Virgin Australia has rolled out a expanded, and surprising, status match. The expanded match targets the frequent flyers of Qantas, other OneWorld airlines, Air New Zealand, and Emirates. This represents a significant broadening of the status match/challenge program unveiled last week.
At that time, Velocity was aiming its status match squarely at Qantas Frequent Flyers. It seems that Velocity has now felt the urge to expand its aim.
While it takes in many more airlines, most of the details of the program stay the same. The most significant change is that the offer has new been extended through to 4 January.
Discover Gold
The newly expanded program retains its ‘Discover Gold’ moniker. As that name suggests, Velocity are offering eligible members the chance to get a taste of Velocity Gold.
There’s a few step that you need to go through in order to take advantage of this offer.
Firstly, you will need to be a member of the Velocity program. While this is free, it is only available to residents of a small number of countries. These include Australia, New Zealand, and a number of island nations in the area.
Secondly, you will need to lodge an expression of interest with Velocity. In order to do so, you will need to have reached a minimum status level in one of the eligible programs.
Assuming you are then accepted into the Discover Gold promotion, you will have 90 days in which to earn 80 Status Credits. At the end of the 90 days, Velocity will assess your account, and if you have earned the 80 Status Credits, you will have your trial Gold status extended for a further year.
Thoughts
This is an interesting expansion of the previous offer. Velocity say it is due to the success of the original offer targetting Qantas members. Perhaps there are a range of members of other airlines that thought they were missing out.