People who are not used to flexible fares need to know about the equal-or-higher-fare rule. I suppose this also applies in the event one would want to change a Saver fare - they also need to know. In addition, does the equal-or-higher-fare rule also apply if you cancel a fare and then later use the stored credit?
I guess what this all says is that your fare is likely to be more flexible (i.e. likelihood of a smaller fare difference compared to starting with a Saver) and having a last resort, you can get your money back with a hit, but it comes at a consequential cost. (I suppose for those expensing a corporate account, these fees are justifiable risks to get away with, rather than purchasing the Saver in the first place.)
Guess this is life's way of telling you that you can't always have it your way......
This is where I have no understanding of the product.
Flexi fares come at a large additional cost to standard saver fares. So you pay a bit more as a bit of 'insurance' (so to speak) in case you have to change your flights.
What I can't figure out is how often you'd be better off to have a flexi over a saver?
In the situation I'm in, I've actually got to change two identical flights, one a saver, the other a flexi, and the saver fare is going to work out $60 cheaper to change than the flexi. That's $60 cheaper to change than the flexi fare, even though the flexi fare was an additional $140 to book originally.
The saver OOL->MEL return was $287.
I'll need to cancel the flight, forfeiting $60, will receive credit for $227. On the new dates, the return saver fare will be $238. So applying the credit of $227 leaves a difference of $11, add $9 for the credit card fee on the difference, and the out of pocket cost to change the ticket will be $20, a final total cost of $307.
The flexi was $427.
If I change the flight per the website 'manage my booking' the cost will be an additional $80 (charging $249 each way, plus $9 credit card fee), so the total cost of the flight comes to $507.
Even if I wanted to change the flights to later this week (trying to nut out the worst case scenario, when flexi would be a real advantage), changing the flights to flying down Thurs, back on Sunday, the flexi ticket would incur an additional cost of $200 vs. the saver $190. So the total cost of the flexi ticket changed to late this week would increase to $627 vs the saver at $477.
Is this unusual? Due to the substantial additional cost it seems to me that you're better off wearing the forfeit of $60 under a saver fare in the instance you have to cancel the flight vs. getting lucky with being able to change flexi flights to a fare of the same value.
I'm seriously not trying to be a smart alec or anything, I just can't see how flying under a flexi fare, even if you were frequently rescheduling flights, works out to be beneficial.
The only circumstances I can imagine would be it being an advantage in would be if you had to change the same flight a number of times, not something that we, thankfully, have to do. This is actually only the second time I've had to change flights.
I appreciate everyone's postings trying to 'tell it like it is' (because, as Anat pointed out, VA's website doesn't). Am I making sense or have I gone completely mad?