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Virgin Atlantic said it is on track to sign up “thousands” of disgruntled British Airways passengers to its loyalty programme, inspired by its latest guerrilla advertising campaign designed to lure customers away from its arch rival.
The airline, founded by Sir Richard Branson and partly owned by Delta, launched a promotion around Valentine’s Day, offering BA customers an upgrade to a higher membership level if they joined its Flying Club programme.
Virgin targeted BA frequent flyers last year after the UK flag carrier faced the ire of travelers after changes to its loyalty program resulted in some long-term customers losing their status.
BA aimed to prevent overcrowding in its lounges by using a new system based on money spent rather than distance traveled, which came into force last April. BA loyalty customers will feel the impact of the changes next month. Virgin’s plan is more generous than Air France-KLM and Lufthansa which are trying to lure BA passengers with a “status match” program.
Customers have criticized BA’s overhaul, which will make it harder for leisure travelers to earn Gold tier status.
Virgin’s latest campaign, called “Save Your Tears”, included posters in Heathrow’s Terminal 5, BA’s main hub, as well as on social media. It offered upgraded membership to anyone booking an upcoming Virgin Atlantic flight, even if they were already a member.
Since launching the offer, Virgin Flying Club chief Anthony Woodman told the FT this week, “We’re strongly seeing thousands of people joining”, “and we’re only at the halfway mark”. “We expect a huge amount of content to come in the next half year… hopefully we’ll get into the thousands.” This offer will run till 23rd February.
“Between this and all the other activity, we expect our (Gold and Silver members) membership to grow by a comfortable double-digit percentage over the 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 a material increase, which is the idea. We want these customers to try us and have what we think is a better experience.”
Attracting new members from BA could hurt Virgin, especially if they book to fly with airline partners such as Delta or Air France, using Virgin Gold status to access their lounges. Virgin must compensate the partner for lounge use without flight revenue.
The airline hopes that people will start flying on Virgin in the future. New members will retain their status for one year and must meet standard requirements to re-qualify.
“It made my business counterparts quite nervous about how many people we would get,” Woodman said. “But I think it’s actually the right thing for customers.”
He said Virgin was “not concerned” about its own lounges becoming too crowded due to the influx of customers transferring from BA. “We would have to see a massive increase for that behavioral risk.”
Virgin makes about 70 departures a day, about one tenth the size of BA.
BA called Virgin’s plan “a well-executed PR stunt”, adding that “customers look at these campaigns and the data speaks for itself”.
The carrier noted that since it implemented changes to its frequent flyer scheme, it has “consistently been rated in the top tier of airline loyalty programs globally”. “We believe we are rewarding and recognizing our members more fairly,” it says.
As well as making the changes, BA said it had reduced the cost of travel by using frequent-flyer points and “increased the number of seats available for redemption flights”.
