It is quite a long time since I heard anyone talking about status matching to Virgin. They went through a phase of giving away status to any BA Golds, but generally they were quite strict that you had to show a number of future flights, which would eventually give you gold before they would status match or fast track to gold.
I am not sure one planned PE trip on a leisure route would be enough for them to roll over, but you can try.

All the best

Nick