Mileage Reduced

Hi all,
Just noticed this little treat on VA.com

CHANGES TO EARNING MILES - FOR TRAVEL FROM 1 DECEMBER 2008
Important Flying Club changes to earning miles. From 1 December 2008, flying Upper Classes J and D will continue to earn you 200% of the base flown miles, while R and Z will now earn you 150%. In Premium Economy W and S will continue to earn you 150%, K and H will change to 125%. And in Economy Y, B, L and M will continue to earn you 100% of the base flown miles, all other classes will earn 50%.

Ouch...

Regards

DaveT

[buns]

Beat me to it by 5 minutes.

Can be found in the 'Your Messages' in the Flying Club Section of the VS site

Had to be expected I suppose

buns

Sorry, I'm being dim not controversial. Why would this be expected?

[buns]

My reckoning being that as the miles awarded for travelling in a particular cabin could be related to the price paid for the ticket, then the bean counters have seen yet another way to reduce the impact of offering sales fares on Reward availability.

Just my own spin you understand

buns

That's terrible, VS even beats BA when it comes to reduced mileage on UC / business fares for lower price fare codes!

[mitchja]

I have to agree, it's not good [n]

Yet more cost cutting at the expense of paying pax.

Regards

[RichardMannion]

But then what %age of your miles actually come from flying? Mine is not the majority.

[mitchja]

Mine are.

Regards

[Neil]

Only a very small % of my miles are actually though flying so it won't impact us that much.

It seems that they are now basing the miles earned on the cost of the ticket rather than the class you are flying, which I guess rewards there 'best' or most profitable customers, so is it actually fairer way of doing it maybe?

I normally book a Z so its less miles for me, but then if your silver you get an extra 25% and if you really wanted the other 25% you can buy them. My partner and myself have earned about 75K between us just in CC spend they best not reduce that.

Seems a little unfair to do this to tickets booked before this was announced. Would have been better to have done it to flights ticketed after Dec 1st.

[honey lamb]

Ick! The change made the day after I booked a Z fare [:#]

All my miles are based on travel and while in one sense it seems fair given that Z is deeply discounted, I am a bit ticked off that it earns exactly the same as a W or S fare [:(!] wouldn't it have been fairer to give Z and R fares 175%?

Ouch. This will cost me about 60,000 miles a year (24 x 2500 in X,Q etc to SFO). So basically the cheaper economy fairs earn the same as a N did before to the US.


Dom


I've edited this and removed a comment which unfortunately means Preiffers's comment below no longer makes sense - sorry!

[preiffer]

careful what you say, Dom... [:w]

I'm not impressed. Not impressed at all...

S.

Under current economy climate, VS wants to reduce the benefits to its most loyal customers, despite the tax and surcharge for a reward economy return is 290 pounds, and for PE reward is 340 pounds.

How can they justify such a move? VS no longer care about FC members? Such a no brainer, no wonder they are so shamed - can't even put this news on their home page, only hiding under your message.

I wonder if the next step will be to change the levels required for a reward.

It might be some time ago now, but UC fares were 80,000 miles return to the West Coast.

I am not sure what the promo was, but I think I did something that only cost me 78,000.

The current reward levels ahve been around for what seems like a good number of years now (6+ ??). The reduced economy rewards and lately the reduced PE awards, may suggest that reward fares wont increase.

Anybody care to speculate ?

Originally posted by honey lamb
Ick! The change made the day after I booked a Z fare [:#]

All my miles are based on travel and while in one sense it seems fair given that Z is deeply discounted, I am a bit ticked off that it earns exactly the same as a W or S fare [:(!] wouldn't it have been fairer to give Z and R fares 175%?

I absolutely agree[V].What's the betting the extra mileage percentage for Au and Ag will soon disappear too[n]

Originally posted by honey lamb
I am a bit ticked off that it earns exactly the same as a W or S fare [:(!] wouldn't it have been fairer to give Z and R fares 175%?

Although a Z fare can often come closer to a W in cost ... but I agree, keeping a differential would be better and more sensible, seems unduly harsh.

[i]Originally posted by nevadakaz[i]
I wonder if the next step will be to change the levels required for a reward. It might be some time ago now, but UC fares were 80,000 miles return to the West Coast. I am not sure what the promo was, but I think I did something that only cost me 78,000. The current reward levels ahve been around for what seems like a good number of years now (6+ ??).

That promo you referred to was in 2005, I also got a G to LAX for 78k miles return in Sep 05 and then the redemption rates went up in 2006, so not 6+ years ago but 2 or 2 1/2 ... to put these up again would be a double kick in the molars / testicles / bum (delete as appropriate) by FC.

Interesting that this slips out quietly after last week's Flying Club Birthday Party!

Originally posted by honey lamb
Ick! The change made the day after I booked a Z fare [:#]

All my miles are based on travel and while in one sense it seems fair given that Z is deeply discounted, I am a bit ticked off that it earns exactly the same as a W or S fare [:(!] wouldn't it have been fairer to give Z and R fares 175%?

I agree Z fares are discounted, but then again why do a sale on them if they are already discounted. VS are starting to lose my support bit by bit

Iain

[preiffer]

This is not uncommon.

Air Canada, for example, ANY discounted business class ticket only earns 100% mileage. It's ONLY the very top fare (yes, fare - singular) that earns more, and only 150% at that in their own scheme...

The thing is, the accountants can do all these things to save a penny here or there; if people don't like it they will speak the best way, not fly with Virgin. The accountants will have lost profit and then have to introduce new incentives to get these people fly with Virgin again. In this economic climate, I think they have made a very silly decision and I think this is borne out by the amount of flights they have consolidated to the Caribbean already.

I, for one am using my miles at the moment not earning them, and gold will be gone by the end of the year. I can only think that there are lots like me, spending not earning and Virgin are probably feeling it a bit, so it is not in their interests to give us too many future earning opportunities. On the flip side you can also see why they may have done this.

Originally posted by preiffer
This is not uncommon.

Air Canada, for example, ANY discounted business class ticket only earns 100% mileage. It's ONLY the very top fare (yes, fare - singular) that earns more, and only 150% at that in their own scheme...

Ah yes, when setting a benchmark always go for the lowest [B)].

Owwww Ð I've got a K fare booked back from IAD on 1 Dec!

[Scrooge]

Originally posted by ClaireAW

I can only think that there are lots like me, spending not earning and Virgin are probably feeling it a bit, so it is not in their interests to give us too many future earning opportunities.

You need to remember that there are only a limited number of reward seats per flight so the amount of miles being redeem should be about the same no matter what.