VegasGambler

Have anyone's status pts reset for the new year?

My status pts are now showing a renewal date of 1/1/16 (ie, the date has been updated), but I still have all my status pts.

I was status matched to gold last year, met the challenge, and have the premium credit card which allows me to carry my excess status pts over year to year. Since I got my status through status match, are they treating them ALL as excess (ie, they all carry over) or have they just not updated their website yet?

If they all carry over that will be awesome; I will be starting the year with almost 25k status pts! I would probably have reached gold anyway (those 25k were in about 3-4 months) but this will remove all doubt, and allow me to carry over a large amount of pts to the following year (so it will remove all doubt that I stay gold for a long, long time)

AFAM-DFW

I think the points haven't reset for 2015. I was status matched for 2013 but had to earn silver in 2014. My points haven't been reset for this year either.

OTOH, I wouldn't mind starting the year with the points required for silver for 2016.

GrayAnderson

I'm in the same boat (15,715 tier points). It will be interesting to see what happens when my SEA-LAX leg from 1/1 and my LAX-MCO leg from 1/2 post...

bevnetcraven

Similar boat here....I never status matched, but went over the status points required for VX Gold in 2014. My status points still shows the full amount as it hasn't reset to zero for 2015 yet.

If I recall from last year, it was a few days into the new year that the reset happened. Honestly, I wonder if someone at VX manually runs something that does this

As for the carryover, the T&C of the card say:

" If the Status Points posted to your Elevate account in any qualification year exceed your earned status threshold, the Status Points will be applied to the following year's status qualification. "

This seems to imply that any points over your status level carryover (e.g. if you are silver with 25k status then 5k should carryover or if you are gold with 60k points then 10k should carryover...not sure what happens if you are just normal elevate...). But given that this is VX's first year of doing this, I'll be impressed if it just happens without requiring the customer to take some sort of action...

GrayAnderson

And of course, that raises the question of someone without status...I'd love to have 15k in my account to start the year. If I'm able to then heap 15k from the card on top of that...well, being able to pop into Gold for about $4000 in travel should be more than doable, particularly if Amtrak can't sort out Chicago.*

*To explain this remark, I'm basically a refugee from the collapse in Amtrak's east-west timekeeping. Not that I won't keep using VX when that sorts out, but at least for the moment I'm here a lot more than I would be otherwise because losing another day in transit is a big issue.

VegasGambler

It will be easier than that ($4k in travel) if they continue to have promos like FTE.

I'm fairly new to VX -- how often do they have promos that allow you to earn extra status pts? They basically started FTE right after I started flying VX so almost all my travel has been part of a promo. Is this a once-a-year thing, or more frequent than that?

bevnetcraven

Also points out a big flaw in this carryover, which is that it doesn't necessarily reward the customers who have spent the most $$$.

E.g. if I'm VX Gold, I have to get 50k points + anything after that is carryover.

If you're VX silver, you could spend/fly less in 2014 and presumably carryover up to 29,999 points for 2015.

And if you are just plain "elevate" and carryover is allowed, you could carryover up to 19,999 points for 2015.

Granted, these are probably unlikely scenarios, but it seems like bad business to have your best customers have less of an advantage than your other customers at renewing.

GrayAnderson

The carryover on the card isn't a bad idea, it is just poorly implemented. The idea of giving someone who was basically "Double Gold" (i.e. who had managed to rack up 100,000 tier points) a year for "free" isn't odious to a program like this...it is when you actually trigger an incentive to "miss" a tier by a few inches so as to vault tiers the next year. The way I see it, someone who has 45,000 tier points in a year can choose to shoot for gold...or get silver completely for free for two years.

I'd actually be in qualified support of this being tweaked, though I'm not sure what would strike a good balance here. It might make more sense to simply divide one's existing tier points in half for their starting point for the next year or permit a carry-over of up to a given amount regardless of account balance or something like that.

Also, I just had points post for my flight on 1/1, so I'm now over 16k. One thing that is going to get sticky for Virgin is this: What happens if someone pops over 20k/50k before they reset the system, gets tripped for Silver/Gold, and then gets knocked back down? i.e. If I didn't have the card and that last leg had put me over 20k, where would I be status-wise? I ask because if this lasts more than a few days, I'd be surprised if at least a few users didn't get into such a situation.

cringle

Since this carryover option hasn't even occurred for the first time yet, I'm not sure how it could already be considered a bad idea or need to be tweaked. I'm going to wait and see how it plays out.

In concept, it encourages people to apply for the credit card; their goal, obviously. No card, no benefit. I don't see that changing at all.

In the past, Virgin has allowed a few days into the new year for pending activity to be added before resetting the status points.

GrayAnderson

True, though it depends on how much of a profit center VX sees the card as being (and that I don't have a good handle on...after all, they didn't go with one of the major banks, which seems odd) and/or how much benefit to them it is versus them mainly doing "what all the big kids are doing".

VegasGambler

I don't see why you need to see how it "plays out". We know what the rules are. There is nothing to see.

The only problem with it is that it's much more valuable to just miss a tier than to just get it. If you end up just one flight short of 20k, for example, you will be silver after your first flight AND only need 30k for gold. Even if you don't make it to gold, you will have more carry-over for the next year.

On the other hand, if you just barely make silver, then you carry over almost nothing. You are essentially trading 20k status pts for the privilege of being silver for exactly one flight.

cringle

More valuable? That doesn't make sense. If you're just short of 20k points at the end of the year then nothing carries over to the new year when the points reset and you end up with no silver status.

VegasGambler

Why would they not carry over?

GrayAnderson

I think cringle is assuming that one doesn't have the credit card while we're all assuming that one does, in fact, have the card.

Edit: I just checked, and LAX-MCO posted. That puts me at 18,005 status points...which means that I should end up going over the top for Silver either (A) when my next CC statement comes in or (B) in early February (when I'm flying out west again).

pds_SFO

If you read the terms on vx.com:

"Plus, make your status points go even further, and jump start the new year by carrying forward any additional status points you’ve earned above the annual qualification requirement."

"The Elevate status qualification year begins on January 1 and ends on December 31. If the Status Points posted to your Elevate account in any qualification year exceed your earned status threshold, the Status Points will be applied to the following year's status qualification. Status Points are not redeemable for Reward Travel."

Both above suggest that if you didn't earn 20K for Silver by 12/31, then nothing will carry over as you have no status points earned 'above the annual qualification requirement' in the year