Virgin Pick & Mix gives flagfall the flick

Virgin Australia has today launched new Pick & Mix plans, allowing customers to create their own plan while doing away with call connection fees (flagfall) at the same time.

Customers opting for the Pick & Mix plan start with an AU$19 per month commitment, buying $19 credit for calls and text messages, plus 100MB of data. Customers can then choose to add unlimited calls for an extra AU$30 per month, unlimited text for AU$10 per month and either 500MB, 2GB or 4GB of data. The bill for a customer choosing the highest data allowance and unlimited calls and messages would be AU$79 per month.

Virgin will offer subsidised phones on Pick & Mix plans and offer a SIM-only BYO phone option as well. There is no ongoing commitment for the Pick & Mix plans, though customers will need to pay out the phone if they leave the telco before they have finished paying for the handset.

The base level credit of $19 doesn't sound like much, but it comes with Virgin's cheapest rate for calls and messages; 15¢ per minute and 15¢ per message, with no call connection fee charged when placing a call. All other Virgin plans charge 40¢ flagfall on top of a 99¢ per minute billing. See the table below for a comparison of Virgin's cheapest plans using Australia's average call length of one minute and 30 seconds.