Virgin Blue’s loyalty program Velocity grabs five awards
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The loyalty program of the Virgin Blue Group of Airlines, has taken out the Program of The Year award at the annual Freddie Awards in Florida. The program also took out five of the other eight awards up for grabs.
El programa de fidelización de Virgin Blue Group of Airlines fue premiado como Programa del Año por los Freddie Awads en Florida. Este programa consiguió cinco de los ocho premios a los que estaba nominado.
The four year old Velocity program took out a swag of categories for all airlines operating in the Japan, Pacific, Asia and Australia regions at the 21st Freddie’s including Program Of The Year, Best Award Redemption , Best Award , Best Web Site , Best Member Communications ,and Best Affinity Credit card
The Freddie’s are heralded as the Oscars of the Frequent Flyer Program industry and are considered the most prestigious global awards for the loyalty program industry.
Velocity is the loyalty program of all the airlines under the Virgin Blue banner, including Virgin Blue, Pacific Blue, Polynesian Blue and the new trans-Pacific three class airline, V Australia.
Virgin Blue is especially elated at Velocity being named “Program Of The Year” after it was a team pledge to aim for the accolade. Velocity earned first place ahead of the loyalty programs of highly regarded carriers operating in the region including Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Qantas.
Of the nine Freddie awards up for grabs, Velocity took out six and came in second for the other three.
Virgin Blue Chief Executive, Brett Godfrey, explained “This is an absolutely fantastic result for the Velocity team and more importantly for our 1.7-million Velocity members who reap the benefits of the Velocity program every day.”
“We are very honoured that Velocity has been recognised for its commitment to excellence across such a broad range of its offerings from the any seat redemption policy we pioneered in the domestic Australian market to having the most user friendly website.”
The Freddie awards are judged by the people best positioned to offer opinions and feedback on airline programs, the actual frequent flyers themselves. Those who experience the offerings and benefits of the programs of airlines all over the world are the ones who nominate and vote for their favourite airline program in a range of specific categories.
Virgin Blue was the only Australian based airline to have its loyalty program recognised.
Brett Godfrey continued, “When we launched Velocity, our intention was to introduce a program that provided tangible benefits for our frequent flyers at any time they wanted it. Other programs followed our lead and introduced the any seat redemption policy so we are very proud to have revolutionised the programs of other airlines and intend Velocity to continue to innovate and provide the best value of any program in this Australian region.”
Velocity is continuing to grow its expanding range of member benefits and now has nine airline partners offering a global network of earning and redemption opportunities. Velocity is also evolving its non-airline redemption offering earn opportunities via 150 partners and a wide range of redemption offerings from a gourmet toaster to a Virgin Galactic flight into outer space.
He added, “As an airline group and an airline program, we have a strong focus on innovation, value for money and real rewards for loyal Guests. To be on the receiving end of our record number of Freddie Awards vindicates our strategy and shows our members believe we are on the right flight path.”
Phil Gunter, General Manager, Velocity, announced, “This is Velocity’s “Slum Dog Millionaire moment”, we are overwhelmed with the result. Globally, Velocity is still a relative small program and we don’t have the big budgets or big teams that other airlines do, so to walk away with so many Freddie’s is both humbling and exciting and only inspires us to find ways and means to do even better for our members next year.”
(c) Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. Date posted: 28-Apr-09
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Virgin Blue’s loyalty program Velocity grabs five awards 
