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Retirement celebration.
Week in New York with wife and son and his partner.
Bought economy tickets and upgraded with points to upper class for me and boss in a330 neo.
Wanted to enjoy retreat suite with adult kids and share some time with them in jump seats as advertised with expansive space and partitions down. Paid £400 each extra for these seats in addition to upper class upgrade miles (under the old points scheme).
Lovely staff.
Informed could not lower the partition (known to be busted) – hence just a slightly more spacious upper seat.
Expressed displeasure.
Told to speak to customer service and get some points.
Really totally completely utterly ruined what we were looking forward-to.
Customer service on return – offered 25k miles (me only, and zero for the boss) and nothing for the failed experience and the extra £400 each paid for a “nothing” retreat suite was dismissed as “you took the flight, so we can’t make any allowance for this”.
Final offer, by email, 30k points and “that’s all we can do”. Points transferred to my account.
No points transferred for the miles flown either leg.
Tier points added.
I am so unhappy and dissatisfied and fuming.
My daughter was given 30k points on a previous flight for an uncomfortable seat with broken foot rest.
So I’ve been totally pissed-on.
Been loyal Virgin customer for the routes that I travel.
Got 550k points in our accounts.
How should I respond this meagre and miserly offer?
What further avenues are there for redress?
I was planning to fly loads with Virgin etc and use my points, but now ….
I appreciate any thoughts and feedback and advice
Ps return flight in premium was A1!!@samir – I’m sorry to hear about your disappointing flight and what you consider to be inadequate compensation following your complaint. The issues you report seem a little confused and non specific and focus more on how you felt than on defects in the product vs what was promised. I don’t think you can really draw any parallels with compensation received by your daughter on a previous occasion as these are discretionary sums and such comparison risks making you look like a compensation chaser rather than serious complainant.
If you wish to pursue the matter, you could escalate to Virgin’s Executive Office if you really think that’s appropriate. If you choose to do this, it’s worth remembering that anything they might offer is a matter of goodwill, not obligation so I would be very careful with the tone of my letter, keep it simple and factual and specify what you seek by way of compensation, obviously keeping that reasonable. What specifically was wrong, why VS didn’t provide or meet the description for the extra service / product you paid £400 extra for etc.
But despite the broken divider you still got the retreat suite!
That’s why VS are only offering you these points to recognise the inconvenience.
If your wife submits her own complaint then she’ll too get some points.
I’ll posit they didn’t give her any because you either didn’t claim any for her or of you did it was lost in what you wrote to VS
Your daughters case is totally different to yours as a broken foot rest would actually make the seat uncomfortable to use whereas a broken divider didn’t affect
the seat etc.IMHO accept the offer and move on.
Really struggling to understand how a broken divider can result in a ‘dreadful flight’, although I’m not familiar with the retreat suite. Compensation seems perfectly reasonable.
I just wouldn’t pay £400 for seats but other than that second the advice above!
For others who may consider the retreat suite, I have never seen the divider working. Always either stuck up or stuck down. When stuck down and twi men who didn’t know each other were seated in the seats, one opted to move a few rows back.
Unsure – are your adults kids permitted to come from their economy seats to sit on the “foot stools” found in the Retreat? – is it not for other guests also in UC who are in your travel group that you invite
Side Note not aimed at you – stupid idea to allow groups to sit for noisy chats while others around them try to sleep? I thought that was the purpose of The Loft seating area
Anyway – you paid a hefty ££ Premium on top of and separate to the cost (points or cash) of the UC experience so you should reasonably expect that product to be working 100%
If not, you should expect a full refund of the £400 AND perhaps some compensation – after all, you need to shell out for another UC flight AND money for the Retreat in order to experience what you’ve paid for once already.
Many many thanks for some very helpful comments and the sympathy expressed is gratefully received.
1. Don’t think I got what I paid-for, and the marketing specifically indicates the opening of the suite into what is effectively a room and suggests others can come and join. There is no specification anywhere on the class of customer that can come and join us
2. I think it’s worth looking at the seductive marketing for the suite and photos to see what I should’ve got – it is effectively a small room at the front of the cabin
3. If the divider doesn’t work, pre-warn me at least. I wouldn’t expect to hire a limousine, and then find I cannot lower the divider to speak to the driver. So, the functionality of the suite was not as advertised
4. I therefore would request the return on the £400 each for a faulty suite that was not as advertised, and a return of the points over and above what I might have used for a premium-class upgrade
5. And then, some form of compensation for ruining what should have been a high quality experience (retirement trip), which I am likely only to have once in my lifeSo, think I’ll take the advice of JDB and express my dissatisfaction to the executive office, as I expect there should be some accountability for this poverty of function, and some responsibility for living up to what you advertise.
If you can’t do it, don’t say you can …
I can only 2nd what JDB said. If your complaint follows the style of your recent post it will be rejected. Keep it clear concise and unemotional with no flowery language or hyperbole like that contained within your posts.
Part of the problem seems to be your expectation. It is not and never was “a small room at the front of the cabin”. Another part seems to be your expectation of compensation. What you say in 4 and 5 is unclear, but if you ask for £400 back (cost of retreat) then that seems more than reasonable as you still got all the other space benefits. Presumably there was also nothing stopping you from dining 2 and 2 if dining as a 4 was not possible – which is maybe not quite as advertised but would at least give much of the experience. You don’t mention whether this took place (deliberately?). Your points 4 and 5 are unclear but are you really asking for a refund of the full retreat cost AND a refund of the full points cost of upgrading from a lower cabin to Upper AND some random compo on top? If I was reading that as a complaints handler my mindset would switch from how can I resolve to how can I reject as I’d be thinking ‘chancer trying it on’. Sorry to be blunt but vs the problem described, the level of demand for compo seems absurd. You weren’t downgraded to economy or left to starve for 12 hours.
Out of interest: were passengers from a lower cabin allowed to join you? To be honest if they were spending a significant part of the flight in a class above the one they booked, and using its services/staff then that seems beyond generous already.
I wonder if the main problem here is that you had built up an expectation of some sort of Qsuite experience (or more! ‘Small room’!) based purely on an angled-lens marketing shot of 4 people having a glass of wine while 2 are wedged onto footstools. You have realised that the retreat – even when fully functioning – is nothing like that – and now buyers regret is fueling a desire for faintly ridiculous levels of compensation.
Anyway, keep it short, factual, no flowery emotional stuff. If your response contains the words ‘ruined’, ‘disgusted’ or ‘appalled’ then bin it and start again. Don’t confound with separate issues (you believe some miles should have credited? – deal with that separately in the normal way) Request a reasonable remedy based on the actual defect. Good luck.
4. I therefore would request the return on the £400 each for a faulty suite that was not as advertised, and a return of the points over and above what I might have used for a premium-class upgrade
5. And then, some form of compensation for ruining what should have been a high quality experience (retirement trip), which I am likely only to have once in my lifeYou are not going to get a double refund. That will just get laughed at by the people dealing with this.
Apart from the broken divider for which you have already been offered 30k miles as compensation you got all the benefits of the UC experience including access to the private security wing, the Club house (including inter alia you and your wife guesting your adult son and partner into both as well) and the benefits of the seat etc.
And IMHO you aren’t going to get any extra compensation for a marginally spoilt trip just because you retired. Over egging your complaint is simply going to end up with VS doubling down and not offering you any more than they have already.
Agreed with all the comments above – although personally I wouldn’t bother with a formal complaint in such a situation.
On our last UC flight from CPT a couple of weeks ago, the bar area was taken up by PE passengers all the way. Plus, Champagne ran out after one hour on a day flight!! We didn’t feel the need to complain or get compo though, as we still got to our destination in relative comfort.
I would also be keen to learn if the kids in Y were allowed to sit in your suite – and for how long? What were the rules?
I am hoping that the FSM didn’t allow your adult ‘child’ and his partner ( who were flying in Y ) to join you in the UC cabin in the ‘Retreat Suite’. If I’d been a paying passenger in the cabin I’d have been livid if this were permitted (and any half decent FSM wouldn’t have entertained this nonsense anyway). I’m not sure when the cost of these seats increased to £400 each either as they used to be half that?
Are PE pax officially allowed at the bar? When I flew PE a couple of years ago, there seemed to be a clear divide between the permitted spaces with cabin crew hovering around the loos and galley areas, although this might have been a somewhat over-zealous approach to protecting the privacy of the Corrie “celeb” in UC!
@Northern Lass – no they’re not.If there are off duty staffers in PE there often are though. On numerous flights I’ve had to ask the FSM to remove them as paying UC passengers were unable to sit on stools .You do still get the odd interloper from PE trying their luck as well !
@Dragonlady, I thought it must be the case. We are flying our first UC next month and my OH is very intrigued by the bar. It’ll probably be a bit of an anti-climax (I think he’s imagining himself as Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace), but hopefully he will at least get a seat!
@NortherLass IMHO the bar isn’t what it used to be -now often used by crew for setting, up doing paperwork etc and often no dedicated staff to serve passengers (the EK bar is way better in that respect). I’ve met some interesting people over the years whilst sat there (including a few famous folk) :).My OH rarely joins me at the bar as he’d rather stay in a comfy seat . If the bar doesn’t seem to be in use just tell your OH to plonk himself on a stool ( and join him ) 🙂
I am hoping that the FSM didn’t allow your adult ‘child’ and his partner ( who were flying in Y ) to join you in the UC cabin in the ‘Retreat Suite’. If I’d been a paying passenger in the cabin I’d have been livid if this were permitted (and any half decent FSM wouldn’t have entertained this nonsense anyway). I’m not sure when the cost of these seats increased to £400 each either as they used to be half that?
They are still £ 200 each.
It certainly was the case pre pandemic for passengers from another cabin we’re permitted to join someone in UC for a quick drink either at their seat or at the bar with the permission of the FSM. There are probably up to date reports on that on v-flyer on it.
It certainly wouldn’t be so they could all enjoy a full meal or several rounds of drinks. On the other hand it would be OK if all the passengers were in UC but this isn’t the case here.
We always travels UC and as a result looked at the promo for the Retreat Suite Seats. To me they simply looked as being larger seats sitting side by side the aim being a couple can sit close to each other. I never saw them as being a separate room or, indeed, anything like it. As the OP states the UC seats were for just him and is wife I cannot see how his two children could join them. I too would be livid if I thought that was happening after I had paid to be in UC. To me the busted partition is a minor irritation certainly not worth any more than Virgin have offered.
There doesn’t appear to be any real divide now between UC/PE – the curtain is rarely closed on 787 as the 4 toilets seem to be shared. On the flight out, we were UC and I asked whether PE can use the bar (just out of curiosity) – the response from FSM was ‘it depends…’? I guessed that to mean Gold, staff etc are ok??
However, I must admit that I would have been upset if ‘guests’ came and sat in J. This would be a rare case where I would make my point to the FSM.
@kiwibrit62 official policy is bar is for use of UC passengers only but YMMV. Back in the days when I was Au with VS I was brought (on a couple of occasions) a glass of fizzy stuff when in PE as ‘a thanks ‘ for being AU.I wasn’t offered access to the bar and would never have asked for it.
The FSM has discretion (with the request not always granted ) to allow access to the bar for non UC guests if asked by an UC passenger but usually with the caveat it’s for a restricted time period ( no more than 30 mins in my experience and when the bar is quiet ).Personally I’ve never seen non UC ‘guests’ sitting on ottomans in the main cabin but have occasionally sat on OHs to eat (if I’d converted my seat and he hadn’t).
@BA Flyer IHG Stayer sadly there’s very little activity on v-flyer these days. Its a shame as it was a fabulous community and I ( physically ) met lots of great people via it 🙁I am hoping that the FSM didn’t allow your adult ‘child’ and his partner ( who were flying in Y ) to join you in the UC cabin in the ‘Retreat Suite’. If I’d been a paying passenger in the cabin I’d have been livid if this were permitted (and any half decent FSM wouldn’t have entertained this nonsense anyway). I’m not sure when the cost of these seats increased to £400 each either as they used to be half that?
They are still £ 200 each.
It certainly was the case pre pandemic for passengers from another cabin we’re permitted to join someone in UC for a quick drink either at their seat or at the bar with the permission of the FSM. There are probably up to date reports on that on v-flyer on it.
It certainly wouldn’t be so they could all enjoy a full meal or several rounds of drinks. On the other hand it would be OK if all the passengers were in UC but this isn’t the case here.
Showing as £300 each for my upcoming West Coast flight.
@Dragonlady, I thought it must be the case. We are flying our first UC next month and my OH is very intrigued by the bar. It’ll probably be a bit of an anti-climax (I think he’s imagining himself as Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace), but hopefully he will at least get a seat!
We flew VA for the first time last month to MLE in UC, and I’m pleased I didn’t have the seats closest to the bar. It’s a night flight and there were a few customers who decided to perch at the bar for a fair while, and definately impacted the noise levels for those closest to the bar and rying to rest. I was pleased to be in 5A & 6A so mid cabin on the left hand side, also slightly more private than being in the middle or right hand side seats.
Enjoyed the VA experience, food defo better than BA and the Clubhouse excellent. Just a shame about the limited (for me) desirable locations they fly to (and the nuts dynamic points situation). Loved the Maldives too, took me three midnight fastest finger contests to secure T-355 for next year.
Lol @ wanting a full refund and compensation on top cos a divider didnt work.
“Personally I’ve never seen non UC ‘guests’ sitting on ottomans in the main cabin”
I had this on my last VS flight. Two work colleagues, only one in UC. The other one came up and sat on the ottoman as the first drinks service was being done and making noise in a way unique to London marketing & media types. I was casting daggers at the cabin crew as they headed down the aisle and either because something was said or intimated, the interloper made himself scarce as the starters arrived.
Unsure where the OP got his idea that The Retreat was transformed into a ROOM ?
And, as another poster mentioned, I wouldn’t be too happy travelling next to someone I didn’t know and the divider was stuck in the open position – trying to watch TV while they were also watching something would seriously do my head in lol
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