Reply To: Virgin Atlantic charging annual fee well before renewal

[JDB]

Pointsamateur wrote:

davefl wrote:

My approval date was 24/9 last year and they notified me in August that the Sept statement (on the 24th) would have next year’s charge.

What is concerning is that it’s been 30 days since I hit the spend target and no sign of the voucher yet. I’ve not spent anything on it since then and I want to cancel before the 24th.

The start date isn’t when you receive the card, it’s the date your application was accepted. It took over 3 weeks for my card to arrive last year.

Thanks for the info. Our application date was 28th Sept 2021. So in my opinion, the fee should be charged once we reach that anniversary, which would put it on the next statement. As this is a card in my wife’s name, it’s very possible that she has had an email about the impending renewal fee and missed it.

That’s not how Virgin operates! They collect the fee so that it is paid by the renewal date, not afterwards as would be the case for you. In the case about which there was an HfP article of an Ombudsman win, the customer won only on the basis that he had been reducing his spending so it was clear he was planning to close his account, not on the basis V isn’t entitled to charge the fee in month 11. Thus you want yo avoid using the card and to get on and cancel the card, asking for a refund of the full fee, otherwise you will miss the boat and have a tedious fight that you may not win.