card TPs, right?)

Besides the obvious one - are there any other benefits to lifetime Au ? I don't know what I'm imagining, but was hoping there might be something else to it?!

Thanks

[preiffer]

Nope - none, other than sometimes being greeted as a LTG by the FSM onboard.

[honey lamb]

Nope - none, other than sometimes being greeted as a LTG by the FSM onboard.

I got more recognition as a lowly Red the last time I flew VS than I did as a Gold!

[buns]

Have to concur.

Sometimes, some recognition does happen, but I have come to not expect it these days.

buns

I’m was told that Gold For Life members were supposed to get the same onboard recognition as UNIQ. But recognition seems to be variable at the best of time!

In terms of recognition, VS are 7 for 7 on my most recent flights, for the last year at least every flight has started with a welcome back and a glass of champagne. To me at least, they have ironed that out, kudos to them!

[mitchja]

I don't think lifetime gold has ever been up on the same level as someone who is UNIQ.

I don't know if this still happens, but I know VS did used to give LTG away to several of their big corporate customers without requiring the 10 year AU status so it's way more common than people may think.

Back to the recognition thing though, it also depends on where you fly from/to. MAN based VS crew are much better at recognition than London based crews IMHO.

I don't think lifetime gold has ever been up on the same level as someone who is UNIQ.

I meant in terms of an onboard welcome rather than the wider benefits of UNIQ. Although I have been at one or two events where some GFL members had also been invited along.

Just to concur with James, but we've also found the crews from MAN to be very good at AU recognition for all our recent flights. I wonder if there are considerably less AU members flying from/to MAN? Either way we've been quite impressed, although I wish they wouldn't bring my OH and I two glasses of champagne automatically as he doesn't drink at all and it seems wasteful to have to send it back (I don't like it enough to have two...)

I wonder if there are considerably less AU members flying from/to MAN?

I’d say that’s a given.

Could someone clarify what the account page should say when you login after hitting GFL please?

In terms of recognition, VS are 7 for 7 on my most recent flights, for the last year at least every flight has started with a welcome back and a glass of champagne. To me at least, they have ironed that out, kudos to them!

I had a somewhat disappointing experience on my flight back from BOS yesterday. My experience of recognition in the past 2 years has been patchy at best, I'd guess that I've been welcomed back on board for only about 10% of my flights during this time, whereas in previous years it was almost 100% of the times when I was Gold (I've been a member since 1999, including the predecessor to Flying club, but not Gold for all that time.)

I'd resigned myself to this being the new norm, whether it be down to there not being a good enough process to identify Gold flyers on-board with the demise of identifiable membership numbers, or FSMs that no longer had the time/focus to do as they used to, enough people were reporting that recognition was rare now.

Yesterday I was on VS12 out of BOS, travelling in PE for this flight. I was sitting in 21G, with no expectation of recognition, but to my surprise the FSM appeared and it became clear that I was sitting next to another Gold flyer, across the aisle in 21H, as they got the full acknowledgement with the ' welcome back, nice to see you, let me know if there is anything I can do for you'. All followed up with the type of reception and service that normally goes with having been recognised.

Unfortunately, I didn't get recognised at all, which in truth is one of the most disappointing experiences I've ever had with VS, or any loyalty program to be honest. Its really difficult to understand what VS are doing with their frequent flyer program right now, other than potentially alienating long term frequent flyers.