jamespvg

I have made this mistake multiple times! It is weirdly confusing.

Goldorak

+1. It's a dangerous precedent.

Digicola

Its not just flying blue gold but also delta gold medallion.

This tells me they’ve seen the numbers and expect huge amounts of elites to through LHR and don’t want their flagship lounge, which is probably one of if not the best skyteam lounge now, to become a zoo.

All other VS lounges follow standard Skyteam rules.

jamespvg

True about Gold Medallions, although given Delta's various moves to restrict their own elites' lounge access (first third-party, now SkyClubs), it's a bit surprising that Delta Medallions retain any kind of lounge access at all on Delta flights from LHR!

poromenos

Leaving tier and flight requirements aside (which vary a lot on booking class and itineraries you take), is there a significant difference on having Virgin Atlantic's Flying Club Gold vs FB Gold/Platinum if you're flying primarily with KLM?

I'm struggling to see a reason to chase renew with KLM if I can get the same level easier with Virgin. In terms of earnings, Flying Club seems better when crediting KLM J flights with the 60% status boost - a AMS-SFO itinerary I was checking on KLM yields something like 50k with Virign vs 35k with Platinum KLM.

The only real advantage I can thing of is KLM award availability on some routes with dynamic pricing etc. Am I missing any other considerable advantage?

fifty_two

You cant compare VS gold and FB platinum , as VS FC has only 3 levels , so gold = gold in this case (not just the names of course)

As FB platinum you can book awards seat in P , you have extra legroom and economy comfort seats for free .

As FB gold you get skyteam elite benefits its almost the same minus less seating discounts

For FC elite benefits , check the website

Talking about both golds , it really depends what matter to you and what airlines you fly the most with , but the difference is not as extreme as with star alliance where you should fly ONLY with your airline to get more than few basic benefits and ONLY with your airline to requalify , so you can have FB and actually never fly with AF or KL to qualify

if you have FC gold , then while flying KLM you will receive standard skyteam elite plus benefits but not seating discounts

You cant compare miles this way , you need to find at least the cash value for each , then start to compare . If A3 gives 5k miles per flight but the cheapest domestic segment costs 200k , then suddently 5k is not a lot

so as i said it depends which benefits are important for you , and which airline you fly the most with , but if FC is easier for you then go for it . There is no huge difference in FB between platinum and gold to justify the extra spending for additional 120xp for platinum compared to gold

You are most likely used to miles devaluations , i guess it happened few years ago when a3 changed awards charts , so similar thing happened to flying blue (the got rid of static charts) and now its 100% dynamic

orbitmic

Well, to me, the even bigger precedent is that the Club Lounge access is still only granted to ST Elite Plus when flying VS or DL (ie also long haul) and not when flying any Skyteam airline internationally as per the alliance rules. This is particularly annoying as AF are flying from the same terminal.

atflyer

But there is a Skyteam lounge in T3 if I am right? So at least there is lounge access. Issue is apparently that the VS lounge is more upper class as usual and they seek ways to protect themselves from being flooded. If I am right FB Plats are allowed in. It is a pity for other STE+ but also understand the VS situation.

irishguy28

If you mean the Skyteam-branded lounge in Heathrow, that was in T4. It never re-opened, and most (all?) of those Skyteam airlines never returned to T4 anyway.

https://www.businesstraveller.com/bu...ll-not-reopen/

siw

As I mentioned in another thread (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/35062119-post64.html) it is currently a 50-50 split between T3 and T4 of the SkyTeam members at LHR. If I recall correctly, before the T4 closure and terminal musical-chairs during 2020/21, only DL, ME and GA (before GA ceased LHR flights, I flew on a few times from T3) that were T3 residents and all the others were at T4, along the with the SkyTeam lounge (opposite Gate 10) - which is now (unfortunately) permanently closed.

atflyer

I never had the pleasure to try (the one time I was at LHR T3 last year I missed a connection and had other things to manage), but guess there must be a lounge for KL and AF at T3 since they used it for a while with Virgin not yet in Skyteam. Yes, know the T4 lounge from the time before that. But my suggestion was which lounges KL and AF used after the change to T3.

San Gottardo

Not when flying on AF or KL is my understanding.

I would have found it the right move to at least let ULTIs into the VS lounge when flying on KL or AF.

hsumh316

If on AF/KL you get sent to Aspire if I read that correctly on the sky team lounges page.

orbitmic

Yes exactly. And i think lounges always have the possibility to reject admissible members based on overcrowding if they give theoretical access, but unfortunately, this is not what is being decided here. The Club House is busy, but it is not busy all the time. The vast majority of traffic is in the morning, but in afternoons, things get a lot more quiet. Sadly, VS chose not to grant access when flying Skyteam, and sadly, Skyteam chose not to fight for the normal rules to apply when admitting VS. I think it is basically a case of DL wanting VS in and nobody else saying anything. Don't take me wrong, it is great that VS joined, but I think it should have been on standard rules, especially as their own members will access partner airlines' lounges using standard rules.

orbitmic

I think that would have been extremely unlikely to be honest in the sense that it is important to remember that Ulti does not actually mean anything beyond AF and KL just like GGL or Premier doesn't mean anything beyond BA and Hon Circle doesn't mean anything beyond the LH Group. When we get any of those status and fly on partner airlines, for better or worse, we are "downgraded" to standard alliance top tier I guess bar exceptional agreements (e.g. There is a minimal reciprocal agreement between AA Concierge Key and BA GGL and Prem).

In fact, of all those, you could even make the case that Ulti would be the least likely to be pampered by partners to the extent that it is the one status which is based solely on flights that are AF-KL marketed, so in many ways, explicitly discourage partners' usage. In that sense, I just don't see ST partners going out of their way to give Ulti special treatment.

Paradoxically, things might be easier with lounges of non-ST airines because AF-KL would of course have the possibility to have a specific contract with a given lounge for their F or Ulti passengers (in the same way that when you fly AF P from LAX, AF pays QF to give you access to the QF F lounge even though there is the KE (ST) lounge available. That would be AF-KL decision to contract and pay for. With ST lounges, however, the situation is normally reversed (ie airlines do not charge each other as far as I am aware as they automatically provide partner lounge access as a result of the partnership itself), which is why VS would have no incentive to treat Ulti any better than any other ST E+ and why AF-KL has no real bargaining chip to encourage them to do any more than whatever the alliance commits them to for Elite Plus. The double mystery (to me anyway) is why the alliance allowed them to commit to less than the norm, and why they would allow them to exclude two eligible ST E+ statuses (FB G and DL G) from access! We must have some star negotiators at Skyteam!!!