The membership response to Virgin Australia announcing its new Forever Gold status has been “overwhelmingly positive”, Velocity Frequent Flyer CEO Nick Rohrlach (pictured) has revealed.
Speaking with travelBulletin this week, Rohrlach said the decision to provide select members with permanent lifetime benefits followed years of feedback.
“When we announced it, our contact centre was overwhelmed by people calling in to understand how many status credits they had earned since 2013,” he said.
“Now our members can also see their up-to-date progress in their Velocity app,” Rohrlach added.
The new recognition will go live in Oct this year and will rival Qantas’ Lifetime Gold Status introduced close to 25 years ago.
To qualify, Velocity members must have earned 12,000 status credits since 01 Feb 2013, 2,000 fewer than Qantas (14,000).
Velocity will also expand its status tiers for the first time since 2011 with the new Platinum Plus, which Rohrlach said was about strengthening the Velocity program at “the very top end”.
“This is about recognising our most frequent flyers with a truly elevated experience,” he said.
“Platinum Plus is also about recognising our most frequent flyers; the people who spend a significant portion of their lives with us, both in the air and on the ground,” Rohrlach added.
