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Not quite an It’s a Wonderful Life type ending but I’m glad that my faith in humanity was valid and more importantly @AP11 has not ended up losing it all.
@AP11 Not entirely the hoped for result but so happy you have been vindicated and your account reinstated.
Well done for persisting – I’m sure there are many people who would have given up before they got to this point.
The original flight have now been booked and I haved booked it with a different airline.
I have asked for 100,000 points or accommodate in on a virgin flight to my destination.
Sorry not clear.
Did you get your original flights back from Virgin?
or did you shell out cash to book on another airline.Either way, Virgin owes you a d*rn sight more than 15k. I’m very relieved for you, but I do not find their apology sufficient.
Please advise about the final outcome and whether you will continue with Virgin in future.
Would love to know which of your flights had what unusual security feature as frankly that just sounds like b*lls.
The original flight have now been booked and I haved booked it with a different airline.
I have asked for 100,000 points or accommodate in on a virgin flight to my destination.
Sorry not clear.
Did you get your original flights back from Virgin?
or did you shell out cash to book on another airline.Either way, Virgin owes you a d*rn sight more than 15k. I’m very relieved for you, but I do not find their apology sufficient.
Please advise about the final outcome and whether you will continue with Virgin in future.
Would love to know which of your flights had what unusual security feature as frankly that just sounds like b*lls.
I booked another flight with points with another carrier for a later date as all the flight for my original date was all booked out.
I hope they do give me more than 15K points as thats not even worth the hours I have spent chasing Virgin and Amex.
I will be using the current points on flights other than Virgin and will not be transferring any more points once I have utilized all of them.
I have no idea why they are saying unusual flight as this is my first booking and all of them was with KLM from AMS.
Harumph.
Virgin : “all our bookings are subject to random security checks. This is not only to safeguard our passengers but also to ensure our systems have not been compromised. It was during one of these that this booking was identified as having various anomalies not consistent with e booking route”.
The OP : “this is my first booking and all of them was with KLM from AMS.”
Not sure how this can be your first booking.
You say “all of them was with KLM from AMS”So which is it?
Were you earning on multiple flights from AMS with KL, but this is the first time you booked an award using points with Virgin?If so it looks like someone having personal history with UK and US addresses, yeah that was OK, but flag up that every ticket that earned points on the account had its first flight departing a third country… (AMS)…From an airline point of view I can just about see they might have a control in place on booking award tickets which your booking triggered an alert on in an audit job run after the booking was made. But it’s stretching things though. And trigger happy if the account was then suspended without a manual review.
Of course it would be more spicy if your trips from Amsterdam touched the famous US compliance list including any of Cuba, Syria, Liberia, Iran etc. But I bet you travelled to innocuous destinations.
Or the other theory, perhaps Virgin wanted to take back your Christmas flights to sell them for much, much higher revenue instead, or to get enough seats for a high-value multiple seat booking (perhaps for some entertainment star + entourage that booked late) and looked around for whose booking could they cancel to get that seat back that they needed. The fact that they didn’t reinstate your booking, which especially as they admitted it was their fault they should have done, and abandoned you to try to make a new booking with Customer Services supports this.
Though why your account needed to be suspended as well
… that’s just plain nasty.For the loss of your Christmas booking I’d say 100,000 or 2 return tickets in Upper to any of their destinations would indicate some sort of remorse and attempt to make right.
Frankly their apology is just not good enough.
I agree with you – walk away from Virgin as whatever caused this isn’t going to go away, If there was a security issue you’ll probably find SSSS on your boardong pass too many times in future.
Or if it was a commercial issue or even just a mistake, they haven’t apologised enough nor made it right so again, walk away.
(But try to make them make the right level of apology first.)
15k points and here’s the customer service number to try and rebook a flight… that’s a dreadful apology. More of an insult. The plot seems to thicken. A lot of this doesn’t make sense. But glad you’ve at least got your points back.
I initially read the Virgin response as offering to rebook your original flight for you if you give the call centre a call; and a different interpretation only entered my thinking on reading the responses. Maybe I’m a naive optimist :D. I do concede that it’s not explicit and in fact is ambiguous, but would call and check on whether the option to rebook the original flights for original cost is still available before assuming it wasn’t part of the offer and continuing the complaint or badmouthing them for failing on that particular aspect.
I initially read the Virgin response as offering to rebook your original flight for you if you give the call centre a call; and a different interpretation only entered my thinking on reading the responses. Maybe I’m a naive optimist :D. I do concede that it’s not explicit and in fact is ambiguous, but would call and check on whether the option to rebook the original flights for original cost is still available before assuming it wasn’t part of the offer and continuing the complaint or badmouthing them for failing on that particular aspect.
agreed
I imagine this would count as a flight cancellation, albeit under slightly unusual circumstances. If so, Virgin has a responsibility to get you to your destination, most simply by reinstating the original booking.
To be fair to Virgin, they couldn’t do that without a call centre conversation. The OP may no longer want to travel, and the payment for taxes and charges has been refunded.
Without knowing the outcome of that conversation, it’s impossible to judge whether Virgin has dealt with this fairly, albeit slowly.
I imagine this would count as a flight cancellation, albeit under slightly unusual circumstances. If so, Virgin has a responsibility to get you to your destination, most simply by reinstating the original booking.
This unfortunately doesn’t count as a flight cancellation for the purposes of UK261 which defines a cancellation as “the non-operation of a flight which was previously planned and on
which at least one place was reserved.”It’s a contractual dispute without the benefit of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 so really needs to be by negotiation. Once the OP had bought another ticket he should have advised VS of the loss occasioned by their failures.
If you sell points, you deserve to get your account canceled & closed.
Why? Sure it’s against the T&Cs (whether enforceable or not remains to be seen), but why is that a moral certainty?
I imagine this would count as a flight cancellation, albeit under slightly unusual circumstances. If so, Virgin has a responsibility to get you to your destination, most simply by reinstating the original booking.
This unfortunately doesn’t count as a flight cancellation for the purposes of UK261 which defines a cancellation as “the non-operation of a flight which was previously planned and on
which at least one place was reserved.”It’s a contractual dispute without the benefit of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 so really needs to be by negotiation. Once the OP had bought another ticket he should have advised VS of the loss occasioned by their failures.
I stand corrected!
Virgin has come back to me and offered 50K points.
Virgin has come back to me and offered 50K points.
That’s still wholly inadequate unless the cash tickets you have purchased to replace the booking erroneously cancelled by VS cost less than the returned miles and cash plus the 50k now offered. VS should be covering the cost of the replacement tickets + whatever you think appropriate by way of compensation.
Nope. Not enough.
They’re not even trying.
You still haven’t said what you booked as a replacement, was it for the dates Virgin cancelled and was it with another airline? So we don’t know what replacing their erroneous cancellation has cost you.
I’d be tempted to push again for reinstatement on dates booked if my other arrangements could be cancelled.
I also believe their security excuse was b0ll0x, or at least extremely badly executed. I’d be concerned about potential impact of this on flights in your future generally, if it’s even true if they haven’t backed that out properly, and might express that to them as a concern you’re now landed with due to their error.
They might find it easier to give each passenger affected a free ticket to any destination than some other solutions. I’d go no less than 100k, minimum, plus all replacement costs, due to Christmas impact.
I do think technically it must count as cancellation, surely being offloaded is a cancellation at a personal level, or denied boarding… they can’t just get away with it.
When i spoke to them today the agent stated that they normally dont give anything more than 30K miles but she is doing a courtesy for all the hassle I have gone through and offered 50K points. I have asked them again for 100K points so going to see if they can assist me or even try to put me on a Virgin operated flight directly to my destination and I will pay the taxes on them which isn’t ideal but at least I will save my miles.
Currently I have booked KLM with Delta miles.
Can I try to claim the cancellation or denied boarding under Regulation 261/2004 EC.
agent stated that “they normally don’t give anything more than 30K miles but she is doing a courtesy for all the hassle I have gone through and offered 50K points”
They cancelled your Christmas booking.
If an agent tried that line on me I would, sorry, have to restrain myself so as to preserve the civility of the conversation.They owe you free rebooking costs plus whatever you think fair for the hassle. This assumes you were able to book on same date, or extremely close to, your booking that they cancelled. Better, and fairer would be that they book you back on the exact same flights they admitted they erroneously cancelled you from. They can bump someone else. (And still compensate you for the hassle.)
If you’ve had to travel at a different timing because Virgin erroneously cancelled your booking and refuses to put you back travelling when you were, then this must cost them. So you’re looking at replacement fare costs (or rack rate to purchase miles which is messier), plus an amount for the hassle generally of this whole thing, plus an extra amount for being forced to travel on another date messing up your Christmas plans. 100,000 sounds like should do it plus the costs. On no account would I be offering to pay taxes again.
I am really surprised as I thought Virgin had a bit more class.
This doesn’t add up. I find it hard to believe Virgin would be this appalling in terms of service recovery. BA gave me 140k Avios a few years ago for a poor experience in First.
@AP11, have you provided Virgin with all the costs you’ve incurred as a result of having to book an alternative flight? I see your original booking with Virgin was for today, so rebooking on that isn’t an option.Why did you call then today? I’d want to keep this in writing with the original team that offered the 15k points. Did you respond to them in writing outlining your costs?
@AP11 it would appear from the information you have provided that you and Virgin are talking at cross purposes. When the agent is telling you that they don’t normally give more than 30k miles, that must be referring to gestures of goodwill when you are asking them either to reinstate (at no extra cost) the flights you booked which Virgin erroneously cancelled. If they want to pay 50k on top by way of apology. They owe the the flights they cancelled as a matter of contract and unless they are clear on that point you probably won’t be properly compensated.
I don’t believe you would be eligible for any UK261 compensation for cancellation or denied boarding. This is a contractual dispute, nothing to do with 261.
@AP11 it would be great to hear an update from you on this.
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