Virgin Rewards flights and APD

[Burgmeister]

Just live chatted with Virgin and it appears that the telephone department had made an error.

Thanks for your help everyone

[elmspenguin]

Originally Posted by Burgmeister

Just live chatted with Virgin and it appears that the telephone department had made an error.

Thanks for your help everyone

See more...

I am looking at some economy reward flights and my DD will be 15, currently online it says the taxes and fees for all 3 of us would be £794 so would I only pay £719 if I booked on the phone.

[Burgmeister]

You shouldn't book seats for <16s on the internet (in fact, it should say contact Flying Club if you enter a passenger in that age range for your search).

If your flights out of the UK are on Virgin (not Delta) then you would be eligible for a £78 reduction (or, more likely, a refund) on each passenger <16.

The internet search will only give you the price for adult reward seats.

The APD increases from £75 to £78 at the beginning of April.

Edit: Are you going to New York? If you have more points than money then, for an extra 5000 points each, you could get a £50 reduction in fees if you return on Delta. That's what we have booked. It brings the fees for each adult down to £214 and my daughter's should be £136.

[elmspenguin]

Thanks, I need to ring up anyway as I have the miles in 2 accounts and also need to purchase about 5000 miles to give me enough to cover all 3 flights.
I am looking at LHR to Mia on a VA plane and return Daytona to Manchester so it's good to know I would get the refund.

Did flying club offer you the cheaper fees or did you ask about them.

[Burgmeister]

Originally Posted by elmspenguin

Thanks, I need to ring up anyway as I have the miles in 2 accounts and also need to purchase about 5000 miles to give me enough to cover all 3 flights.
I am looking at LHR to Mia on a VA plane and return Daytona to Manchester so it's good to know I would get the refund.

Did flying club offer you the cheaper fees or did you ask about them.

See more...

No, I only noticed that Delta fees were lower when looking through the various flight options. I don't even know if Delta fly your route. The Delta fees are lower BUT they don't separate out the fees to show APD so they don't refund that if you are <16. This is, obviously, only an issue when departing the UK. Flying in to the UK there is no APD to refund anyway.

Hopefully when you phone, the telephone operator will be more aware of the APD situation than the person we spoke to yesterday. She was very pleasant and tried to be helpful but she didn't understand the rules regarding APD.

Edit: I have just re-read your post and it implies that you are not coming back on Virgin anyway. If you have kids then I don't think that flying out of the UK on Delta is a good use of points. It uses more points and the saving (dues to APD) isn't worth the extra points IMHO. If you are solely a party of adults then its a different calculation.