In American English, a lot of words are spelt with a single consonant plus "-ed", rather than two consonants as you often find in British English. Why isn't "plan" spelt with a single consonant?
Answer
As chrylis observes, there is no distinction in AE/BE spelling of the inflections of words ending in a stressed syllable like plan. The duplication consistently indicates the pronunciation.
The ‘American’ practice (which is no longer exclusively US) of declining to double these final consonants applies only to final consonants of unstressed syllables. Travel is inflected as traveling and traveled rather than travelling and travelled, but refer is inflected with duplication, referred and referring.
To an unsophisticated American eye, a spelling with unexpected duplication like travelling suggests that its user pronounces the syllable -vel- with with a 'short e' [ɛ] and stressed (like the composer Ravel) rather than with a schwa [ə] and unstressed.
I suspect that to an unsophisticated British eye, a spelling with unexpected non-duplication like traveling suggests that its user pronounces the syllable with a 'long e' [i:] and stressed (like reveal).
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