Hello Everyone,

This is my first post on flyertalk! It has been a great resource for me for a while now, so I thought I would contribute with some of my recent experiences.

I have had two experiences now with Virgin America that make me think they are playing deceptive games with their fare pricing.

A while back, I purchased two round-trip tickets from the west coast to the east coast for Labor Day weekend. These tickets were bought more than 4 weeks in advance of the holiday weekend, but they were still pretty expensive. This was back when fuel prices were surging, so I figured I didn't have a choice. But then I checked the fares just a week later and the tickets were $300 less. I called Virgin America to ask for a refund on the difference. The first person I talked to refused to do anything. I called again and a supervisor said he could make a one-time exception for me and gave me the credit. I was annoyed by this whole thing, but I couldn't say for sure that VA was doing anything wrong.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was looking for tickets from the west coast to the east coast again. While I was checking out different dates and times, the fares for the flight that I wanted went up by $250 for the two roundtrip tickets! Since I was in a hurry, I just booked them quickly. When I checked the fares the next morning, they were back down to the original price. Of course, I called VA immediately to ask for a refund of the fare difference. Since it had been less than 24 hours since the purchase, they told me they would refund my credit card. The thing is, it has been two weeks now and I have not seen the refund. I called them again today and heard some story about how a supervisor has to review the recording of my earlier call to verify how much of a refund that I was getting. I am still waiting to hear back from them. By the way, the tickets are the same low price even today.

Are other people having these same kinds of experiences with VA? I know the airline has the right to charge whatever it wants whenever it wants, but this is very deceptive pricing. Are they doing some kind of monitoring of your web-browsing session so they can raise prices on you in real-time to trick you into buying a ticket before it goes up even more? I was willing to ignore the first incident as a glitch, but now I am wondering if Virgin America is systematically deceiving customers.

-magicnote