Australian Business Traveller

Virgin Australia opens lounges to Qantas Chairman's Club, Platinum frequent flyers

By David Flynn Filed under:

published 30 Oct, 2011
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IN BRIEF | Virgin Australia will provide Qantas' most VIP frequent flyers with free access to its airport lounges.

On top of adding extra flights and offering discounted fares to stranded Qantas passengers, the airline is cleverly targetting the cream of Qantas' corporate travel crop – members of the exclusive Qantas Chairman's Lounge as well as those holding Platinum (and presumably newly-minted Platinum One) status in the Qantas Frequent Flyer program.

In a statement on its website, Virgin advises that "Qantas Chairman’s Club and Platinum members are welcome to make use of the Virgin Australia lounge when flying with us from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide and Perth domestic airports. This invitation extends until Thursday 3 November 2011."

This looks like being another successful attempt by Virgin to tap Qantas' motherlode of business travellers and frequent flyers, following September's aggressive and highly popular status match deal which saw Qantas frequent flyers receive equivalent status in Virgin's competing Velocity Rewards program.

For the latest on the situation, head to Australian Business Traveller's continuing coverage of the Qantas shutdown.

About David Flynn

David Flynn is the editor of Australian Business Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.

Follow @ausbt on

Email: david@ausbt.com.au

Twitter: @djsflynn

1 on 31/10/11 by Noob

Personally, I think we are going to see some lounge expansions in the comming couple of years to handle new capacity. SYD lounge is going to be over two levels like it was with Ansett.

1 on 31/10/11 by David

Noob: yep, the designer of Virgin Australia's new lounges revealed the plans for a two-level Sydney lounge a few months back – see http://www.ausbt.com.au/virgin-australia-outlines-plans-for-sydney-and-brisbane-airport-lounges.

At least that'll make it much easier to upgrade compared to Melbourne and Brisbane, both of which they had to close for many months while work took place. With Sydney they could conceivably renovate the upper level, open this to travellers and then shut down the lower level for renovations.

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