ANALYSIS | On any typical weekday morning across Australia’s biggest cities, you might see domestic lounges filled to the brim, or some priority boarding lines longer than the standard lines. It’s a tough act to ensure status isn’t too easy to achieve – diluting the benefits for all – or so out-of-reach that members are demotivated.
With Velocity’s latest upcoming changes, it seems the program is firmly looking at pruning its elite membership base, keeping on the most profitable travellers. Status Credits will shift to a spending-based model, while partner airline earn will also be trimmed. Here’s what it could mean for you.
1. Virgin Australia flights will earn status on spend
The days of status runs and ‘gamification’ of Status Credits are numbered, at least on Virgin Australia flights. Starting from 2 April 2025, new bookings on Virgin Australia will earn Status Credits at the following rates:
- 1 Status Credit per A$24 spent on Lite fares
- 1 Status Credit per A$12 spent on Choice, Flex and Business fares
Extrapolating this, here’s how much you would need to spend on Choice, Flex or Business to achieve or maintain status if you only flew on Virgin Australia:
| Earn | Maintain | |
| Silver | A$3,000 | A$2,400 |
| Gold | A$6,000 | A$4,800 |
| Platinum | A$12,000 | A$9,600 |
| Platinum Plus (from 1 Oct) | A$24,000 | A$24,000 |
From 1 October 2025, there’s also a new requirement – replacing Eligible Sectors. At least 50% of the Status Credits needed for earning or maintaining a tier (75% for Platinum Plus) must be from VA-marketed flights flown by the member. Family Pooling, Flybuys and credit card status bonuses will only count towards 25-50% of the goal.
Who might be better off?
Regular VA domestic and short-haul international flyers who already have a large self-funded budget (or travel for work) will likely be okay. People who need to travel last minute (at any cost) might also pick up more Status Credits than before, as the fares are usually much higher.
Who might not be better off?
But for everyone else, it’ll probably get harder to maintain Velocity elite status.
Domestic Business Class has traditionally been a big earner of SCs. Sydney to Melbourne currently fetches 55 SCs, while Melbourne to Brisbane is 80 SCs. Under the new system, Business Sale fares could earn much less than that. A $499 MEL-BNE fare would earn 42 SCs – far less than the original 80 SCs.
Passengers who connect from regional centres might also be impacted. Currently, connecting flights earn a decent number of Status Credits as the two legs are added together. After the change, it’s entirely possible for a passenger flying two sectors (e.g. Launceston-Melbourne-Brisbane) to earn fewer SCs than someone just flying Melbourne-Brisbane, if the connection is cheaper than the single leg.
Family Pooling, one of the best perks of Velocity Frequent Flyer, will eventually only count towards half of a status goal or renewal (25% for Platinum Plus). Those who travel as a family will find it harder to earn status. The main traveller will need to take more VA-marketed flights to bridge the gap.
2. Partner airline flights will be penalised
As Virgin Australia doesn’t have a huge international presence, many of us might earn Status Credits from flying international partner airlines. Unfortunately, this is set to become less rewarding.
Booking a codeshare is one option
Firstly, there’s the 50% VA-marketed flight requirement (75% for Platinum Plus) mentioned above, starting from 1 October 2025. This reduces the usefulness of partner airline flights considerably.
One solution is to book VA codeshare flights through the Virgin Australia website. From 1 October 2025, these flights will still earn lower Status Credits, but they will count towards the ‘50% VA-marketed flights’ goal.
However, VA codeshare flights are often much more expensive than the non-codeshare equivalents. There are also IT issues that make it difficult (or impossible) to select seats or manage other extras on a codeshare booking, reducing its appeal.
Partner Status Credit earn will drop
Secondly, from the same date, Velocity will reduce the number of Status Credits that you can earn on a partner airline. You should consult each airline page on Velocity for the full details, but in general, the earning table will become:
| Miles (zone) | Discount Economy | Standard Economy | Flexible Economy | Premium Economy | Business and First |
| 1 – 500 (1) | 5 | 7 | 15 | 20 | 30 |
| 501 – 1,500 (2) | 7 | 10 | 25 | 35 | 50 |
| 1,501 – 2,500 (3) | 10 | 15 | 35 | 50 | 70 |
| 2,501 – 3,500 (4) | 13 | 20 | 45 | 65 | 90 |
| 3,501 – 4,500 (5) | 15 | 22 | 50 | 75 | 100 |
| 4,501 – 6,000 (6) | 18 | 25 | 55 | 80 | 110 |
| 6,001 – 7,500 (7) | 20 | 30 | 65 | 95 | 130 |
| 7,501 – 8,500 (8) | 22 | 32 | 70 | 105 | 140 |
| 8,501 + (9) | 25 | 35 | 80 | 120 | 160 |
For example, let’s take Sydney-London return in Discount Economy and Business with a partner airline.
- Discount Economy: Currently 140 SCs return. After 1 Oct 2025, it’ll earn 70 SCs return.
- Business: Currently 560 SCs return. After 1 Oct 2025, it’ll earn 520 SCs return.
It’s not a huge cut for Business, but it is a massive decrease for cheaper Economy fares. Take that into account when planning your Velocity status goals.
Summing up
There’s still time to plan. In fairness, Velocity has provided far more notice than it needs to for these changes. Overall, it seems Velocity mainly wants to reward domestic travellers who stick with Virgin Australia rather than those who engage with the program more broadly via airline partners.
The first of the Velocity status credit shifts doesn’t kick in until 2 April 2025, and even then, it only applies to new bookings. So until then, all bookings you make remain under the old system. The 50% VA earn requirement and decrease in partner Status Credit earn doesn’t come into play until 1 October 2025.
Some travellers will be better off with a spend-based system, but we think that the majority of members will likely need to spend a lot more with Virgin Australia to earn or maintain status which, understandably, is exactly what any airline wants. But it comes at the cost of eliminating any way to get ‘sizeable value’ with Virgin Australia flights.
Once again, it boils down to a question of balance. Members still need to feel they have a fair shot at earning new benefits, or they’ll disengage. Time will tell whether this status move is calibrated right or whether Velocity will feel the impact and reconsider some of these changes.
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How will Velocity’s Status Credit changes affect you? was last modified: March 18th, 2025 by
Community Comments
I only ever fly Virgin to visit family interstate and have been able to maintain my gold status for the last 5 years. I have willingly paid higher fares than other airlines to fly virgin and the new rules will not reward my loyalty at all. Will now be just looking for the cheapest airline. Very disappointed
I recently before the changes to status credits on 2 April 2025. Took three sectors. (Paid for 27 March)
Syd – Adelaide -Brisbane – Sydney.
Each sector being 15 status credits.
However i bid and won an upgraded $300 for the middle leg for business.
For the upgraded leg. They gave only gave 20 status credits for that entire leg. This should have been 15 status credits for the orginal flight and additional 25 for the upgraded fare 300/12. As a platinum member trying to talk to the Philippines is frustrating.
Hi Jack, upgraded fares always earn in line with the original ticket purchased, unless the ticket is repriced and reissued under a new fare type and the full fare differential charged. That’s generally the case with most airlines, but given the new spend-based requirements for status, it’s certainly unfortunate that Velocity doesn’t consider this.
There are way to many people in lounges and priority boarding is a joke with platinum and the vast number of gold ff its hard to understand what the priority is for real f flyers.
Personally I am tired of the lounges being flooded with people who clearly are NOT frequent flyers. Their behaviour in lounges and on flights is irksome for those who truely travel regularly.
I had a man try to start a physical fight with me after I politely asked his teenage son to use headphones instead of blasting his videogame to the whole lounge. I don’t need people like that in lounges!
Very good review Brandon, one thing that didn’t get mentioned was double status credits do get included , downside is people like myself were excluded from the double status credit promotion this year but on saying that I do qualify for Forever Gold (Young) with 18,000 status credits.
So basically $144k for Forever Gold (Young) and $24k for Platinum Plus and those extra perks that were not released yesterday.
As a retiree that has supported Virgin for many years, this change is awful as it doesn’t reward loyalty at all but is only interested in future flyers. Without knowing how many valid SC I have from 2013, it is not possible to see if I can get sufficient from 2025. Of course, the new Lifetime Gold will always be there from Oct 2025 and it will probably show on the app as it does with QF but it would be good to know before Oct 25.
Kev, Ask the lovely people online at VA how many status credits you have since 1st of Feb 2013 that’s what I did.
Any more info about Lifetime Gold? I’ve read the information from Virgin but not clear if it’s a once off thing that only counts status credits from 2013 to 2025 or you get it if you reach 12000 SCs some time in the future. Also is Velocity going to provide a running total up until the 2025 cutoff so that flyers who are close can make sure they reach 12000 before the deadline. I think I’d be 75% there already. It sounds like a clear winner for me. I get all the perks that I need and can book the cheapest flights that suit without needing to consider maintaining status every year. Platinum is nice but I don’t usually wish to invite more than 1 person into the lounges, free business upgrade for domestic flights is fine but not necessary and I can always pay for XL seats, and often get offered exit rows on check in anyway .
I mostly earn my Velocity status through SQ flights, with the 4 sectors on VA of course to earn/maintain status.
Thinking i will make the move to Krisflyer now, status is harder to earn there though.
In a nutshell, it’s bad for everyone but Virgin. Even for those who fly frequently. I was expecting a least one good news and it never came. Let’s just hope they don’t increase the statuses thresholds.
Having been a gold member for 10 years, I will now have to spend much much more to retain this. As an example this will be $4,800 spend for 400 points at Gold. Really disappointing.