Problem Adding VIP Contacts

I am having a problem adding contacts as VIPs on my iPhone XR (running 13.6.1).

VIP Mailbox is "on". I have confirmed this by going to Mail, tap Edit, then make sure VIP is selected in the list of mailboxes.  Indeed, I toggled it off then back on.

If I run the Contacts app and go into a contact that I wish to add as a VIP and scroll down to the bottom of the contact, there is no "Add to VIP" option (which used to be there, as I recall).  There are other options such as "Add to Favorites" or "Share my Location". But, there is not "Add to VIP" option.

If I am in the Mail App and top the "i" icon (which takes me to my "VIP List") when I scroll down to the bottom of my list of current VIP contacts and click "Add VIP..." and then search for a particular contact (say "Johnny Appleseed"), when I click on the contact, it is NOT added to my VIP list.  For what it's worth, the  Johnny Appleseed contact has three email addresses associated with the contact (1) "other" (say johnny.appleseed@xyz.net), "(2) home (say johnny@gmail.com ), and (3) another "other" (say johnny@yahoo.com ).

I would like to be able to pre-emptively add contacts to my VIP list, rather than waiting for a contact to send me an email and then having to click on it in the "From" field of Mail and attempting to add the contact as a VIP after receiving an email from the person/contact.