Virgin Atlantic rebooking master thread

[tom1]

Saw someone mentioned it would be good to have a thread to share experiences of rebooking cancelled virgin flights (and how willing/not they are to abide by the laws).
I can’t see that a thread exists yet, so here we are.
Interested to know whether they are willing to rebook on other airlines/routes/dates.

[tom1]

Here is a link to the letter sent to airlines by the CMA/CAA outlining passenger rights

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1092823/CMA_CAA_joint_letter_to_airlines.pdf

[tom1]

And here is the HFP article about the letter, and the BA flights :-

https://www.headforpoints.com/2022/07/22/uk-airlines-warned-by-caa-and-cma-over-customer-rights/

[tom1]

So I’ll start – I had flights Lhr-HKG booked for Christmas/new year.

I am flexible to travel on slightly different dates, but clearly virgin have cancelled all flights until March 2023 so won’t be flying with them. Also, Heathrow isn’t my starting airport, and HKG isn’t my final destination.

Fwiw I booked with points, and Rob confirmed that any rebooking should keep the same benefits (including flexibility) as the original ticket.

Any experience of them allowing you to change start/end airports slightly? (Even if it’s cheaper for them?)

I haven’t tried yet, but will share what I find.

[JDB]

@tom1 quite a few points in there. Re starting point/end point (I know you are asking re Virgin) BA has a 300 mile policy that is a concession on their part, but there is no statutory requirement to change origin/destination particularly if, as I think you imply, the start/end points are on separate tickets to the long haul. Nevertheless, Virgin could potentially be helpful or pragmatic and assist you, so you want to be prepared with options that work for you that they might go with; they are unlikely to suggest them, so you need to be fully armed with ideas and see what they might go for. Thus far they don’t seem to have been unduly helpful to their cancelled HKG pax vs help on cancelled US flights, but they will be getting a lot of angry calls, so maybe they will get something organised.

In terms of ‘flexibility’ I think you may have slightly misread that. The rerouting rights you now have are a one off opportunity to get rebooked on flights where there is any cash availability in your class, no redemption availability needed. Once you select that rebooking, you won’t be able to change anything without redemption availability, change fees etc. unless flights cancelled again, so choose carefully.

[tom1]

JDB wrote:

@tom1 quite a few points in there. Re starting point/end point (I know you are asking re Virgin) BA has a 300 mile policy that is a concession on their part, but there is no statutory requirement to change origin/destination particularly if, as I think you imply, the start/end points are on separate tickets to the long haul. Nevertheless, Virgin could potentially be helpful or pragmatic and assist you, so you want to be prepared with options that work for you that they might go with; they are unlikely to suggest them, so you need to be fully armed with ideas and see what they might go for. Thus far they don’t seem to have been unduly helpful to their cancelled HKG pax vs help on cancelled US flights, but they will be getting a lot of angry calls, so maybe they will get something organised.

In terms of ‘flexibility’ I think you may have slightly misread that. The rerouting rights you now have are a one off opportunity to get rebooked on flights where there is any cash availability in your class, no redemption availability needed. Once you select that rebooking, you won’t be able to change anything without redemption availability, change fees etc. unless flights cancelled again, so choose carefully.

Thanks @jdb.
Indeed I have separate tickets either side of my virgin flight so I understand virgin have no obligation to be helpful, but good advice, I’ll be prepared with suggestions thanks.

Re keeping original cancellation terms from my points booking – this was @Rob reply when I asked the question. I think he agrees with me – I shouldn’t be disadvantaged by virgin cancelling in my opinion. Here’s the question…
https://www.headforpoints.com/2022/07/22/uk-airlines-warned-by-caa-and-cma-over-customer-rights/comment-page-10/#comment-791654

[Gary]

VS9 3 Aug LHR JFK four UC reward seats cancelled by VS. Called 7am yesterday & got through in 5 mins. Original departure 1440 so asked for 1230 flight but only 3 (revenue) seats left on that flight, so compromised on the early 0920 departure! Didn’t discuss re reroute via another airline close to original departure time as don’t want the uphill battle. No duty of care as coming from home except more sleepy cranky children. Presumably no comp due as I voluntarily agreed to depart 5 hours earlier?

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[AL]

Gary wrote:

VS9 3 Aug LHR JFK four UC reward seats cancelled by VS. Called 7am yesterday & got through in 5 mins. Original departure 1440 so asked for 1230 flight but only 3 (revenue) seats left on that flight, so compromised on the early 0920 departure! Didn’t discuss re reroute via another airline close to original departure time as don’t want the uphill battle. No duty of care as coming from home except more sleepy cranky children. Presumably no comp due as I voluntarily agreed to depart 5 hours earlier?

I am not the expert on this topic in this forum, but I think you still have some rights to compensation. When an airline cancels your flight with less than fourteen days’ notice, you’re entitled to reimbursement, re-routing or a date change. Once you choose an option, you can’t change it, and the other options go out of the window. However, I think you are entitled to compensation if your flight was cancelled (and you were informed) within seven days of departure *and* you were offered re-routing, so long as the re-routing results in more than one hour difference to your original departure time and more than two hours’ after the original scheduled arrival time.

In short, you might be – but a lot of this hinges on the definition of ‘re-routing’, I’d think. One for the experts…

[JDB]

@AL in principle you are right about the compensation but there is a lack of clarity re earlier rerouting departures in Article 5, 1(c)(iii) and although this was clarified by the ECJ it was only after Brexit so is not binding on English courts and since the ECJ essentially made new law, it’s not certain how it would be decided. Further, in this instance, it is highly likely that Virgin would ascribe the cancellation to ‘extraordinary circumstances’ on the basis the airport ordered the cancellation.

[Gary]

Thanks @AL @JDB for clarification. Think will leave it. Fingers crossed no further cancellations.

[tom1]

what’s the best way to contact Virgin these days?
I’ve tried calling in the last couple of days, and sat for more than 1 hour before I gave up.

the chat bot seems to be hopeless – goes round in circles.

any suggestions?
thanks!

[Carlos]

tom1 wrote:

what’s the best way to contact Virgin these days?
I’ve tried calling in the last couple of days, and sat for more than 1 hour before I gave up.

the chat bot seems to be hopeless – goes round in circles.

any suggestions?
thanks!

They used to or may still have a whatsapp customer service number

[tom1]

Carlos wrote:

They used to or may still have a whatsapp customer service number

yep – sadly it ended in February. was never the quickest, but worked for me.

[Bob]

tom1 wrote:

what’s the best way to contact Virgin these days?
I’ve tried calling in the last couple of days, and sat for more than 1 hour before I gave up.

the chat bot seems to be hopeless – goes round in circles.

any suggestions?
thanks!

call the US number , got through in 5 – 10 mins yesterday eve just before 9pm

[tom1]

Thanks Bob – didn’t see your message but called the U.K. number at 7am this morning and got straight through.
Interestingly I normally faff around entering my flying club number at the point it asks – I didn’t do it this time and instead it then asked if I was travelling in Upper Class (which I was). I don’t know whether this is why I got straight through.

Anyway … Hkg flights – she said she could only offer me a refund as there are no more flights and they have no patternships. I referred back to the open letter from CMA/CAA and eu261 – she said there was nothing she could do and suggested I raise a complaint.

Anyone else been more successful?

[ckcrunch]

I am in the same boat as you Tom – have you had any luck raising a complaint? I was given the runaround and have had to send multiple emails and calls with customer services, but at every stage they are refusing to rebook on alternative airlines, even though this is clearly contradicted by the CMA/CAA letter to airlines.

I have raised an official complaint, as well as sent them a letter warning that I expect Virgin to reimburse my costs if I am forced to buy a cash ticket since my travel date is fast approaching, but have not received any response yet.

[steve7612]

So it looks like the new round of Heathrow cancellations have had their impact on Virgin VS138 (and I assume the outbound to JFK VS138) has been cancelled.

Unfortunately I was booked on VS138 (11pm JFK to LHR) and rebooked onto the 8:15am (same day so loosing a full day in New York!), I have since managed to get rebooked onto the 6:45pm so better but still losing most of the afternoon which I had plans for. They were able to rebook me but not give me a seat choice as all seats full in PE except the bulkheads – assume I’ll get put their on check in?

Do I have any other rights by being moved 4:15hrs earlier? I obviously lose a not insignificant amount of time on quite a short trip, but more annoyingly is the arrival time as I now have a long connection (9hrs) in Heathrow!

The very frustrating bits are there is availability on BA at the equivalent times but they laughed at me when I suggested they rebook me with another carrier, there is also availability on the 9pm flight but not in PE.

[Jon]

Virgin have given me a re-route for my cancelled HKG-LHR flight next year (Upper Class, originally booked as a miles redemption). Getting it was somewhat frustrating, and the outcome is not as good as it should have been, but at least I have a flight.

Usual BA-esque story initially – I called a week or two after the cancellation notice, and was told my only options were refund or voucher. I asked for a re-route (as I do need to make the trip) but was told they can’t offer that. Mentioned EC/UK261 etc. That resulted in what was evidently a prepared statement being read out to say they’d be emailing affected customers in a week or two with options.

I didn’t receive anything, so I called again about three weeks later, same story.

I then emailed the CEO, and the next day got an email from ‘Customer Solutions’ (I suppose that does sound somewhat better than Customer Services maybe, although perhaps implying that customers have problems more often than they need services? 😉 They’d booked me onto an Emirates flight – leaving 2.5 hours earlier, routing HKG-BKK-DXB-LHR, arriving 10 hours later than my original schedule, and turning a 13-hour direct flight into a 25-hour two-stop itinerary. Not ideal.

I did push for a better option – e.g. Cathay has a direct flight with a very similar schedule, and another an hour later – but they said they don’t have a ticketing agreement with them (which shouldn’t really be an excuse, but what can you do if they insist on refusing…). Plenty of other options that would have made for a shorter journey, fewer stops, and better arrival time, but none were offered – I was basically told ‘take it or leave it’. Frustrating as even on Emirates there was a shorter routing available (seats for sale), with a 2 hour transit in Dubai rather than almost 5. But they refused that too.

The other big issue for me was that they told me (although only after I asked – so be careful to check this if you’re in the same position) that once I accept the ticket, no changes or cancellation would be possible. So going from a fairly flexible ticket that can be changed or cancelled for £30 to a completely non-flexible one. Not sure whether ‘comparable transport conditions’ in EC261 was intended to apply also to the fare conditions, but it probably should!

They then said I had 48 hours to accept the re-route or they’d cancel it and refund me. Which struck me as pretty poor – almost coercive. Especially as they had provided very little information to help me make an informed choice (eg I went back and asked for the full fare conditions as they’re not shown in the booking; they didn’t send them, but they did at least confirm that, despite what they’d said earlier, the ticket would in fact be cancelable for the usual £30 fee – just not changeable. I can live with that, but really they should have booked a flexible ticket. I’m left with the impression that they’ve basically booked the flight that’s cheapest and easiest for them, without paying any regard to my inconvenience, or to the CAA guidelines re minimising disruption, avoiding extra connections, keeping the journey time as close as possible to the original etc. They’ve basically done the exact opposite of what the guidelines say lol. And it’s not as though they haven’t had plenty of time to put in place agreements with other airlines.

In the end I decided to accept the re-route on Emirates, despite the much later arrival and extended journey time. They weren’t really giving me any other option, other than to take a refund or I suppose buy a ticket myself and LBA/MCOL for reimbursement (which I imagine might be a bit hit and miss, as strictly speaking they have provided a re-route, just not one that comes particularly close to meeting the guidelines or the spirit, if not the letter, of the regulations).

I’ll make the best of it, and I suppose there are worse places to be than Business Class on an Emirates A380 (at least it has a proper bar! 😉 But it has left a bad taste, and has dented my goodwill towards the Virgin brand.

[tom1]

Perfect, thanks for the update @jon. Sounds like I need to do the same and write to the CEO, perhaps with some suggestions on flights and stating in the beginning that I expect the cancellation rules to be as per original booking.

Will feedback.

[Jon]

@tom1 Definitely – writing to the CEO does seem to do the trick. It shouldn’t be necessary of course, but there we are. I don’t know whether Shai himself would have seen my email or maybe it was dealt with by someone in his office, but either way it was evidently passed on to the right team promptly and things moved quickly from there. Had it not been for the specific detail of the poor timing of the re-route offered, and the fare conditions malarkey, I would have been happy – quite impressed, even – with their handling of it from that point. As it was, rather a shame they wouldn’t or couldn’t offer any of the various better-timed options. They have at least since credited me 20,000 miles for the inconvenience.

For what it’s worth, my email was basically a brief summary of the issue, with the booking reference, and outline of what I wanted (re-route at earliest opportunity per Article 8.1(b) etc), some suggested options, and a request that he ask the relevant team to deal with it as soon as possible. I didn’t mention the cancellation rules or the CAA guidelines (perhaps I should have!) but I did mention EC/UK261 and the CMA/CAA joint letter.

Good luck, and please do let us know how you get on!

[JLN]

Interested to hear others experience with rebooking reward seats to Cape Town.

We had 5 x Upper Class reward seats on Virgin to Cape Town for Easter 2021. Flights did not go, due to Covid, and so we had an open ticket.

We now want to go Easter 2023, and Virgin are only operating the direct Cape Town route in the winter schedule, which stops pre Easter school holidays.

They can easily put us on the flight to JNB – and have been super helpful here (much more so than I had expected/than BA were in similar circumstances). However, they say it is tricky to get us to CPT as they don’t have a strong link with another airline etc… For cash, it would seem you get routed on Airlink from JNB to CPT, and Virgin will happily sell me this leg as an extra (or of course I can make my own way there).

Any others in this position and what was the overall outcome? We like flying Virgin, and are very happy with the no fuss re booking so far – but am curious to see if anyone else has tried to get CPT rebooked and whether eg they managed to get the leg from JNB to CPT rebooked at no extra cost?

Thanks in advance.

[NealMK]

Related to this – are we able to claim ORC (original routing credit) for the cancelled VS HKG flights? Given your ticket was a mileage redemption presumably if it’s possible it would just be TPs

Jon wrote:

Virgin have given me a re-route for my cancelled HKG-LHR flight next year (Upper Class, originally booked as a miles redemption). Getting it was somewhat frustrating, and the outcome is not as good as it should have been, but at least I have a flight.

Usual BA-esque story initially – I called a week or two after the cancellation notice, and was told my only options were refund or voucher. I asked for a re-route (as I do need to make the trip) but was told they can’t offer that. Mentioned EC/UK261 etc. That resulted in what was evidently a prepared statement being read out to say they’d be emailing affected customers in a week or two with options.

I didn’t receive anything, so I called again about three weeks later, same story.

I then emailed the CEO, and the next day got an email from ‘Customer Solutions’ (I suppose that does sound somewhat better than Customer Services maybe, although perhaps implying that customers have problems more often than they need services? 😉 They’d booked me onto an Emirates flight – leaving 2.5 hours earlier, routing HKG-BKK-DXB-LHR, arriving 10 hours later than my original schedule, and turning a 13-hour direct flight into a 25-hour two-stop itinerary. Not ideal.

I did push for a better option – e.g. Cathay has a direct flight with a very similar schedule, and another an hour later – but they said they don’t have a ticketing agreement with them (which shouldn’t really be an excuse, but what can you do if they insist on refusing…). Plenty of other options that would have made for a shorter journey, fewer stops, and better arrival time, but none were offered – I was basically told ‘take it or leave it’. Frustrating as even on Emirates there was a shorter routing available (seats for sale), with a 2 hour transit in Dubai rather than almost 5. But they refused that too.

The other big issue for me was that they told me (although only after I asked – so be careful to check this if you’re in the same position) that once I accept the ticket, no changes or cancellation would be possible. So going from a fairly flexible ticket that can be changed or cancelled for £30 to a completely non-flexible one. Not sure whether ‘comparable transport conditions’ in EC261 was intended to apply also to the fare conditions, but it probably should!

They then said I had 48 hours to accept the re-route or they’d cancel it and refund me. Which struck me as pretty poor – almost coercive. Especially as they had provided very little information to help me make an informed choice (eg I went back and asked for the full fare conditions as they’re not shown in the booking; they didn’t send them, but they did at least confirm that, despite what they’d said earlier, the ticket would in fact be cancelable for the usual £30 fee – just not changeable. I can live with that, but really they should have booked a flexible ticket. I’m left with the impression that they’ve basically booked the flight that’s cheapest and easiest for them, without paying any regard to my inconvenience, or to the CAA guidelines re minimising disruption, avoiding extra connections, keeping the journey time as close as possible to the original etc. They’ve basically done the exact opposite of what the guidelines say lol. And it’s not as though they haven’t had plenty of time to put in place agreements with other airlines.

In the end I decided to accept the re-route on Emirates, despite the much later arrival and extended journey time. They weren’t really giving me any other option, other than to take a refund or I suppose buy a ticket myself and LBA/MCOL for reimbursement (which I imagine might be a bit hit and miss, as strictly speaking they have provided a re-route, just not one that comes particularly close to meeting the guidelines or the spirit, if not the letter, of the regulations).

I’ll make the best of it, and I suppose there are worse places to be than Business Class on an Emirates A380 (at least it has a proper bar! 😉 But it has left a bad taste, and has dented my goodwill towards the Virgin brand.

[Jon]

@NealMK We should be able to I think, yes. But as you say, only for the Tier Points on a redemption. Will be interesting to see whether they credit automatically – but if not, I’ll ask for ORC.

[Jon]

Just wanted to come back and say something nice about Virgin 🙂 After my previous experience of trying to get my first cancelled HKG flight re-routed and ending up on Emirates, and only after an email to the CEO, I was bracing for a difficult conversation when I called to sort out my other cancelled HKG flight. But it was all very easy. They apparently now have an arrangement in place with Cathay. I was asked what dates and flights I wanted and got exactly that. Now rebooked on direct flights on CX, same dates, similar times, all done in about 15 minutes, and ticketed a few hours after. Of course, they should have had that in place first time round, but good to see they’ve improved and got it sorted now. Much better service and exactly how it should be. Faith restored etc 😉