Virgin Holidays nightmare

[jaketruck]

Hi all

wanted to share my experience with VH, hoping someone might have any kind of ideas or advice.
We are flying man to mco on october 23 for 2 weeks in a villa, family of 4, with universal tickets.
We booked in august last year. We started saving airmiles like crazy with hopes of an upgrade to premium.
We got bubble seats booked the day they became available, and continued saving airmiles like mad.
We contacted the flying club in January to ask how upgrades would work, and were advised to ask for the flight to be "ticketed".
We called into the VH shop, this was sorted with an email, all done by the assistant in the shop.
A couple of texts sent to the flying club over the next few weeks but no upgrades were available.
Fast forward to covid, and it has all changed.
The 747s have gone, still waiting like everyone for a bubble seat refund.
So, to come up to date. We have decided it may be best to change our holiday dates.
Turns out, thats absolutely fine. If I'm willing to pay an admin fee of £185 per person to do this!
Virgin Holidays say this is my fault because I requested to be ticketed. That is correct but at Virgin Atlantics suggestion, with no mention at all of any charges should anything go wrong.
Looking on the VA website they have a policy of 2 changes with no fees!
So, I can change for an admin fee of £740. If the situation in the pandemic is still the same in april, I can change again. For another fee of £740.
Just wondering if anyone else has come across this situation?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

John

[Loulou127]

Originally Posted by jaketruck

Hi all

wanted to share my experience with VH, hoping someone might have any kind of ideas or advice.
We are flying man to mco on october 23 for 2 weeks in a villa, family of 4, with universal tickets.
We booked in august last year. We started saving airmiles like crazy with hopes of an upgrade to premium.
We got bubble seats booked the day they became available, and continued saving airmiles like mad.
We contacted the flying club in January to ask how upgrades would work, and were advised to ask for the flight to be "ticketed".
We called into the VH shop, this was sorted with an email, all done by the assistant in the shop.
A couple of texts sent to the flying club over the next few weeks but no upgrades were available.
Fast forward to covid, and it has all changed.
The 747s have gone, still waiting like everyone for a bubble seat refund.
So, to come up to date. We have decided it may be best to change our holiday dates.
Turns out, thats absolutely fine. If I'm willing to pay an admin fee of £185 per person to do this!
Virgin Holidays say this is my fault because I requested to be ticketed. That is correct but at Virgin Atlantics suggestion, with no mention at all of any charges should anything go wrong.
Looking on the VA website they have a policy of 2 changes with no fees!
So, I can change for an admin fee of £740. If the situation in the pandemic is still the same in april, I can change again. For another fee of £740.
Just wondering if anyone else has come across this situation?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

John

See more...

Jaketruck, did you pay in full for the flight portion of your holiday to enable them to ‘ticket’ the flight part? We were told the same thing when we wanted to use miles to upgrade to PE, we didn’t do it in the end, can’t offer any advice on admin fees, but one word of caution if you decided to now cancel please check with them what portion of what you’ve paid you would forfeit, the reason being they may say as they’ve ticketed your flights you can’t get that money back, I’ve heard of people being told this, hope you get it sorted soon x

[jaketruck]

Hi Loulou

yes,we had paid enough to get the flight ticketed.
They have told us it will cost £4057 to cancel the holiday.
To be honest, I would have paid the admin fees if it was a one off charge. But if covid is still as bad in april, I would have to pay it again to rebook.
The balance of the holiday has to be paid at the end of the week, which I have to (very reluctantly) pay, or I am breaching the t&c's.
I don't want to be a moaning git, but under the current circumstances, surely paying the charge once is enough.

John

[Loulou127]

Originally Posted by jaketruck

Hi Loulou

yes,we had paid enough to get the flight ticketed.
They have told us it will cost £4057 to cancel the holiday.
To be honest, I would have paid the admin fees if it was a one off charge. But if covid is still as bad in april, I would have to pay it again to rebook.
The balance of the holiday has to be paid at the end of the week, which I have to (very reluctantly) pay, or I am breaching the t&c's.
I don't want to be a moaning git, but under the current circumstances, surely paying the charge once is enough.

John

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What a difficult decision for you, a lot of money to pay out, however if October holidays get cancelled you would eventually get it all back 😢😢

[Loobylou_82]

If you change from October to April then surely the new holiday won't have been ticketed so why would you have to pay again if you had to change the April one?

[lizzie145]

At present any VH booking for October is subject to usual amendment fees so whether your flights were ticketed or not would not make a difference.

Why not wait and see what happens over the next few weeks.

[kcanderson]

Another fine example of Virgin adhering to their t&c ,when it suits
Good luck OP

[jaketruck]

Loobylou, we were offered dates for april next year, with an increase in price that we would accept, plus the admin fees.

We asked the question is the admin fee only payable once, and were told that because its the same booking reference, the admin charges due to being ticketed would apply again, if we wanted to change again due to covid.

What is really frustrating is VA policy is no admin fees to change flights

At the start of the whatsapp chat, we were told we could ammend with no admin fees, which I would think is the usual £50pp to change.

John

[Loobylou_82]

Originally Posted by jaketruck

Loobylou, we were offered dates for april next year, with an increase in price that we would accept, plus the admin fees.

We asked the question is the admin fee only payable once, and were told that because its the same booking reference, the admin charges due to being ticketed would apply again, if we wanted to change again due to covid.

What is really frustrating is VA policy is no admin fees to change flights

At the start of the whatsapp chat, we were told we could ammend with no admin fees, which I would think is the usual £50pp to change.

John

See more...

ah! Got it..That is really

[hotspotuk]

I got our Oct/Nov holiday cancelled and all money moved over to the June holiday that I had already booked when the virus hit the UK at no extra cost