Virgin America Alaska Airlines Forced us to pay insane last minute fares after cancelling flights New York

In your update you stated the following..

We are scheduled to fly out tomorrow, three days before virgin initially tried to "reschedule” us to.

Yet in your original post you stated..

Instead of just rebooking me, Virgin merely refunded the early discounted fare leaving me unable to book a new flight.

So you outright lied in your original post. You stated that they just refuned your money..that's it end of story.  We now only confirm that in fact they did reschedule you again, but it was for 5 days later. However that was unacceptable to you.  Where since your story is so special that unlike the other thousands of people that got stranded you are too good and special to have to wait 5 days.  After all no one else stranded has family, school or jobs.  They are all just single millionaires who sit on the beach all day wondering what A-List party they are going to go to that night.

Look I'm glad you found an earlier flight, as you shouldn't have to be "stranded" for several days. But the fact is that you are not alone and it isn't like the airline was randomly picking on you. They HATE cancellations as it causes many more issues than you would even know.  SO just realize that even though you got out early..there are still people, many of whom probably have as much reason if not more of one to get out of NYC as you, that are still there.  Because you took a seat on the earlier flight that did not go to someone else.  Perhaps even one of those people you see sleeping on the floor in the airport as you are boarding the flight.

Have a great flight..because someone else is still waiting.

 After many hours on the phone and messages sent, Virgin came through and promised to refund the difference in miles used and money spent to restore the tickets to the original price. We are scheduled to fly out tomorrow, three days before virgin initially tried to "reschedule” us to. Apparently the critic above finds it reasonable to wait in an airport for over a week until the Airlines is able to book you in the same cabin and price as initially booked. Nonetheless I am sure that anyone spending that week living in the airport or spending $200+ a night for a hotel while awaiting their flight would feel differently. Hoping that virgin follows through with their reimbursement and that my flight leaves tomorrow (four days post snow) as like most, I have a job, kids and a life waiting at home. I think anyone in this situation or the ability to empathize can agree that above critic is a ________. Hope he has a nice day wrapped in his judgment.

 First of all I’m from New York - a city native. Second the reason it was five days is because that’s when they would have been able to get us on the next available flight. Third, the flights were cancelled after the storm and the streets were cleared. Nonetheless, the point was not so much cancelled flights but instead virgins position of refunding a fare that was paid months in advance and requiring us to pay $1200 a ticket as the last minute fares were considerably more expensive. In my opinion, that is a form of extortion. Of course you are welcome to your opinion, albeit misinformed. I am sure your opinion would be quite the contrary if you had found yourself in my shoes.

You apparently have not really experienced severe winter weathe being you live in Los Angeles.

Based on how you wrote this post, you figure that they just "randomly" cancelled your flights for the sole purpose of forcing you to pay higher fares.  Makes total sense...right?

This storm caused all 3 NYC area airpots to shut down for several hours on Thursday. Depending on the airport 70-90% of the flights to/from these airports were cancelled throughout the day. As of Friday due to the cascading effect of the cancellations several dozen more flights were cancelled...from ALL airlines. Do you really think you were the only one affected by the cancelled flight?  With storms like this it can take 3-5 days for all of the airlines to recover and get back to normal operations.

But there is one thing I am confused about. You talk about the huge cost of tickets that you had to purchase, yet you also talk about the 5 (extra?) days you had to pay on a hotel. This is confusing as it has only been 1 day since the 5th.  Also, per Virgin's site they are waiving all change fees and differences in fares as long as you rebook by the 10th in the SAME cabin.

https://www.virginamerica.com/cms/traveler-alerts

So is this a case of they gave you a CHOICE to either take a full refund and find your own way, or to wait 5 days until they could rebook you? Is this a case where you took the first option of a refund, only to find that you under estimated the situation and found yourself without any tickets at all?