Devaluing of the VA Flexi Fare.

[Daniel O'Connor]

Can someone enlighten me on the benefit of booking a Flexi fare over a Saver, besides additional FF points and SC’s? Over the last year VA have drastically devalued this fare type!

Some of the changes below:

• Meal benefit= GONE! All fare types now receive a “snack”, far less than the previous offering to Flexi PAX.
• Checked baggage benefit= GONE! All types now receive.
• Flexi booked only PAX able to upgrade to J on points= GONE! Meaning J is full of PAX on saver tix when I try to upgrade.
• Ability to change Flexi booking 24hrs post flight= GONE! Now only 30mins prior to dept. time.
• Price of Flexi booking compared to saver= INCREASED!

Am I missing the point?

 

[Virgin Bart]

Can someone enlighten me on the benefit of now booking a Flexi fare over a Saver, besides additional FF points and SC’s? Over the last year VA have drastically devalued this fare type!

Some of the changes below:

• Meal benefit= GONE! All fare types now receive a “snack”, far less than the previous offering to Flexi PAX.
• Checked baggage benefit= GONE! All types now receive.
• Flexi booked only PAX able to upgrade to J on points= GONE! Meaning J is full of PAX on saver tix when I try to upgrade.
• Ability to change Flexi booking 24hrs post flight= GONE! Now only 30mins prior to dept. time.
• Price of Flexi booking compared to saver= INCREASED!

Am I missing the point?

Nope, you're not. I haven't bought one in years.

 

[smit0847]

Unless someone else is paying, ive never understood why people book them

 

[yohy?!]

seems like its just transitioned to be more in line with what the market (ie QF) offers as VA have transformed themselves, everyone has to decide if that's enough -

like you say the pts and SCs earned are higher and the upgrade costs half that of saver as well as being change fee-free to modify the booking. For some that will be enough, others not so much.

 

[notzac]

You're not missing the point entirely, but there are a couple things:

• Checked baggage benefit= GONE! All types now receive.
• Flexi booked only PAX able to upgrade to J on points= GONE! Meaning J is full of PAX on saver tix when I try to upgrade.

You still get bags and you can still upgrade. I don't see what the concern with either of those two are, tbh.

 

[Mattg]

You're not missing the point entirely, but there are a couple things:



You still get bags and you can still upgrade. I don't see what the concern with either of those two are, tbh.

That may be so but don't people on Saver fares get these too now? Hence why the OP doesn't see the value in buying a Flexi fare. (Although those on Saver fares do have to pay slightly more points to upgrade.)

 

[empiretraveller]

Originally I thought I was getting more with Flexi Fares but after a few domestic trips I realised the difference mainly was that I was getting half a sandwich as a snack even though the price difference was about $100-$150 for the tickets.

So now I've found that I'll get a saver and buy food if I'm hungry, it's $15.00 compared to $100+.

I guess there is the benefit of more SC's but if I really need to I'll make up the difference every once in a while with a status run.

 

[medhead]

The flexi fare gives you more points, with which to upgrade over the saver fares. Flexi fares have more options to obtain upgrades. Increasing your upgrade buying power over someone on a [-]flexi[/-] saver.

Flexi fares also allow you to make last minute changes without paying a fee. Have you checked when changes for saver fares cut off? 24 hours before the flight!

Personally the snack on virgin has never been an influencing factor for buying an airfare. The flexi snack has certainly never been a worthwhile benefit.

 

[empiretraveller]

The flexi fare gives you more points, with which to upgrade over the saver fares. Flexi fares have more options to obtain upgrades. Increasing your upgrade buying power over someone on a flexi.

Flexi fares also allow you to make last minute changes without paying a fee. Have you checked when changes for saver fares cut off? 24 hours before the flight!

Personally the snack on virgin has never been an influencing factor for buying an airfare. The flexi snack has certainly never been a worthwhile benefit.

No the snack is not a benefit and not my deciding factor, but when I know I am definitely flying and when it's a business related flight I am bound to a schedule. So when I'm guaranteed to fly at a time I don't care so much about the flexibility. Also when it's domestic I'm only ever on the plane a maximum of 2 hours for the east coast so upgrading isn't always the factor either.

From BNE to MEL I'm happy to do a saver and pay for a snack if I want it. In the past I've paid Flexi and the benefits I got were not really worth the extra $100+.

 

[medhead]

No the snack is not a benefit and not my deciding factor, but when I know I am definitely flying and when it's a business related flight I am bound to a schedule. So when I'm guaranteed to fly at a time I don't care so much about the flexibility. Also when it's domestic I'm only ever on the plane a maximum of 2 hours for the east coast so upgrading isn't always the factor either.

From BNE to MEL I'm happy to do a saver and pay for a snack if I want it. In the past I've paid Flexi and the benefits I got were not really worth the extra $100+.

I'm just outlining the benefits that flexi fares have over saver. We all need to make decisions based on our individual circumstances. But those decisions only effect the value to the individual, not the value offered by one product over another product in general.

 

[empiretraveller]

I'm just outlining the benefits that flexi fares have over saver. We all need to make decisions based on our individual circumstances. But those decisions only effect the value to the individual, not the value offered by one product over another product in general.

Yes, I agree it comes down to the circumstances in which we need to utilise certain fares over others. When I plan to do an upgrade I do purchase Flexi fares.

 

[EUROPA]

On VA international, Flexi's can be upgraded with points whilst savers can't. Only real reason I ever buy them...

 

[Jurahn]

Given that Perth has such limited options for status runs, sometimes the ridiculously expensive Flexis are an option we have to go for. Both hubby and I need 40SCs to requalify for Gold, so I'm doing a status run to SYD later this year, I'll pool the outbound flight to him and credit the return flight to my account, which will requalify us both and get it all over and done with in one hit - have been able to add in a few days' holiday over there just to make the whole thing worthwhile (considering the cost of the fare!) and seeing as I bought Flexis on both sectors, I decided I might as well upgrade both with points. Have done a similar thing before, but a status run to MEL and back in one day was a bit of a hard slog as I'm not keen on flying anyway LOL. Not flying until end of August, so wonder if the new J will be rolled out on the A330s by then ...

If we don't need the SCs, there's no way we'll buy Flexis out of PER, it's not worth the extra $$$$.

 

[Milefest]

Flexi fares also allow you to make last minute changes without paying a fee. Have you checked when changes for saver fares cut off? 24 hours before the flight!

Wouldn't you be better off just sacrificing that flight and buying a new ticket if you couldn't make it? Most of the domestic flexis I've seen are more than double the price of savers making it a disincentive even if there was a probability you had to make a change.

 

[Demon_fan]

On VA international, Flexi's can be upgraded with points whilst savers can't. Only real reason I ever buy them...

This is the only time I've ever bought a Flexi fare.

I would never buy it for the food or luggage as access to the Lounge is enough for food and being gold was enough for luggage. Obviously the changes leading up to the flight help. However I think at our work if we make changes or cancel, it goes into some travel bank or something. So even then, no big deal. I've never had to do it.

 

[slc767338]

Complimentary WP upgrades are one reason.
If you have status (and therefore fly ahead), I see no benefit to buy in a 'Flexi' fare.

 

[kevrosmith]

like you say the pts and SCs earned are higher and the upgrade costs half that of saver as well as being change fee-free to modify the booking. For some that will be enough, others not so much.

These are pretty much the reasons I (still) only buy Flexis. Higher points earn and Status Credit earn. I pre-book a bunch of flights at the fixed Flexi rate (especially at peak-holiday periods), and then I can move them around at will often without any change to the price and no change fee.

Fewer points to upgrade from Flexi is also another major incentive. I tend to upgrade any lunchtime or evening flight, and slum it in Y for breakfast with my (current) Yoghurt and Muffin breakfast [will be interesting to see if this changes next week].

I travel HLO, so baggage isn't an issue.

I did some calcs from my ticket purchases a couple years ago, and added up all the change fees I paid within a year, and, compared with half the SCs I was getting on Saver fares, I would've been better off buying Flexis up-front, so now I do.

 

[moa999]

Surely if changing long-dated flexis last minute you would run into some substantial fare differences?

A fare difference can make a flexi a lot less flexible.

 

[kevrosmith]

Surely if changing long-dated flexis last minute you would run into some substantial fare differences?

A fare difference can make a flexi a lot less flexible.

No the other way around. I book flights on multiple days well in advance for peak periods and then once I know which day I actually want to travel, I move the other flights to later dates. Having EF and seeing fare class availability helps to reduce possibility of paying fare differences 99% of the time.

(Eg. Guess how many flights I've got booked for the weekend of Oct 15/16 from SYD-CNS )

 

[medhead]

Wouldn't you be better off just sacrificing that flight and buying a new ticket if you couldn't make it? Most of the domestic flexis I've seen are more than double the price of savers making it a disincentive even if there was a probability you had to make a change.

Not particularly as you'd still have to buy another fare. In 5 years I've had 2 experiences where I get sick (gastro) suddenly within 24 hours of a saver fare. The most recent being at easter. So the fare is gone. Something like gastro is about a 24 hour bug. I still need to get to work a day or so later, meaning I then have to buy another airfare 24 to 36 hours beforehand = expensive. I don't really have the option of not buying that airfare, because my flight booked to get me home later in the week is then going to be thrown away. In this most recent case that would then mean that my flight on the following monday, on the same PNR as the flight home on Thursday, risks being cancelled. Ripples turning into waves.

Now, I've had this situation twice in 5 years, so it's a pretty rare occurrence. I also buy saver fares because the cost of changing a couple of flight every few years is more than covered by the money saved buying the cheaper fares.