Long time, habitual readers of the BrandHook blog will no doubt recall a previous blog entry where I professed my undying love for Virgin Australia and the innovation of the Premium Entry lounge at Sydney Airport. It changed my relationship with them. Since that love affair, our relationship has changed. No longer a Gold member, I am simply a Silver member but rest assured, this isn’t a blog about needing to be reinstated – although anyone with any connections, feel free to bump up my Status Credits – my membership number is 500 … I digress.

So where has the relationship gone wrong, I hear you ask. Driven by the need to get back to gold and obviously the unofficial opening of the London BrandHook office, I purchased Virgin flights to head back to the UK. It was my expectation and understanding that while I might not be able to find a ticket where I could use points and pay, I would be able to use the points that I have accrued from being a habitual flyer with them, for an upgrade. Oh no. This facility is now only available for Gold members – those people I now see in taxis bypassing the low life Silver member plebs and pulling up next to the Premium Entry. Yet that wasn’t the tipping point for me. It sparked a little of the consciousness that would start to shop around for alternatives but my habit was strong.

The breaker in the relationship was their UPGRADE ME facility where you can bid for an upgrade on upcoming flights. Genius. Love the concept, love the idea, love the innovation. So you can imagine my reaction when I learnt that you can only bid with cash and not points.

Forget Big Data for awhile and let’s focus on the micro – me. Here I am, a valuable customer to have, someone who did for the most part, everything you wanted me to do – I have the membership, I have the credit card, I even buy the wines. But I didn’t fly enough and you took away my Gold membership. Now, I’m trying to get back and sticking with you but all the points that I have accrued as a result of doing everything you wanted me to do, are useless. You tempt me with something that I like and you don’t let me convert in the currency that you convinced me was valuable. I’m trying here Virgin and you’re rejecting me. I thought we were on a break and you’ve moved on.

I’m on flight VA 29 on Saturday in case you’re interested. I doubt that will mean anything to you now but if you can salvage our relationship, it would be nice. Otherwise, hope the food and movies are good or you’ll be hearing about it.