Last Friday, I was minding my own business when an email from Virgin’s frequent flyer program, Velocity, landed in my inbox. I’d been upgraded to Gold status because I was so close to making the grade. “Kinda weird” I thought to myself, considering I haven’t flown Virgin for over 12 months, “but a free upgrade is a free upgrade”. Except it wasn’t, as the follow up email I got four hours later was so quick to point out. More »
Tipster Brian Houston over at Videosift.com received an email from Virgin’s Velocity rewards program with the above image attached. He reckons it’s hinting at the ability to redeem your Velocity frequent flyer points for a seat on their Virgin Galactic flights. I reckon he’s probably right. Obviously we’ll have to wait for February to come around before we know for certain, but if it is the case, expect to pay an absolute crapload of frequent flyer points for the privilege. In fact, if you don’t already fly Virgin everywhere, and have a Velocity rewards credit card for all your expenses, I’d say you probably won’t ever earn enough points to redeem a Galactic flight. In any case, we’ll see what Virgin have to say come February…
We mentioned the Velocity 103 back in April, giving it a Q2 launch date. It looks like there’ve been a few delays to Velocity Mobile’s entry to the smartphone market though, since the device is only now on pre-sale, with availability at the end of this month. It’s a Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional device, featuring a proprietary “Velocity Over The Air” updating system to add functionality, Bluetooth, touchscreen and trackball control, and TV/VGA-out to connect to your TV. Its September launch is in the UK, where it costs a whopping US$569, but there’s no info no when it’ll hit the US. [TheInquirer]
