Yesterday I wrote about how Virgin America took double my points but I had no flight!

I spent a lot of time both online and on the phone with Virgin America trying to book a flight from NYC-Los Angeles. This should’ve been a simple 5-10 minute process. However, due to site being down, double the points were deducted from my account and no flight was booked.

The flight from NYC-LA was pricing at 11,819 points per person plus tax of $5.60 each. The reps told me not to worry, if the price of the flight went up today, yesterday’s price would be honored.

After I got home from work, I did a search on Virgin America and the flight had gone up in price. The flight now cost 11,868 each, a difference of 49 points per person.

Was it worth calling Virgin America again and possibly facing a long hold just to save 147 Elevate points? Probably not, but based on principle I did call.

Again I waited on hold for about 10-12 minutes before the first rep answered the phone. I then was on hold for another 15-20 minutes waiting for an Elevate rep. I then explained the situation and mentioned the two lead reps I had spoken to last night.

I told the rep how I was trying to book a flight last night, faced long waits and was told yesterday’s award price would be honored. After looking into it, he said that the difference was around 50 points. He then said I can give you 500 points to cover the difference. Fair enough I thought but I’d like some more!

I asked if he’d like to give me some more points for my trouble and he quickly replied, “I can give you 1,200.”

I debated whether or not I should push him further but the rep seemed fair and was pleasant to deal with so I accepted and called it a day.

In the end I booked our flight from NYC to LA for 34,404 Virgin America Elevate points.

Booking this flight was a real pain in the a$$ but the Virgin America reps I dealt with were all nice, friendly and tried to help as best they could.

As for my compensation… 1,200 points definitely isn’t much but I’ll take what I can get.