Virgin Atlantic hails success of its first agent reward trip

Virgin Atlantic has hailed the success of its first agent reward trip, which saw the airline collaborate with Virgin Voyages to take 14 trade partners on a six?day holiday to Miami, Key West and the Bahamas.

The trip marked the first time Virgin Atlantic had offered an incentivised scheme for agents as part of its Sky High Club, which enables travel agents to accrue points for selling flights and then redeem them for a variety of rewards, including holidays and vouchers.

The agents were either top performers for the airline or were randomly selected from a list of trade partners who had sold a Virgin Voyages cruise during this year’s wave season.

Virgin Atlantic plans to run three additional agent reward trips this year. The next one is in June.

Virgin Atlantic senior account manager Michelle Osborne praised the scheme, which has seen more than 2,500 agents sign up since its launch, and cited it as the first time an airline has run such a programme.

“It has been super-exciting running this trip because we are the first airline to run an incentive scheme for agents and we want to show our appreciation for our trade partners,” she said.

“The trade is critically important for us as a business and it is essential that we recognise the hard work they do in promoting our product to their clients.

“The feedback we’ve had from agents on this trip is extremely positive and we are looking forward to running three more reward holidays later this year.”

Virgin Atlantic went on to thank agents for their support and said trade partners had played a “big part” in helping the airline exceed its targets for the first quarter of the year.

“Q1 has been a very strong trading period,” said agency sales director Nicki Goldsmith. “We have surpassed our 2019 levels and our agency partners have played a big part in helping us exceed our targets.

“It’s great to have the Sky High Club scheme to reward performance.”

She added: “We aspire to be the most-loved airline within the trade.”