Club Vistara CoVid 19 impact: Extends status by 12 months; Postpones new tier assessment policy to 2022

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.

a plane on the runway

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.

Vistara Business Class on their brand new Boeing 787-9

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.

a screenshot of a computer screen

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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About Ajay

Ajay Awtaney is the Founder and Editor of Live From A Lounge (LFAL), a pioneering digital platform renowned for publishing news and views about aviation, hotels, passenger experience, loyalty programs, travel trends and frequent travel tips for the Global Indian. He is considered the Indian authority on business travel, luxury travel, frequent flyer miles, loyalty credit cards and travel for Indians around the globe. Ajay is a frequent contributor and commentator on the media as well, including ET Now, BBC, CNBC TV18, NDTV, Conde Nast Traveller and many other outlets.

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Comments

  1. And here I am, with my one class upgrade vouchers with Air India gathering dust. Don’t expect them to do any extension of the vouchers. Quite a shame to be honest.

  2. With respect to Free Flight ticket vouchers for Axis bank credit card holders, I had received a communication in Apr 2020 which said the following:

    “Your axis bank club vistara credit card or club vistara sbi card complimentary ticket vouchers remain unaffected
    If you are currently holding vouchers that expire during the lockdown period ie; 25-Mar-20 onwards, we will be issuing you a fresh set of vouchers with a 4-month validity once we restart our operations. If we start operations on 04-May-20, for example, we will issue vouchers to replace the expired vouchers, that can be used till 03-Sep-20.”

    However when I queried them on future of the ticket vouchers, they responded back with a regret note:
    “We try and do our best to ensure the availability of benefits and privileges provided by us and Program Partners to our elite members such as yourself. However, during this difficult period, we regret to inform you that we will not be able to assist you with your request for the extension of credited vouchers.”

    Personally I feel Club Vistara is a little lousy . JP set a very high benchmark for me.

  3. Was a platinum tier with expiry on 21 July 2020, I flew last on Vistara in Feb – and had 27 eligible flights in the current year (July 19-Feb 20).
    Does the tier remain as platinum till Sep 21, or do i get downgraded to Silver?

  4. To me it’s very confusing. I could not understand how it will affect a member if his renewal is doing after Sept 2020 sayNov 2020 or Dec 2020 or beyond till jan 2021.
    Can someone pls clarify

    • I called them and checked. So whatever is the tier as on Sep 30, 2020, it will be extended by 1 year from the review date.

      For example, my Gold tier review date is Oct 25, 2020 and as on Sep 30, 2020, I am still Gold. Now, the gold tier is extended and next review stands at Oct 2021.

      Hope that clears your confusion.

  5. what happens to the business class vouchers which got expired for Axis Vistara card milestone? Will they be renewed as well now?

    • Hello Sharad, write a mail to the customer support as close to the voucher expiry as possible, they will issue new vouchers with a 3 month validity. That is what they did for me.

      • CV guys didn’t extend the Business class vouchers after unlock started and their extension updates talks about only One class upgrade vouchers not business class ones.. cleverly made the policies !

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