Club Vistara had moved the goalpost on status assessment back in the day due to CoVid-19, informing members that they are going to have a status freeze till September 30, 2020. Vistara had postponed status assessment for everyone whose status was going to change between March 18 to September 30, 2020. Mine was going to be assessed in August 2020, and now the date of status lapse showed on October 1, 2020.

However, Vistara had not committed the postponement of the new status assessment which was going to go live in 2021, as late as May 2020 when I had a fireside chat with the team including people who oversee Club Vistara. You can catch that video here. There are now updates available from Vistara on how will Club Vistara members be taken care of for the next year or so as a part of a new Club Vistara CoVid 19 update.

Extension of Tier Status: Upgrade & Renewals

As per Club Vistara earlier, tier evaluation process resumed on September 30, 2020. For all the elite tier members, based on their tier validity date, as on September 30, 2020, Vistara is offering a 12-month extension. This tier extension is being provided to all members who have successfully achieved their tier upgrade or renewed their tier based on Vistara’s Tier Evaluation Criteria.

The last four words are important there, only for those who qualified by flying Vistara. For those who got the status with their Axis Bank Credit Cards or SBI Cards, they continue to keep the status in line with their card policy, and for those who got it with a 1-year benefit via their HDFC Bank cards, tough luck then.

As per Vistara,

If a member’s tier revaluation date is 31-Aug-2021, as on 30-Sep-2020 their effective revised tier evaluation date will be 30-Aug-2022. Members will be able to view their revised tier validity date by logging in to their Club Vistara account by 15-Oct-2020. Elite tiers of CV members achieved through associations with our partners will continue to be evaluated based on the relationship with the partners and the respective partner terms and conditions.

Extension of Validity of Club Vistara points

Vistara had credited points with four months validity after they took to the skies again for those points which expired between March 25 and May 24, 2020. Now, Vistara will extend points expiring between March and December 2020 by an effective validity of 12 months. Vistara will re-credit the points with an additional 12-month validity for this. For example, for a member, if 100 Club Vistara Points expire in October 2020, equivalent CV Points will be credited with the validity up to October 2021. These points will be re-credited at the end of every month and can be viewed by logging in through the Vistara website.

For those points which have already received a 4-month extension, an additional validity of 8 months will be done. I know it sounds very complicated, but Vistara is going for workarounds which they can manage with their existing systems and not having to write new code in the process for all these changes.

Extension of Validity of Club Vistara 1-class upgrade vouchers

If your vouchers were expiring from March 25, 2020, onwards, Vistara promised to reissue one-class upgrade vouchers valid for four months after they begin operations. At that point in time, One-Class Upgrade vouchers issued as a promotion won’t be renewed.

Now, Vistara has modified this stance. Vistara is now offering a six-month extension on the One-Class Upgrade Vouchers expiring between March and December 2020 as per the expiry month. Members who have already received a four-month extension on the validity on their vouchers will effectively receive an extension for the remaining two months on their unused vouchers. I am not sure how this works because March 2020 vouchers will still be expiring end of September 2020.

Club Vistara CoVid 19 impact: move to the new tier-evaluation criteria postponed by 18 months

In January 2020, Vistara had announced new Tier Evaluation Criteria for all tier evaluations on January 2021. While many airlines had already announced postponing their status assessment by a year, Club Vistara had left this for later, not a move I was happy with over the past months personally.

Now, Vistara has decided to postpone this move till June 2022. Which means the current membership tiers criteria will continue to exist till May 31, 2022. And from June 1, 2022, the following criteria will be used to assess member tiers. Just ignore the date on top.

Bottomline

Vistara has finally made the long-term changes for the benefit of Club Vistara members who have been loyal to the airline for a very long time now and given them a status extension as well as a better timeline to use their points and vouchers. It may or may not work out for everyone, but I think this is a solid move from Vistara finally, and should check the box, for the time being, contingent to the fact as to how long will members not stay confident about flying.

Also, with Vistara moving the goalpost for status assessment by about 18 months, it gives enough time to those confident of flying again soon to get their status assessment back on track. It is also a compromise for Vistara because they really can’t get people to fly outside the country with the Virus and border closures, which was a crucial part of their strategy for international expansion. However, there is no further extension granted anymore on the free tickets that Vistara partners issue at least for now, and that might be a bummer for some people.

What do you think of the Club Vistara CoVid 19 extensions?

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