Virgin Australia Slashes the Cost of Flex Fares

Virgin Australia has significantly reduced the price difference between its Economy Choice and Flex airfares, making its flexible tickets a lot more attractive on many routes.

The change comes as Virgin updates the way it prices tickets more generally. Instead of tying Economy Flex fares to the most expensive fare classes (RBDs), as Qantas does, Virgin now offers Choice and Flex tickets as an “upsell” over Lite in every available Economy fare class.

Virgin is likely hoping that this encourages more customers to buy up to its Economy Flex fares, which include:

• The ability to change flights without paying a change fee (fare difference still applies, unless using Velocity’s Fly Ahead benefit)
• The option to cancel a flight for a travel credit with no fees
• The option to cancel a flight for a cash refund with a $99 fee
• More status credits (for tickets purchased before 2 April 2025)

Some examples of Virgin’s new Economy Flex pricing

As an example, on this Virgin Australia flight from Melbourne to Canberra, Virgin Australia is today charging $149 for an Economy Lite fare in “M” class:

Alternatively, you can book a Choice fare for an extra $20, or Flex for an extra $81 over the Lite ticket price. Regardless of whether you book a Lite, Choice or Flex fare, it will now book into the same fare class, which in this instance is “M”.

For comparison, here’s an example of how Virgin Australia priced tickets on the same route earlier this year:

As you can see, the Economy Flex fare used to be much more expensive – even, in this case, more than Business Class! So, Virgin is now offering Flex fares for a much more reasonable price.

Let’s look at another example. This is how Virgin Australia is now pricing its airfares on the Sydney-Perth route:

In this case, there’s still a fare difference of more than $100 between Choice and Flex. However, that’s still a much smaller difference compared to the pricing earlier this year:

In some instances, however, the price difference between Lite and Choice is now greater than before.

This has implications for Velocity members upgrading to Business Class

There are a few reasons why this change could be good for Velocity members who want to upgrade using their points.

Firstly, Velocity Frequent Flyer currently charges fewer points when you upgrade to Business Class from an Economy Flex fare, rather than from a Choice fare. This means there is an opportunity right now to purchase relatively inexpensive Flex fares, and upgrade for a low amount of Velocity points.

However, as announced with the recent Velocity program changes, this will change on 18 November 2024. After this date, Velocity points upgrades from Flex fares will cost the same, higher amount of points as from Choice fares.

In the longer term, though, this is great news for Velocity Platinum members hoping to use their four annual complimentary upgrades. These are only valid on Flex airfares, which are now much more affordable.

Virgin follows other airlines in introducing branded fares

Virgin’s new ticket pricing strategy aligns with other international airlines including Air New Zealand, Malaysia Airlines, Air Canada, Cathay Pacific, Lufthansa and Finnair. These airlines also offer tickets in every fare brand when purchasing tickets in any fare class, rather than tying their ticket’s inclusions directly with the fare class.

This is generally better for consumers because flexible tickets are available at substantially lower prices in many cases. This change could particularly benefit businesses that prefer to book Flex fares for their employees.

However, on busy flights, Economy Lite and Choice fares could be more expensive. You could end up buying a very expensive Lite airfare, and still only getting the lesser inclusions that fare brand.

This system can also be problematic if you want to credit the points and status credits to a partner airline’s frequent flyer program.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.