Virgin Atlantic status match with BA Gold?

[h1jfg]

I will achieve BA gold status in May and I was wondering if anyone has been successful in getting a status match from Virgin Atlantic. I have read that if you have a future full price flight with Virgin at the time you request a status match they will be more likely to give you a status match for 12-months.

And if they do match at Gold tier, can I then use my companion vouchers and not have to pay the 50% extra points?

[Roberto]

I was matched last year. I did already have a one way award flight booked. Was simple enough gold for gold , they wanted see recent flight history and a screen print of digital BAEC card.

[h1jfg]

@Roberto – That’s good to hear. And do you have all of the normal Virgin Gold benefits. Such as the ability to create a household account to pool points.

[Rob]

Virgin even has an online form for this, and indeed I did it last year.

Book a flight, claim your match, match is acknowledged, match is processed on the day of your flight.

You are correct about the 241, yes. I need to use mine before my Gold expires, which it will in October unless I somehow do a full fare Upper Class flight.

[AL]

h1jfg wrote:

ability to create a household account to pool points.

This is currently suspended until they find a good way to actually do it. Until then, you can make a redemption across multiple accounts by having an agent (Cardiff tends to be the best service, and usually fun whilst they do it) process it manually. You cannot pool accounts across sectors, but otherwise it’s quite flexible.

[BenM]

Hi
On the topic of it being processed on the day of your flight:
If I have a flight in December can I request the match now and then it gets processed in Dec giving me a year from Dec? I was holding off thinking the 12 months would start from now

Cheers

Ben

[Rob]

Technically, I suppose if you had a flight booked for December then you could apply now. I don’t see any logic in doing so unless your BA Gold was about to expire or you though Virgin would pull the offer.

[h1jfg]

Rob Burgess wrote:

Virgin even has an online form for this, and indeed I did it last year.

Book a flight, claim your match, match is acknowledged, match is processed on the day of your flight.

You are correct about the 241, yes. I need to use mine before my Gold expires, which it will in October unless I somehow do a full fare Upper Class flight.

@Rob – Do you know if its possible to book a reward flight as your qualifying flight, and then request status match. Or does it need to be a full fare flight?

[Roberto]

h1jfg wrote:

Do you know if its possible to book a reward flight as your qualifying flight, and then request status match. Or does it need to be a full fare flight?

As per my comment above an award booking is sufficient for your needs.

[Guernsey Globetrotter]

Roberto wrote:

h1jfg wrote:

Do you know if its possible to book a reward flight as your qualifying flight, and then request status match. Or does it need to be a full fare flight?

As per my comment above an award booking is sufficient for your needs.

Great if it worked for you @Roberto but this doesn’t seem to be in-line with Virgin’s policy on gold status match as the terms read :
“You’ll also need to have a future REVENUE flight booked with Virgin Atlantic in either Premium Economy or Upper Class, and not have held Flying Club Gold status using status match previously.” (emphasis added) from https://flywith.virginatlantic.com/pk/en/flying-club/members/status-match.html
In my case, I used a cheap Tel-Aviv one way flight booked for a date after the reward flight that I wanted the status for (subsequently cancelled the revenue flight after the match at a net cost of around £50 once fees were reimbursed).

[tblank19]

To confirm, does anyone know whether the status match is processed after you provide evidence of a future booked flight OR is it only after the future booked revenue flight is completed?

[Guernsey Globetrotter]

To confirm what happened when I did this in January last year for a silver match (from KrisFlyer), the VS status match team told me that the match would be set to process just before my next flight and that is exactly what happened in May 2021 when we flew a VS UC redemption flight to Barbados. Worked like a charm and that flight and another UC redemption flight in November means I have retained silver status for another year, which makes the 2-4-1 vouchers from their credit card that much better value (as I mentioned in Sunday’s chat thread in answer to another question). As I said above, I then cancelled my revenue flight and got a reasonable refund, although having double checked my notes it was closer to a £100 cost on cancellation (£30 charge deducted from the TFCs refund also) but still well-worth it in my scenario.

[h1jfg]

Guernsey Globetrotter wrote:

To confirm what happened when I did this in January last year for a silver match (from KrisFlyer), the VS status match team told me that the match would be set to process just before my next flight and that is exactly what happened in May 2021 when we flew a VS UC redemption flight to Barbados. Worked like a charm and that flight and another UC redemption flight in November means I have retained silver status for another year, which makes the 2-4-1 vouchers from their credit card that much better value (as I mentioned in Sunday’s chat thread in answer to another question). As I said above, I then cancelled my revenue flight and got a reasonable refund, although having double checked my notes it was closer to a £100 cost on cancellation (£30 charge deducted from the TFCs refund also) but still well-worth it in my scenario.

So just to confirm the process you used:
1. You booked a one-way flight LHR to Tel Aviv in Premium Economy, for some point in future.
2. Then applied for Silver status match.
3. Status match was granted and would process just before your next flight.
4. You then booked a reward flight in Upper Class to Barbados which was before your Tel Aviv flight.
5. The Silver status was awarded just before the Barbados flight.
6. That meant you no longer needed the Tel Aviv flight which you then cancelled for a small fee.

I am trying to do the same, but with Gold status match to avoid paying the +50% points fee for an Upper Class companion booking. But i guess I wouldn’t get that on the first flight, but would benefit on any other flights for a year after that flight date.

[Guernsey Globetrotter]

All of the above is correct except step 4 was actually step one but I had to have a revenue earning flight to process the status match so booked the other flight too. The VS match team could see both bookings and I specifically told them I wanted the status for the first (BGI) flight and they arranged the date of the status update accordingly. In your scenario you could tell them that you want to have the status go through ASAP in order to be able to get the true 2-4-1 voucher benefit (I understand it may be hard to apply this retrospectively). I think the only reason they defer the award of the match is for your convenience, so it isn’t running for months before you even get to fly with them, so give it a go if that would work better for you!