Faith in virgin renewed?

[kylie]

Of late virgin have been geting a bit of a bashing, and if all is true, deservedly so. However it is not all bad news. We booked our summer vacation early last year. I was disgusted that when the second edition brouchere came out that virgin had introduced reduced the fares of those aged 11-16, which would have saved me £200.

I went to my TA who said no chance they just will not reduce the fare to the present rate. Fool that I am I accepted that and let the matter go However this morning sanity reigned and I phoned virgin, guess what - No problem £200 better off as a deposit on an as yet to be booked flight with virgin 11 months after the next one!!!

Just trying to be fair credit were credits due

 

[kazzie]

That is great news.There is never any harm in asking and look what you got

 

[Hilary]

Hi Kylie,

We did the same - booked early but missed out on the teen rate We have two teens in our group of 12 travelling in October, so it would be worthwhile for us if we could get the saving!

Do you mean that Virgin were unwilling to give you a rebate, but were happy to let you use the £200 as a deposit only? Or was it the travel agent who was unwilling and Virgin would have given you a reduction on the holiday price? I don't know whether we'd want a credit on a deposit at the moment, but a reduction would be great!

Any tips on how I might go about looking into this?

 

[kylie]

What I tried to say was Virgin are sending the TA a new invoice for £200 less on the balance due 8 weeks before departure. The rep said at the start that I would get the rate if seats were available however as its booked for the last 3 weeks in Aug I was not hopeful, but as I said previously I got the new rate, no argument, no fuss.

I just phoned them on 01293 617181 - Reservations as 0870 2223828 is a dead line

 

[Hilary]

Thanks for the clarification

I think that's going to be my problem - the flight we've booked has been (apparently) booked up for ages because it covers the half term dates. On top of that, we have 12 in our party, so if there has to be availability for the whole group, not just those who want teen prices, then I'm sure we'll be out of luck Well done for getting your August dates!

I might give the TA a call anyway to see whether Virgin might feel generous enough to apply a discount to some attraction tickets or something

 

[kylie]

go straight to Virgin, I think th TA saw the chance to make a bit extra. The phon call took 10mins. Acording to the online res our flight booked out 9 months ago so although it was mentioned at the statr I don't believe it was a factor.

 

[Hilary]

Okay - I've just phoned our TA (Airmiles) and spoke to Mrs.Most Unhelpful rolleyes:! She said that the price is whatever applied at the time of booking, and could NOT be changed now.

Then I phoned Virgin and spoke to Sarah who was very pleasant and most helpful! She said that it would have to be done through my TA, but there was nothing to stop them re-pricing the holiday to get us the current price <i>regardless of whether or not the holiday is still available</i>, i.e., it's just a question of the TA doing a bit of paperwork.

So..... I shall try ringing Airmiles again later to see whether I can speak to someone who didn't get out of bed the wrong side this morning!

 

[Hilary]

Result!

I tried AirMiles again today and explained what I had been told by Virgin. They confirmed this with Virgin, and have re-priced the holiday using the teen rate The re-pricing also came up with a slightly better rate for car hire second week supplements, but added in a new supplement for 'security' which has been introduced since September 11th (has anyone else had this added on?). Bottom line is a reduction of £123 on the total cost - worth a couple of phone calls, I feel.

Apparently Virgin are willing to re-price for teen rates as they do not want to be seen to be penalising passengers who made early bookings before they introduced the teen prices. They would not normally re-price for other differences which might appear between brochure editions.

 

[kylie]

Well Done

Now if we could only convince Virgin that it is unfair to double flight prices during July/Aug and just encourages parents to face the ire of a hypocritical government!!!

 

[Baldrick]

Having read Kylies post, I have also contacted Virgin as we have a 12 year old that we paid adult prices for in May last year. I spoke to Lynn who said yes they would re price the holiday with the teen rate but we would have to go through our TA. When I contacted the
Co-op travel they were sceptical but as I insisted that I had already spoken to Virgin then they agreed to speak with them.

Result a £47 refund. Not an enourmous amount when you see the difference between adult and teen price as some discounts are lost, (3rd Adult etc) but better in my pocket than theirs

They do reprice everything from the second edition brochure, so any prices that go up in brochure are accounted for as well as those that go down.

Well worth the phone call for me, thanks guys.


Reg