Virgin open tickets- flights are now cheaper, can I get the difference back?

[dreamisawish]

Hey guys, after a long few months of putting planning on hold we are starting to look towards next year, at least hypothetically.

We made our virgin tickets open- maybe stupidly! The flights did end up being cancelled but I was worried if they wouldn’t be.

So I know we can use these for 2021. The issue is flights at the moment are about £400 cheaper then what we booked last time.

I can see from the VA website it says ‘new flights will be subject to any fare differences’ but is this just them charging you if it’s more expensive? Ideally I’d like a refund for the difference, or at least the ability to use that £400 on another flight.

If anyone has experience with this I’d appreciate the advice. I may have to call them anyway, but I’m avoiding that for fear of being on hold for hours!

I cannot actually find terms and conditions for this process on their open ticket page.

Or if anyone knows if we have any rights over this? I know we agreed to the open ticket, it does seem immoral if they can charge us for extra but not refund us for it being less.

[Softy]

I agree it would be immoral for them not to give you the difference back, as they’ve been charging people the extra if it’s more expensive. I can’t believe they won’t give you the difference back. Give them a call and see what they say. I’ve called BA and Virgin a lot over the last few months and have never waited longer than 20 mins.

[dizzzy]

I think they refund if it's less. Our flight was cancelled and we were automatically given an open ticket but could've requested a refund if we wanted. Anyway we decided to rebook for next year and we could either go premium economy for the same price or go economy and get a refund on the difference. We decided to go with pe as we thought it would be a nice treat but the offer was there for a refund on the difference had we chosen to stick to economy.

I called them to rebook our flights but can't remember how long I was on hold for. I don't recall it being a stupid amount of time though but I might've been lucky.

[Gelatoni]

They will definitely refund. I was offered £166 refund, or pay £200 extra for a flight arriving earlier. Chose to pay the extra as hate arriving after an earlier VA flight and immigration hell, but the refund was offered for the cheaper flight.

[macadoo]

We re-booked our flights a couple of days ago (got through to someone immediately... chose the ‘new booking’ option ). Our flights are £560 cheaper than what we paid for this year and they’re refunding the difference, they said it would take 30 days. Very happy as I wasn’t expecting it.

Because our flight departs before the end of August we can change the flight twice if we want to due to either price change or date change.

Very happy as we had Indirect flights booked for this year and now flying direct 😊.

[wombat girl]

I am wondering about my flight.
If I go on VH or VA and put my dates in there is only indirect flight.
If I go on to my booking my direct flight is still going but the flight is very empty

So I am not sure of my rights or whats happening.

The first flight is 2nd January and would love to cancel and get a refund.

[dreamisawish]

@wombat girl I actually am a travel agent for flights so I probably should have known my answer to the first question haha!

But I do know that most cancellations are about 20-60 days before the flight goes now but they can ‘stop sale’ a while before they cancel so they don’t have more people to refund.

You could call them and ask what is happening for clarification, you may need to wait for it to be officially cancelled to get a refund though.

[wombat girl]

Originally Posted by dreamisawish

@wombat girl I actually am a travel agent for flights so I probably should have known my answer to the first question haha!

But I do know that most cancellations are about 20-60 days before the flight goes now but they can ‘stop sale’ a while before they cancel so they don’t have more people to refund.

You could call them and ask what is happening for clarification, you may need to wait for it to be officially cancelled to get a refund though.

See more...

Thanks
To be honest as my holiday was cancelled and I wont be using the flight I would accept a credit at this point

[nickmad]

We recently moved a Virgin flight from April 2021 to September 2021 with no problem and got a refund for over £500, although this has not been received yet. We got an email saying the refund would be processed within 30 days. Arranged the change all via their WhatsApp service

[Frankie & gang]

Thank you so much OP for posting. We had 4 PE flights booked for Sept 20 & made them open tickets.
I’ve just checked & they are now just over £250 each cheaper, think I’ll re-book for Sept 21!