Over the summer I had used my Virgin Atlantic points to book a Delta flight from Detroit to DC. Delta would have charged 16,000 points. Virgin charged only 7,500. Later, our plans changed and so I tried to cancel the ticket online. I pulled up the reservation on Virgin’s website and pressed “cancel.” That didn’t work. It probably would work for a Virgin Atlantic flight, but it didn’t work for a Delta flight. Fortunately, for those like me that will walk a mile to avoid making a phone call, there is an online alternative that does work…
When cancelling an award ticket, Virgin Atlantic is supposed to charge $50 (now $100) per passenger to refund your miles and money, but Nick had discovered a while ago that they don’t collect this fee when taxes & fees are less than $50. Since I had paid only $5.60 in taxes per person, I figured that I wouldn’t have to pay the $50 cancellation fee. I was right.
After poking around online, I found a form that allows you to cancel and request a refund. Here’s the direct link:
Direct link to Virgin Atlantic’s form for cancelling and requesting a refund.
I filled out the form on September 1st and received my full refund on September 12.
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Has anyone tried this recently with the new cancellation fee increase? I guess the same principal would apply? The flights I am looking to book have a short transit so there is a possibility we might not make the domestic connection on DL booked via Virgin.
How did you also receive 11.20 refund from taxes? I
Just cancelled an ITA flight via VX award. The flight would depart before the refund processed, so used the chat function.
No $50 fee, but they said my taxes weren’t refundable (€48).
Unsure if the refund would have gone through if I no-showed, but I’ll take my miles for the $50 cancellation convenience fee.
VX doesn’t exist anymore
Just adding a DP. Used chat (Safari) to cancel. Agent stated i would not receive the $5.60 back since it’s less than the $50 cancellation fee.
Anyone have experience trying to cancel a Virgin Atlantic award flight on a different partner? Wondering about ITA Airways in particular.
Did you ever do this? I have an ITA award I need to cancel
Following up on this. I’m trying this today
I did cancel my booking through the web site’s Chat portal, I got back the VA points within few minutes. They said they will charge $50 for cancelling, but haven’t seen any charges yet. I paid only about 5.60 $ as the taxes and fees, I am okay about losing 6$.
Trying to cancel my award flight using the form, but cannot find the particular departure airport …
You can also chat with them via the reservations page to cancel a reservation. Pretty quick in my experience.
So the taxes and fees were refunded as well?! Nick’s post suggests that the cash portion would be a goner (unless I’m misreading)
I assume you received the VA miles back too?
Yes
It’s definitely YMMV. I cancelled a partner award booking via this form in early Sept. While I got my $300+ in taxes & fees back (no $50 fee was assessed, I got a full $ refund) the 48.5k miles were never refunded. To me it’s not worth following up on.
Did you ever happen to get those miles back?
Nope
Was the cancellation within 24hrs or departure or perhaps when they processed the cancellation, it was within 24 hrs of departure? Because I read that is where the points are lost.
3 weeks prior to departure