I’ve had a busy year of flying, having a job in North Sydney and a family in Adelaide. I’ve spent roughly $10,000 on flights which were divided 50/50 with Qantas/Virgin until Tiger started an Adelaide/Sydney route recently. In the process I became a regular reader of Ben Sandilands’ Plane talking blog to stay informed of an industry that was a large part of my week.

Last Friday, the 13th of November, I was pleasantly surprised when an email from Virgin at 5:55pm titled “Surprise! You’ve turned Gold” arrived. I didn’t recall earning enough points for that, but the email assured me that they knew this and wanted to say thanks for my ongoing commitment:

Awesome, I thought — some recognition for all of those hours on planes. Virgin has just earned more of my future fares — I have a reason to stop choosing the cheap Tiger seats.

My elation was short-lived. Two and a half hours later came an email at 8:26pm titled “IMPORTANT: please disregard our last email”, complete with the message “Oops!” and a witty Friday the 13th headline:

We all make mistakes, but personalising a free upgrade in writing and then rescinding it entirely is just a douche-bag move.

I can only imagine that a competent manager wasn’t available to correct the situation (or manage it in the first place) on Friday night, but I hardly find their “Warm Regards” sincere when they’re taking something away.