Enroll at this link for instant Gold status in Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club.
Benefits of Gold, Virgin Atlantic’s top tier, are detailed here. Basically benefits apply primarily when actually flying Virgin — bonus miles, lounge access and priority checkin even when flying economy, extra baggage, and Heathrow fast track. You can also nominate a Silver. And there are reciprocal benefits with Virgin Blue, VAustralia, ANA, and Singapore.
This puppy won’t last long. I believe it’s intended to incentivize folks buying higher-priced business class transatlantic fares, who already have status in another program, but was made available to all comers.
Still working. Thanks!
Thanks, Gary. You have to love loopholes like this!
Does not let me register! It says i have to contact a local Flying Club office. Whats up with that?
I was a silver already – earned the hardway. However it processed me and upgraded then the whole VS website died.
Cest la vie
Either the link is dead, or it’s being slammed because it won’t load now.
Yup, page is obviously slammed right now
The site is returning a 500 error…I doubt this page link would bring their entire site down, but who knows. Their IT staff needs a lecture if they did allow one page’s traffic to bring the main site down.
@Jon,
how did you upgrade an existing membership?
Nice, site’s back up and we’re all signed up!
When I go thru the link I find nothing about the offer – just a sign up page. Is this what others who got the offer saw?
FAB Scotty!
Thanks Gary!
Link was down earlier… tried signing up now, but when I got to the final step
“WE’RE SORRY
We are unable to process your request.
Please contact your local flying club office”
Worked for me just now. I used a current membership number with Silver status, and it instantly changed me to Gold status.
Is this one of those once-in-a-lifetime things? If I don’t plan to fly VA (or any of its partners) any time soon, should I still go for this?
Used link and got red account, not gold. What did I do wrong?
12:30 PM CDT, 4/5 – This now provides a base “Red” level membership.
I got red as well. I’m thinking they “fixed” it and that’s all you’ll be able to do now. Not a big loss – I’ve never flown Virgin Atlantic and don’t necessarily have any plans to, but it would have been nice (and could have been useful for a status match or something)
Oh well.
I got red as well… doh.
Yep, got red – deal done 🙁
Got red, too.
I got the confirmation, and some onscreen gold card picture, but it the confirmation didn’t say anything about gold status.
Red here too.
Bummer, I missed it as well 🙁
Got Red too
The real question is… for those who got Gold, do you still have Gold or have you been flipped back to Red? 🙂
Still gold.
NMope, looks like its been missed. Gone red when I signed up one of my friends. I got Gold status so its all good.
This is a very bad “offer” which brings you only to red membership! An utterly nonsense!
applied last week. already had an account and clicked the link in the app saying as much. was upgraded to gold instantly. checked this morning and still have the gold. So do the 4 other people I helped sign up.
nup red for me too maybe should say that it ha expired at the top of the offer gary. but thanks anyway.
Today I received an emailk from Virgin stating that only those who are UK residents and
elites in another airline mileage group will qualify and they are not honoring.
I don’t know about everyone else, but I got an email from virgin this morning informing me that I “recently applied for Instant Flying Club Gold membership through an unofficial online channel. As a result, you were not made aware of the terms and conditions or criteria to qualify for the offer.”
They then point out that in order to keep this status I must be a UK resident who holds “elite” status of another airline’s frequent flyer program. I also have to have flown on an upper class flight with Virgin between March 1 and May 31, 2010.
Anyone else get this message?
Sorry, didn’t see Harvey Mechanic’s message before I posted.
Got this e-mail this morning:
Dear Erndog
You recently applied for Instant Flying Club Gold membership through an unofficial online channel. As a result, you were not made aware of the terms and conditions or criteria to qualify for the offer.
We are pleased to say that, if you meet the qualification criteria, we’ll be happy to honour your Instant Gold membership. If not, don’t worry, your membership will simply revert to its original status. Or, if you are new to Flying Club, you will become a Red member.
If you weren’t already aware, Flying Club is Virgin Atlantic’s seriously rewarding loyalty programme. And whether you’re a Red, Silver or Gold member, you’ll earn Flying Club miles every time you fly with us*, or use our network of airline, hotel and car rental partners. You can even earn miles when you shop online with wide variety of high street retailers.
You can spend your miles on Virgin Atlantic reward flights, cabin upgrades and more. From a day of rally driving to a trip into space with Virgin Galactic, the choice is yours. And it doesn’t take long to reach the rewards you want either, you can take advantage of great value Miles Plus Money fares from just 2,000 miles, and you can always Buy Miles to top up your balance at anytime.
So welcome to Flying Club, regardless of how you got here, it’s great to have you onboard!
The Flying Club team
The terms and Conditions were in a link provided here:
OFFER CONDITIONS
“Qualified Customers” are defined as UK residents aged 12 years of age or over who are new to Flying Club and hold existing ‘elite’ status membership of another airline’s frequent flyer programme. “Elite” status is defined as the airlines’ top tier/level within its programme.
Qualified Customers should be booked onto, and have flown in, a Virgin Atlantic Upper Class flight in J, D or R booking classes (“Qualifying Flight”) between 1 March and 31 May 2010 (inclusive).
Qualified Customers who are eligible for this incentive will receive complimentary Flying Club Gold Membership and 5,000 Flying Club miles. 2,500 bonus miles will be awarded to the traveller after their first outbound sector and if the traveller is making a return journey an additional 2,500 bonus miles will be awarded on the inbound sector.
Qualifying Flights are those flights ticketed on a Virgin Atlantic flight or with a Virgin Atlantic flight prefix (‘VS’) on the Virgin Atlantic codeshare arrangement with Continental Airlines Inc; or Singapore Airlines.
Flights with a Continental flight prefix (‘CO’) but operated on the services of a Virgin Atlantic flight are not Qualifying Flights.
All Flying Club enrolments and bookings will be validated by the Airline. Invalid enrolments will be disqualified. Virgin Atlantic reserves the right to remove Gold membership without notice on invalid enrolments. Virgin Atlantic’s decision shall be final and no correspondence shall be entered into.
Bookings made must be in accordance with Virgin Atlantic’s fare conditions and all travel will be subject to the Airline’s Conditions of Contract and Conditions of Carriage.
These Terms & Conditions are subject to English law and the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.
So much for the free upgrade to Gold Status, I got this email today:
Dear XXXXXXX
You recently applied for Instant Flying Club Gold membership through an unofficial online channel. As a result, you were not made aware of the terms and conditions or criteria to qualify for the offer.
We are pleased to say that, if you meet the qualification criteria, we’ll be happy to honour your Instant Gold membership. If not, don’t worry, your membership will simply revert to its original status. Or, if you are new to Flying Club, you will become a Red member.
If you weren’t already aware, Flying Club is Virgin Atlantic’s seriously rewarding loyalty programme. And whether you’re a Red, Silver or Gold member, you’ll earn Flying Club miles every time you fly with us*, or use our network of airline, hotel and car rental partners. You can even earn miles when you shop online with wide variety of high street retailers.
You can spend your miles on Virgin Atlantic reward flights, cabin upgrades and more. From a day of rally driving to a trip into space with Virgin Galactic, the choice is yours. And it doesn’t take long to reach the rewards you want either, you can take advantage of great value Miles Plus Money fares from just 2,000 miles, and you can always Buy Miles to top up your balance at anytime.
So welcome to Flying Club, regardless of how you got here, it’s great to have you onboard!
The Flying Club team
and then the terms state:
“Qualified Customers” are defined as UK residents aged 12 years of age or over who are new to Flying Club and hold existing ‘elite’ status membership of another airline’s frequent flyer programme. “Elite” status is defined as the airlines’ top tier/level within its programme.
Qualified Customers should be booked onto, and have flown in, a Virgin Atlantic Upper Class flight in J, D or R booking classes (“Qualifying Flight”) between 1 March and 31 May 2010 (inclusive).
Qualified Customers who are eligible for this incentive will receive complimentary Flying Club Gold Membership and 5,000 Flying Club miles. 2,500 bonus miles will be awarded to the traveller after their first outbound sector and if the traveller is making a return journey an additional 2,500 bonus miles will be awarded on the inbound sector.
Qualifying Flights are those flights ticketed on a Virgin Atlantic flight or with a Virgin Atlantic flight prefix (‘VS’) on the Virgin Atlantic codeshare arrangement with Continental Airlines Inc; or Singapore Airlines.
Flights with a Continental flight prefix (‘CO’) but operated on the services of a Virgin Atlantic flight are not Qualifying Flights.
All Flying Club enrolments and bookings will be validated by the Airline. Invalid enrolments will be disqualified. Virgin Atlantic reserves the right to remove Gold membership without notice on invalid enrolments. Virgin Atlantic’s decision shall be final and no correspondence shall be entered into.
Bookings made must be in accordance with Virgin Atlantic’s fare conditions and all travel will be subject to the Airline’s Conditions of Contract and Conditions of Carriage.
These Terms & Conditions are subject to English law and the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.
Sooooo….you’d better be a UK resident and fly before the end of May to keep your Gold status!