Virgin Australia Velocity - Family Pooling update

Velocity has introduced family pooling. From the T&C

6.28 All Members are entitled to participate in a Family Pooling arrangement for Points or Points and Status Credits consisting of one Beneficiary Account and up to five Contributing Accounts (Family Pool).

6.28.1 Up to two Members of the Pool may be 18 years or over in age.
6.28.2 Up to four Members of the Pool may be under 18 years of age.
6.28.3 If a Member of a pooling relationship turns 18 years of age and results in the Pool having three Members 18 years or older, they are required to remove themselves from the pool.
6.28.4 The Beneficiary Account and Contributing Accounts must be held by Members of a family living at the same residential address.
6.28.5 The Family Pool is for family use only and not for use for commercial purposes or by commercial entities.
6.28.6 Contributing Accounts must pool all of their Points or Points and Status Credits to the Beneficiary Account. Subject to clauses 9.20 and 9.21, Points or Points and Status Credits will be automatically transferred to the Beneficiary Account as soon as they are earned by the Contributing Account.
6.28.7 Points will be automatically transferred to the Beneficiary Account as soon as they are earned to the Contributing Account by: (a) Points Transfer under clause 6.27; and (b) Retrospective Claims, where the Family Pool was in existence at the time of travel.
6.28.8 A Member with a Beneficiary Account may only participate in one Family Pool but is entitled to perform Points Transfers in accordance with clause 6.27.
6.28.9 Points and Status Credits earned by a Member prior to the creation of a Contributing Account will not be pooled to the Beneficiary Account.
6.28.10 VRPL may, at any time and at its discretion, determine that a Family Pool is not consistent with these Terms and Conditions and cancel any part or all of a Family Pool.
6.28.11 You can create, modify or cancel a Family Pool at any time on the My Account section of the Velocity Website. The Beneficiary Account and Contributing Accounts will be notified by email when any update is made to a Family Pool of which the Beneficiary Account or Contributing Accounts is a Member.

https://www.velocityrewards.com.au/content/TermsConditions/index.htm#7a

Great news...I'm just hoping people are legitemite with pooling credits

My question though is do all the contributing accounts get upgrade in status once achieved? What I mean is, if all the points come to my account and I get upgraded to Silver, will my fiancee's contributing account also get upgraded so she has the Silver benefits too if she travels alone?

I assume so, but wanted to make sure before doing anything.

My question though is do all the contributing accounts get upgrade in status once achieved? What I mean is, if all the points come to my account and I get upgraded to Silver, will my fiancee's contributing account also get upgraded so she has the Silver benefits too if she travels alone?

I assume so, but wanted to make sure before doing anything.

Hi Liam, answering your question - no, the contributors would not receive any benefit of status. Only the member that receives the SC's would receive the status upgrade.

Hi Liam, answering your question - no, the contributors would not receive any benefit of status. Only the member that receives the SC's would receive the status upgrade.

If that's the case, what SCs are you pooling? I'm struggling to understand this concept.

My understanding is that if I earn x points (or SCs) and my partner has an account (and she has y points or SCs) and we pool together. We should have x+y points or SCs to use. If my partner has x+y SCs, but not the corresponding status, then there's no reason to pool SCs - because the only use of SCs is to achieve status.

Its either a way to let one of the members in your pool to get status when otherwise wouldn't, or to do something with orphaned SCs after you have retained platinum.

For me its great as I do most of the flying (90%) in our household and mostly alone. So all SCs go to me to attain platinum and then retain platinum. After that occurs, I will pool our SCs together with my partner being the beneficiary so my partner can retain silver (and possibly achieve gold) which wouldn't occur if I wasnt able to pool. That is, all the extra SCs after platinum retain will be wasted unless I hit partner gold (which is highly unlikely).

Once my next platinum retain year starts, I will repeat the process (ie everything is pooled to me until platiunum retain and then pooled to my partner to retain silver/gold).

It will also help people with other travel patterns to achieve 2xgold rather than 1xplatinum if that is what they wanted.

Does that help?

So, let's say you need 800 SC's to retain Platinum, and you earn 1000 SC's for the year. Are you saying you can transfer the 200 SC's (after you've retained Platinum) to your partner?

If I've more than 2 members in my pool, I can only transfer the excess SC's to 1 other member and not all 2? (In other words, only 1 other member can benefit from the excess SC's.)

I think I get it now, thanks. Pool is only for points and SC's are merely a transfer to one specific member, not everyone in the pool. Right?

I think you've nearly got it.

The pool is only ever there for one beneficiary at any one time (both points and SCs). You can separately transfer points as well outside of the pooling arrangement but not SCs.

In your example, you set up the pool after you retain platinum so your extra 200 SCs automatically post into her account (not yours) along with any SCs she earns in her own right - there is no separate transfer as such.

If you think you will earn another 200 SCs before your platinum retain year starts, you can switch the beneficiary to another person (say, junior), so those extra 200 SCs go into junior's account for junior to get silver.

In that example though you might have to decide whether you can get your partner to gold as I think 1xplatinum and 1xgold is better than 1xplatinum and 2xsilver unless you are after extra baggage allowance and your partner always travels with you.

I still don't quite get this plan.

We have 1 daughter who does 5 or 6 flights a year ADL-SYD.

Margo and I are both Plats and now have about 200 SC each in recent weeks, and by end year will have 1000 each due to a long Biz flight. So we are Plat to late 2013 on that. (I hope we are anyway!?)

If we BOTH direct all SC from our flights to her account, she gets quickly to Silver or Gold .. is that how it works?

No downsides for us?

Can't see how us getting say 1200 SC is of any use to us?

I still don't quite get this plan.

We have 1 daughter who does 5 or 6 flights a year ADL-SYD.

Margo and I are both Plats and now have about 200 SC each in recent weeks, and by end year will have 1000 each due to a long Biz flight. So we are Plat to late 2013 on that. (I hope we are anyway!?)

If we BOTH direct all SC from our flights to her account, she gets quickly to Silver or Gold .. is that how it works?

No downsides for us?

Can't see how us getting say 1200 SC is of any use to us?

essentially yes, all members still need to reach the required number of sectors themselves however, is my understanding. That is 8 DJ sectors for yourself to maintain Plat.

One idea is to pool all SC's one-way until that person attains Gold and then switch to the other one. Once you are both Gold then see if one can attain Platinum.