Virgin have done me dirty

[Kathola]

Hi all, long time follower, first time poster. I’ve benefitted a lot from your knowledge and insight over the past year or so and hoping someone could help me with this one. It’s a bit of a long one so thanks in advance for your time!

Due to the perfect storm of Virgin Atlantic messing up a redemption in 2023, taking ages to put it right, and the change to the rewards system, I’m going to be ridiculously out of pocket and their customer services are trying to fob me off massively. I’ve been (maybe too) polite and as helpful as I can be to get this rectified, but I’m still coming out at a big loss.

I booked a reward seat in November 2023 which cost 65,000 points. Virgin Atlantic charged my account four times instead of one, but because I was not checking my account regularly, I didn’t notice until November 2024 when preparing to make another redemption and had MINUS points balance. I noticed that in March 2024 they refunded me one lot of 65,000 points. They owed me two more lots.

I contacted and was told yes, you are owed the rest, but at the time I was refunded just one more lot of 65,000. Despite chasing this in November and December, saying I intended to book and was there any update, the balance of 65,000 points was not refunded until 8 January 2025.

In the meantime, I booked my own flight for October 2025 (31 Dec) for 39,500 points, intending to book my friend who is joining me as soon as the points were refunded. I did have a credit card reward voucher to use at the time but figured that would be a waste of 75,000 points, when the ticket was only 39,500 on its own. Boyyyyy do I regret that now.

When the final 65,000 points was refunded on 8 Jan, the cost of a reward seat on my booked flights had shot up to 192,000. I called VA to ask if they would honour the price on 31st Dec when I WOULD have been able to book if they hadn’t f-ed up my points four times already. It took 6 days for someone to call me and their solution was “we will give you 40,000 points so you can make that booking”. I was on a train at the time and couldn’t make a lot of sense of how that would work, because giving me 40,000 would make my balance 114,00, not 192,000. She said “make the booking asap because the price will go up again”. So as soon as the credit hit my account, less than an hour after the call, I went to book and see that those flights are still 192,000. So even if I used all my points, PLUS the reward voucher, it would only amount to 189,000. Incidentally the cost has now gone up to 194,000.

I wrote back to VA to say look, this hasn’t solved the problem. You’ve admitted you are at fault to begin with, why can’t you make this right? The response was “I listened to the call and the 40,000 points provided fixed the problem at the time so we won’t be doing anything else”. I’ve now asked for proof that those flights were available at any time on the 19th of Jan for 189,000 because I don’t believe they were. I’ve been checking them periodically for two weeks and they’ve never gone below 192,000 that I can see.

In hindsight I should have just used the reward voucher for my friend when I booked my own flight and taken the hit, but I’m just trying to get the best value out of my points and vouchers since they changed the rules.

Do you pros think that what I am asking for is unreasonable? I really feel like I’m being double whammy gut punched. By VA admitting their mistakes but not putting them right, and the reward scheme changes of dynamic pricing/availability and reward voucher devaluation.

I’m not asking for a freebie, just to have them honour the points it would have cost me if they hadn’t made multiple mistakes in the first place.

Thank you all so much for any thoughts or suggestions…

[dundj]

Based on your situation as you have pointed out above, Virgin Atlantic do not have to provide anything more than they have already.

When you booked your seat, the system would have seen this as your intention and you have only pointed out the friend as a second option after the original booking has been made, or at least this is how it reads in your post.

I’m afraid Virgin Atlantic are following the rules as set.

[The Savage Squirrel]

1) Do you have anything in writing from a few months ago stating that you wished to make that very specific flight booking (not just “give me my points because I’d like to book other flights”) which shows that you were unable to purely due to their points error? (sounds like you might)
2) Do you have anything in writing from Virgin agreeing to resolve the problem SO THAT YOU CAN BOOK THOSE EXACT FLIGHTS (their communication must reference this exact and specific point very clearly).

If the answer to (1) is no then Virgin have given you £400 worth of points as an apology for their error which seems more than reasonable – whatever flights you wish to book now and what they cost is irrelevant.

If the answer to (1) is yes and (2) is no then it’s a sticky wicket because you’ve requested compensation to book that flight, but they’ve never agreed to it and then you’ve accepted their counter-offer. Any attempt at further compensation would have to overcome this which seems unlikely. I’d probably move on.

If the answer to (1) and (2) is yes (and useful to get someone independent or not involved to really confirm that this is so) then they’ve failed to deliver what they had already agreed to remedy their error and it would seem reasonable to escalate this – first via the complaints process and if that fails via the executive team. As ever keep everything short, factual and unemotional if you do so. Not like what you’ve written here, which takes a couple of reads to exactly understand what went on. You’d need to state any issue much more briefly and clearly, and brutally cull any and all irrelevant detail. This will make you more likely to get the response you want.

I’d also decide, unemotionally, whether this is worth your time or whether just paying to cover the small shortfall in points (is it 3-5k? I lost track at that point – take this as an example of how people do lose track when there are too many details thrown at them) and making the booking would be a quicker solution at this point.

[Kathola]

Thank you both! Good to get outside perspective.

What I sent to them was an excel sheet with dates and laid out exactly what happened… really should have just posted that here!

It’s definitely not worth my time, but equally booking one seat for 194,000 when it was 39,500 days before is terrible value. You’re right, though, the effort isn’t worth it either. I’m mostly annoyed that they said “what we gave was enough to book when we gave it” when it actually wasn’t.

Much appreciated 🙏🏻