Travel Bank Fare vs Revenue Fare

[OrangeRoughie]

Has anyone noticed any price discrepancies when searching revenue fares and then searching using travel bank credit? If so, have you had any luck calling up and having them honour revenue fare with travel bank credit? Cheers

 

[AIRwin]

Is it a Future Flight Credit?

 

[OrangeRoughie]

Is it a Future Flight Credit?

It is, yes.

 

[AIRwin]

Bookings using your Future Flight credits are subject to seat availability within the fare class available for Future Flight credits on your selected flight. It’s possible that the seats reserved for Future Flight credits may be sold out for the flight you’ve chosen.

Future Flight credits | Virgin Australia

travel.virginaustralia.com

 

[henrus]

So I have an answer for that specific flight/route.

There is a special seat availability to use with the future flight credits (only a fixed amount per flight) but two allocations exist - one for economy and one for business class. On the specific flight the allocation of economy seats has been used up already and so the price of $499 you're seeing is actually a business class fare.

 

[OrangeRoughie]

Bookings using your Future Flight credits are subject to seat availability within the fare class available for Future Flight credits on your selected flight.

Ok, thanks for that - makes more sense.
When I did the same search ADL-BNK there was no difference in pricing when I had selected use FFC vs not which is what threw me on this search.

Post automatically merged: Jan 17, 2021

So I have an answer for that specific flight/route.

There is a special seat availability to use with the future flight credits (only a fixed amount per flight) but two allocations exist - one for economy and one for business class. On the specific flight the allocation of economy seats has been used up already and so the price of $499 you're seeing is actually a business class fare.

Great insight, thanks very much!

 

[henrus]

Realised my initial explanation wasn't very good so to provide a bit more detail.

Normal revenue fares just pull from any available fares. For VA1447 on 17/04 the following shows up:

There are 6 E fares available at $299 which is what you see in the revenue search.

When using a Virgin future flight credit there needs availability in either U class (for Economy) or I fares (for Business). The I fares are directly tied to Business saver fares so if a business saver revenue fare can be booked then it can also be booked using a future flight credit.

The Economy fares are a bit more confusing as you need availability in both U class (a fare class not directly tied to anything but instead used to control the number of future fare credit bookings) and a regular class (any of the following below). It's the combination of needing any of the below and the U class that allows them to control the number of bookings using future flight credits on a specific flight.



With the I fares (business class) the most ever released is 4 (unless it's manually overridden) whereas the U fares depend but from what I've seen there are always at least 9 fares.

A free and good tool to search fares is the BCD travel website:

Travel tools

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flightavailability.bcdtravel.com

 

[Vic]

What is the difference between travel bank and a future flight credit?
Surely Travel Bank just lets me use for value towards any fare?

 

[henrus]

What is the difference between travel bank and a future flight credit?

Travel bank has been around for ages and is used when canceling a flight into a credit. Travel bank credits are basically like normal cash and can be used on any available fare (including partner airlines). It's like a bank account and you have a total balance that can be used, each credit into a travel bank expires 12 months after being issued.

Put simply when Virgin Australia went through administration the new owner agreed to honour all existing bookings/value of bookings.

In order to do this, they created future flight credits. Future flight credits are limited in how they can be used and all of them have an expiry of 31 July 2022. They are limited to being used on Virgin Australia-operated flights (no partner flights with one exception for some alliance airlines flights). In addition, there is limited availability as you can only book some fares, it's essentially limited to only 4 people per flight booking into Business class using future flight credits and economy space is limited by the U fare class.

 

[Vic]

Wonderfully helpful. Yay! I have travel bank.
Was a bit concerned about potential restrictions on use when reading your posts.

 

[henrus]

Was a bit concerned about potential restrictions on use when reading your posts.

Nope travel bank isn't restricted in any form. The only major restriction is that if you book a "refundable fare" with a travel bank. I'm talking either Freedom or Business that would normally get a cash refund, these fares only refund to travel bank when booked with travel bank. Otherwise, there is no major difference booking with travel bank vs cash.

 

[AIRwin]

The only major restriction is that if you book a "refundable fare" with a travel bank. I'm talking either Freedom or Business that would normally get a cash refund, these fares only refund to travel bank when booked with travel bank.

That makes sense, otherwise Travel Bank can be used to "cash" out any credits as a backdoor to a refund...

 

[Mattg]

Hmm. So if I have a travel bank worth $50, and use it towards a booking in a fully-refundable fare class (e.g. “Business”) worth $500, what would happen if I cancelled the booking? Would the entire $500 be stuck in a travel bank, or could I get $450 back?

 

[henrus]

Hmm. So if I have a travel bank worth $50, and use it towards a booking in a fully-refundable fare class (e.g. “Business”) worth $500, what would happen if I cancelled the booking? Would the entire $500 be stuck in a travel bank, or could I get $450 back?

Honestly, I've never tried this however the official line is: "For cancellation credit to Travel Bank or refund to original form of payment".

I'd assume you'd get the $50 back in travel bank and then the rest back as cash but who knows if that's the case in practice.

 

[Bagpuss]

Hmm. So if I have a travel bank worth $50, and use it towards a booking in a fully-refundable fare class (e.g. “Business”) worth $500, what would happen if I cancelled the booking? Would the entire $500 be stuck in a travel bank, or could I get $450 back?

You would get $50 back to travel credit and $450 back to your form of payment excluding credit card charges.
The travel bank credit also is subject to the original expiry date. IE if the travel credit currently states expiry 2nd January 2022, and you cancel on 3rd January 2022 you have lost the travel bank credit. The way around this is to conduct a change of dates.

 

[AIRwin]

The travel bank credit also is subject to the original expiry date.

That also makes sense, otherwise credits can be extended indefinitely...