Virgin Australia Fast Solution For Missing Frequent Flyer Points

14th Mar 2013

The recent shift to a new booking system early this year by Virgin Australia has caused many frequent flyer members wondering where have all their points and status credits gone.

Before Virgin switched to a new system in the middle of January this year, they gave public advisory to its clients about the impending system migration that may cause problems most especially to those who are members of frequent flyer programs. True enough, as soon as the changeover was done, many members went panic when they were unable to retrieve their earned points and their credit status went missing. Though their Velocity Frequent Flyer number appeared on their boarding pass.

A spokesperson from Virgin Australia explained that they anticipated such problems as it is a normal occurrence during migration of data to a new system, hence the issuance of advisory prior to the changeover. She confirmed that they are almost done fixing the problems in the new system such that 96% of points earned by members are now being credited in a couple of days.

She said that they are working double time fixing the remaining 4% of the points which generate processing errors, resulting to a slower retrieval of points which takes up to 7 days at most.

The glitch that has engulfed the new booking system can be attributed to a number of factors as usually happens during data migration in an IT system. A couple of reasons cited by the airline include the system stability as well as errors with details on the tickets. Virgin also warns of a long wait for any post-flight claims on points.

Any claims for points earned prior to system changeover may take up to two weeks before being awarded for VA flights and for other partner flights, up to six weeks, which is normal.

The airline also suggested that travelers should keep track on their Velocity account closely following any flight. Points should show up in the system a week later or earlier after a flight. Otherwise, they can file an online claim for any missing points.