Virgin Atlantic axes Hong Kong flights, permanently

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• Matt says:

  6 Oct6 October 07:35

  Also free money received from Amex. I will be making a travel booking on the 11th and chasing for the credit as set out in the new T&C.

• Peter says:

  6 Oct6 October 07:40

  Booked HKG for Easter. They are not offering alternative fights, just refund or voucher. So tired of this, now have to take Virgin to CEDR and probably small claims.

• D says:

  6 Oct6 October 07:41

  I had confirmation from Amex the 200 from Amex travel can be spent on anything as the balance on my business card went to -200.

• Tim W. says:

  6 Oct6 October 07:43

  We had an email from Amex on 28 September explaining that the £200 travel credit is a new benefit of the Business Platinum card.

  • Rob says:

    6 Oct6 October 07:46

    And it is – but that letter told you that you needed to spend £200 at Amex Travel in one transaction in order to trigger it.

    Perhaps there are IT issues with getting the vouchers up and running?

• Paul says:

  6 Oct6 October 07:48

  Virgin’s departure from Hong Kong demonstrates again that the consumer is poorly served by alliances and that these have killed off competition.
  Virgin once had “ No Way BA/AA” emblazoned on the side of their aircraft but now join forces with Delta and Star.
  From London only BA/CX serve Hong Kong non stop and fares are stratospheric yet service is appalling (BAs one tray meal)
  Only transatlantic offers a genuine choice of multiple carriers on routes and yet it would be fair to say service is pretty dire even then.
  The industry is in a mess as far as the consumer is concerned

  • Rob says:

    6 Oct6 October 07:50

    BA and Cathay don’t have a price fixing agreement on HK, unlike the one BA and JAL have to Tokyo (or BA and Qatar have to Doha and beyond).

    • Jonathan says:

      6 Oct6 October 12:14

      That’s why a lot of us are wishing that the All Nippon Airways redemption via Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points doesn’t disappear, following the announcement of joining SkyTeam

      • Rhys says:

        6 Oct6 October 12:14

        They won’t, apparently.

      • Marcw says:

        6 Oct6 October 12:52

        Why should those redemptions go with them joining SkyTeam??
        Airlines are still able to partner with airlines outside the alliance.

        • Jonathan says:

          6 Oct6 October 13:04

          There was once a great deal with Air China before the ANA redemption option, which was a recommended redemption choice, that deal ended before Covid was heard of, either way though, the sweetest spots are usually in high demand, and they’ll notice it sooner or later, or either airline decides they’ve had enough, or the contract reaches its end date, and isn’t renewed for whatever reason

• MT says:

  6 Oct6 October 07:52

  I received the £200 Amex Travel on all 3 Business Plat cards I have access to that renew on various dates so appears to be very wide spread handout. Feel like someone applied it to the accounts rather than the offers tab! Not the first time Amex have screwed up on something like this!

• MT says:

  6 Oct6 October 07:56

  In regards “Annoyingly I don’t have our statements to hand and it takes 24 hours to request statements older than six months from Amex so I can’t confirm our renewal date.”

  Just go into Statements and Activity online and then View by Year, it will show you all transactions for the previous year and you can check the date. Once all transactions show just search the page for 595. Or download to Excel and do a similar thing.

• Paul says:

  6 Oct6 October 08:41

  Tried to reroute a virgin ticket for April I had booked and told on the phone that it can’t be re routed.

  • Rhys says:

    6 Oct6 October 09:14

    They’re wrong 🙂

    • JDB says:

      6 Oct6 October 09:59

      As Rhys says, VS is wrong but as there is no sanction for not allowing you to exercise your rights, they will be awkward. Also, if they do reroute you (and some have reported that they have in the past after HKG cancellations with EK or CX) bear in mind that if it is on a non UK/EU carrier, you will have no EC261 rights for the replacement flight and it is very unlikely you would be able to change it so there are some drawbacks.

      • JDB says:

        6 Oct6 October 10:18

        Sorry, I should have specified that having no EC261 rights applies only to the return flight if on non UK/EU carrier. Outbound would be covered but still issue re changes.

      • Mark says:

        6 Oct6 October 13:56

        My experience is that VS will yield if pushed hard enough, though it may well require the involvement of their exec team. We managed to get a reroute from a cancelled LHR-SEA redemption booking to the same-day Delta service, even though they initially insisted it couldn’t be done (despite it having a VS codeshare) and moved us onto the following day’s VS service.

        If they still won’t, it may be necessary to pursue it through ADR. I also wonder if anyone has successfully tried a Section 75 claim for replacement flights in similar circumstances.

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