Virgin ups ante for frequent flyers with Velocity Live program

Members can now access pre-sale tickets and priority seating to entertainment and sports events.

Ambassador Keith Urban, left, and Velocity frequent flyer program chief Karl Schuster at the Virgin Australia launch. Picture: Jane Dempster

Virgin Australia frequent flyers can now access pre-sale tickets and priority seating to big entertainment events, concerts and sporting matches as part of a new partnership with Ticketek parent TEG Live.

The new program, dubbed ­Velocity Live, will also allow the airline’s six million members to earn points — one for every dollar spent — when purchasing tickets through TEG Live’s portfolio of businesses.

“There’s nothing else like this in the market at the moment. We have no membership fee, no annual fee and we are bringing exclusive, intimate experiences to our members that no other program is doing,” Velocity frequent flyer program chief Karl Schuster told The Australian.

“This will allow us to offer ­exclusive member benefits, in­cluding pre-sale opportunities, premium seating allocations and, importantly, the opportunity to earn Velocity frequent flyer points on transactions.”

The deal with TEG Live has been nine months in the making and will remain exclusive to ­Virgin’s Velocity business, Mr Schuster said.

Country music megastar Keith Urban, a Velocity Platinum card holder, launched the program with an intimate acoustic performance in Sydney yesterday. “I love the fact that there can be ­access given to people who otherwise wouldn’t get it,” he said.

To celebrate the launch of the new service, Virgin is giving away 17 double passes to a behind-the-scenes experience at one of Urban’s concerts, including a meet and greet and personal backstage acoustic performances on his ripcord tour.

Other offers through Velocity Live include access to the Melbourne run of Cyndi Lauper’s ­musical Kinky Boots and children’s entertainment shows such as PAW Patrol Live! and Sesame Street.

The launch of the Live program is the latest weapon in ­Velocity’s arsenal to chip away at the dominance of Qantas’s frequent flyer program. In the past year Velocity has been building out its network of partners and has signed major deals, including one with BP that lets members trade points for petrol and snacks from service stations around the nation.

That deal — which gives Velocity members between $10 and $60 off their fuel and in-store purchases at participating BP service stations — has helped boost the program’s ranks with more than 1000 registrations a day, Mr ­Schuster said.

“It’s part of our strategy to continually introduce new platforms like this because for us it’s about improving engagement in the ­program and creating emotional connections,” he said.

Mr Schuster said the Live program would open a batch of new partnerships over the coming year.

“Every quarter there will be stuff of this magnitude happening because we want a program that has relevance, has ubiquity and has engagement,” he said.

Velocity remains an important revenue generator for Virgin. In the 12 months to June 30, its six million members helped to ­generate $328 million in revenue for the airline.

It is a similar story at Qantas, where in the same period its loyalty business — which boasts more than 11.4 million frequent flyer members — contributed $1.45 billion in revenue.