MSPeconomist

IIRC assuming that USA DOT regulations apply to the flight/ticket (and I don't see any reason in your post why Virgin would not be bound by these rules, but you might want to check their CoC to see whether they have a more generous policy), if you can't be rebooked by the airline, you should be entitled to a full refund to your original means of payment, which usually means sending a credit to your credit card account, in principle within seven days, although the bank might take longer to recognize the credit.

Whether you're entitled to being rebooked is less clear, especially if another carrier would be involved. In particular, it's rather unclear whether it's the your choice or the airline's choice to just give the refund rather than rebooking you.

In practice, most USA legacy airlines would try harder to rebook elites onto flights that are acceptable to the customer and more likely to use other (such as codeshares, joint ventures, alliance or other partners or just recognized airlines with which they interline) carriers for elite or when an expensive fare has been paid. In some cases, the airline would offer a hotel or reimburse hotel expenses for top tier elites and sometimes premium cabin fo full fare customers but not provide others with even meal vouchers.