Have you heard the latest from Virgin America? It’s called the Plans Change Pass fee waiver. A fee waiver from an airline? Ha, you say! Wait, it’s true.
There are some stipulations, of course. But if you’ve ever attempted to make a change with another airline you know you’ve paid a whopping penalty of $100 or more. Not so at Virgin America.
Here’s how it works and for whom. For a one-time purchase of $25 for each traveler, you can change your destination, time of departure, and origin of departure (yes, even a different airport!), not just once, but anunlimited number of times without any fees EXCEPT the difference in the flight charges.
It’s not as confusing as it sounds. Let’s say you’re meeting Grandma at Disneyland. You live in Phoenix. She lives in Milwaukee. The four in your family are nearly packed and ready for departure. You’ve made a reservation for Grandma and plan to pick her up at Long Beach Airport, CA on Wednesday at 4:30 pm. She’s leaving from General Mitchell International in Milwaukee at 7:30 am. You send her the itinerary to confirm.
Five minutes after receiving it she calls in a panic. She can’t fly on Wednesday, because the mahjong tournament is that day in Chicago. What?!
Assuming you had the foresight to purchase the Plans Change Pass for her you have no worries. Go into her reservation, change the day to Thursday, leaving out of O’Hare. Voila!
Is the Chicago flight more expensive? Then you’ll pay the difference between the two flight charges, but there is no additional fee of $100-$150 or more for making the change.
But wait, there’s more. The $25 Plans Change Pass fee is refundable within the first 24 hours of purchasing it if you don’t use it. You’ll want to be absolutely certain that Grandma isn’t going to change her mind (again). But really, the fee is refundable too?
(Elevate reward flights or Elevate partner redemption bookings are excluded from using Plans Change Pass.)
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