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Virgin Atlantic said it was on track to sign up “tens of thousands” of disaffected British Airways passengers for its loyalty programme, boosted by its latest guerrilla advertising campaign designed to woo customers from its arch-rival.
The airline, founded by Sir Richard Branson and part-owned by Delta, launched a promotion around Valentine’s Day, offering to upgrade BA customers to a higher membership tier if they joined its Flying Club programme.
Virgin targeted BA’s frequent flyers last year after the UK flag carrier incurred the ire of passengers following an overhaul of its loyalty programme that will result in some longtime customers losing their status.
BA aimed to prevent overcrowding in its lounges by using a new system based on money spent rather than distance travelled, which came into force last April. BA loyalty customers will feel the impact of the changes next month. Virgin’s scheme is more generous than that of Air France-KLM and Lufthansa which are trying to lure BA flyers with a “status match” programme.
Customers have criticised BA’s overhaul, which will make it harder for leisure travellers to achieve Gold tier status.
Virgin’s latest campaign, called “Save Your Tiers”, included posters in Heathrow’s Terminal 5, BA’s main hub, as well as across social media. It offered upgraded membership to anyone with an upcoming Virgin Atlantic flight booked, regardless of whether they are already a member.
Since launching the offer, “we’re firmly in thousands” of people joining, “and we’re only halfway through”, Anthony Woodman, head of Virgin Flying Club, told the FT this week. “We expect a lot of volume to come through in the next half . . . hopefully we’ll get into tens of thousands.” The offer runs until February 23.
“Between this and all the other activities, we expect our [Gold and Silver members] to grow by double-digit percentages comfortably over a 12-month period,” he added.
He said: “It’s not going to double the size of Flying Club Gold, but it’s going to be material growth, which is the idea. We want these customers to try us and to experience what we think is a better experience.”
Attracting new members from BA could end up costing Virgin, especially if they book to fly with an airline partner such as Delta or Air France, using the Virgin Gold status to access their lounges. Virgin would have to compensate the partner for the lounge use without the flight revenue.
The airline hopes that people will then switch to flying on Virgin in the future. New members will hold their status for a year and will need to meet standard requirements to requalify.
“It made my commercial counterparts quite nervous about how many people we would get,” Woodman said. “But I think really bluntly it’s the right thing for customers.”
He said Virgin was “not concerned” about its own lounge becoming too crowded because of an influx of customers who had transferred from BA. “We’d have to see a huge amount of growth for that behavioural risk.”
Virgin runs about 70 departures a day, roughly a tenth of the size of BA.
BA called Virgin’s scheme “a well-executed PR stunt”, adding that “customers see through these campaigns and the data speaks for itself”.
The carrier noted that since it implemented changes on its frequent flyer scheme, it was “regularly rated in the top tier of airline loyalty programmes globally”. It said it was “confident we’re rewarding and recognising our members more fairly”.
As well as bringing in the changes, BA said it had reduced the cost of travel using frequent-flyer points and “increased the number of seats available for redemption flights”.