Mileage Plus & Velocity Frequent Flyer Meet & Greet Event

Rohit

General |

07/11/2022

Last week I attended a reception hosted by United Mileage Plus in Sydney. Mileage Plus is the Frequent Flyer Program of United Airlines & the carrier is keen to build up it membership base in Australia given that it is rapidly expanding it’s network in the country. Initially I didn’t think I was going to make the event as the date clashed with my prior travel plans, luckily I was able to rearrange my schedule. I am pleased I did.

Mileage Plus had flown-in about half a dozen executives from it’s Chicago base including the Managing Director for the event, also present were official’s from it’s Australian partner Velocity Frequent Flyer, in particular, the Velocity CEO Nick Rohrlach.

This wasn’t a media event since nobody from media was there. This was an evening organised for members of both Frequent Flyer Programs. I can only assume I got the invite since I have status with both Velocity & Mileage Plus.

I spent the evening eating and drinking, but more importantly, chatting with executives of both programs trying to glean as much information about their future plans as I could.

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Mileage Plus Managing Director

I caught up with Michael Covey first-up and engazed in a fairly wide ranging discussions. Here’s a synopsis of my chat with him.

Australia Network

SYDNEY

United currently connects Sydney with daily return flights from Los Angeles and San Francisco & 3x weekly return service from Houston.
The 3x weekly Houston – Sydney service is set to go daily from December 16.
United is adding a 2nd San Francisco – Sydney 3x weekly return service to cater to the busy travel period. This seasonal service will commence on December 16 and will depart Sydney every Tuesday, Friday & Sunday until Feb 10.

MELBOURNE

United currently connects Melbourne with a daily return flight from San Francisco and 3x weekly service from Los Angeles.
The 3x weekly Los Angeles – Melbourne service is set to go daily from December 2.

BRISBANE

United flies to Brisbane 3x weekly from San Francisco. At this time, there are no plans to increase the frequency or connect Brisbane with another market in United States.

Flights to Australia are operated by a mixture of United’s B-787 and B-777 and every one of those plane is decked out with United’s flagship Polaris Business Class product.

United Polaris Business Class Cabin

Star Alliance Credit Card

Star Alliance will be launching a miles earning credit card. The idea is that these miles could be redeemed on any of the 26 Star Alliance member airlines.
There is no timeline regarding the launch and it is unclear whether the card will even be available in the Australian market.

Mileage Plus Credit Card

This is just a rumour at this stage since nobody I spoke to from Mileage Plus was willing to confirm or deny it, but there is a possibility that United might bring it’s own credit card in Australia.
United offers several cards in United States through its partner Chase, so if this rumour comes to fruition, that will provide Australian’s with an avenue to directly earn United Miles.

Velocity Frequent Flyer CEO

Later that evening I caught up with Velocity CEO Nick Rohrlach who was extremely generous with his time. I must say, getting Nick to spill the beans on anything proved almost impossible. For what it’s worth, here’s a brief summary of my discussions.

Flights to Japan

This was the only piece of confirmed information Nick offered, matter of fact this information isn’t even new.

Virgin Australia will be launching daily flights to Tokyo’s Haneda airport sometime before March 26, 2023.
It is likely (but not confirmed) that the service will commence in Brisbane.
Further information regarding the launch will be provided over coming weeks and months.

I asked if there was a chance that flights to LA, which were reportedly making money prior to Covid might be brought back. I don’t remember what exactly Nick said, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Virgin Australia Fleet Expansion

The Year 2023 is the year of Virgin Australia significantly expanding it’s fleet. We already know that Virgin Australia will be receiving new Boeing-737 MAX 8 and MAX 10 planes over coming years. To this end:

Virgin Australia will commence delivery of B-737 MAX 8’s from March 2023. There are 8 MAX 8’s set to arrive throughout 2023, roughly at the rate of 1 each month.
The MAX 10’s are scheduled to start arriving from mid-2023, although it is likely the schedule will be pushed back later in the year or even early 2024.
Virgin Australia have 25 MAX 10’s on order, with an option to convert some of those to MAX 8.

Lounges

It is fair to say that lack of lounge access for Velocity elites and Business Class passengers on Virgin’s short-haul international and trans-tasman flights is a particular sore-point. Unfortunately, this is set to continue as;

Nick indicated there were no current plans to provide lounge access to these passengers. His argument was that Virgin have drastically slashed the price of it’s Business Class seats and the lack of lounge access is a small price to pay for it.
Nick also advised that there were no plans to expand Virgin Australia’s domestic lounge network outside the 7 lounges it currently operate.

Virgin Australia lounge at Perth Airport

Velocity Lifetime Status

I asked Nick if Virgin Australia were considering offering Life-time Velocity Status to its members, the way it’s partner United and many other airlines do.

He did not say Yes or No, merely that they were currently studying such a proposal.

New Airline Partnership

Virgin Australia already counts some of the leading airline names amongst its partners. Still, there is always the opportunity to add new names.

Nick said that there were no current plans to add new partners on a wider scale, although they could look at individual markets such as New Zealand.
Nick said they were open to bringing back Air New Zealand into their fold, but this isn’t likely since the Kiwi carrier is now teaming up with Qantas.
On their partnership with Qatar Airways who are seeking permission to double their flights into Australia, Nick said that Virgin Australia are actively supporting them.

In Conclusion

I recently had the opportunity to attend a function and meet executives from Mileage Plus & Velocity Frequent Flyer Program. By all accounts, both parties are very happy and the relationship is going gangbusters. In-fact Mileage Plus MD was very forthcoming in stating that without Virgin Australia’s strong support, they would have struggled to launch flights into Brisbane.

We now know that Virgin Australia will be kicking-off its own long-haul network with the launch of flights to Tokyo sometime over the next 4 months which is exciting news. Whether this means there will be a rekindling of their partnership with Japan’s flag carrier ANA remains to be seen.

My own feeling is that without teaming up with ANA, there is no business case for flights to Tokyo. So there is a very good possibility we’ll hear some good news on that front very soon.