VS cancelled flight but only refunding taxes and fees

[stoneman]

We booked to go to LAS for May 21 2021. On May 7th received an email saying flight was cancelled. Options were a refund or travel voucher. We accepted the voucher as the sweetner was £400 extra each added to the original price paid if traveling in Upper.

Fast forward, we now find that ticket prices are so high that we have no chance of using the vouchers so have requested a refund. Received conformation today but they are only refunding the taxes and fees(about £550) and the heading on the pdf file says “customer cancelled flight”.

Trying to speak to someone is impossible, thay have also done away with the Whatsapp feature, so all I could do was fill out the complaint form. (The email that the refund conformation came from just bounces back to me when I try to reply)

Anyone have any proper contact email or phone that I can direct my query to?

[NorthernLass]

Problem is, you accepted a voucher instead of insisting on your re-routing rights and you’re now bound by whatever Ts and Cs are attached to that. You need to check these very carefully – if they say that if you subsequently request a refund you are only entitled to the tax element, then you’re out of luck.
However, the header of “customer cancelled flight” might suggest that they have actually made a mistake and you may be entitled to a full refund as per the original cancellation, but you might have to show that it was VS who cancelled and not you.

[ChrisC]

As NL says once you took the voucher you no longer had a flight to cancel so it’s whatever the T&Cs say about cancelling vouchers that applies.

You need to check the vouvher T&Cs either on the email you got when you took the vouvher or from the VS site (IIRC there are different rules depending when you booked the flight so read the right section)

[stoneman]

After writing to CS stating that they cancelled the flights not me, without a reply the remaining £1,450 arrived in my credit card account about 2 weeks ago.

[AL]

I tend to find VS quite good about this sort of stuff. The loss of the WhatsApp channel is annoying, but I’ve rarely had to hold on either of the phone lines for more than a few minutes, and they’re decent at sorting issues out when on the blower.

[Paul B]

Can you still cancel an award ticket (future travel) voucher for a refund less the £30 cancellation fee?

[ChasP]

As noted you gave up your rights on accepting the voucher
Back in the early days of the pandemic my LX flight was cancelled (booked on points +CC voucher) I took the offer of another upgrade voucher rather than refund and the booking was still active although delayed for up to 2 years (and I could still claim a refund at any time) and I duly booked a flight for October even though there were no reward flights available.

As I said this was very early in the pandemic when Virgin were cash short and desperate not to have to pay refunds and this was a no brainer offer but IIRC it didnt last long