Virgin Atlantic reserved seats now not reserved

Nala

Summercherry have you tried calling VA's special assistance dept to see if they can help? 01293 473650/0870 3802004.

I'm sure I've read somewhere that more seats are released then the 24 hour online checkin opens.

vivatifosi

Hi Summercherry,

Have you tried the Virgin Customer Care for disabled passengers line? See http://www.virginholidays.co.uk/info/important/disabled_customers/customer_care/special_assistance.aspx

I would hope that if you explained the situation they would take the time to help you, particularly as they have moved your party and there are special circumstances in your case.

vivatifosi

Nala - great minds think alike! Must have been posting that at the same time...

David_Bicker

My advice would be:

• Check-in on line 24 hours before the flight - the front 10 or so rows are held back until this time - you should get better seating at that point.
• If that fails, get to the airport really early and see what they can do at check-in.
• If that fails, ask to board early with those needing assistance and ask to see the flight services manager (they will have a black shirt on) when you board the plane and explain your situation. You'll probably be told to sit in your allocated seats until everyone is on board and they will try and swap you around with another family.

For what it's worth, and I hope many other passengers would be the same, if I saw your situation on board I would swap with you to make your, your family's and other passengers a better journey!

I've personally never expereinced a problem with Virgin but they do appear to be attracting a reputation for having a 2 tier service both in terms of aircraft, IFE, cabin crew etc bepeding on whether you are flying from Gatwick or Heathrow!

duchy

Summercherry wrote: »

My son is autistic and he has to have a window seat so he can see what is going on otherwise all hell will break loose. Now we dont have window seats and there is nothing they can do because both flights are fully booked.

Not true Virgin don't preallocate all seats a certain percentage are held back so give them a call and ask to speak to disability services and explain the situation-don't be fobbed off by normal reservations staff as they don't have the authority to open up the unallocated seats. Explain exactly what your son's disability is and why you need a window seat (an awful lot of people don't understand exactly what autism is and why a window seat is so important in this instance) and chances are they will sort it
EDIT Whoops-can I join the "great minds" club too !

Summercherry

Thanx - I'll give them all a go!!

debs66_2

David_Bicker wrote: »

My advice would be:

• Check-in on line 24 hours before the flight - the front 10 or so rows are held back until this time - you should get better seating at that point.
• If that fails, get to the airport really early and see what they can do at check-in.
• If that fails, ask to board early with those needing assistance and ask to see the flight services manager (they will have a black shirt on) when you board the plane and explain your situation. You'll probably be told to sit in your allocated seats until everyone is on board and they will try and swap you around with another family.

For what it's worth, and I hope many other passengers would be the same, if I saw your situation on board I would swap with you to make your, your family's and other passengers a better journey!

I've personally never expereinced a problem with Virgin but they do appear to be attracting a reputation for having a 2 tier service both in terms of aircraft, IFE, cabin crew etc bepeding on whether you are flying from Gatwick or Heathrow!

David, re your earlier comment about the age of my children, yes they are older (16 + 18), but when we paid more than £4000 (and my partner and I pay that, because the kids are students and not able to pay their own way), you do expect some level of service. OK, Virgin changed the plane, but they had our email address, mobile number and home number, so why could they not give us the courtesy of some contact to inform us of the change while the flight was still not fully booked? This was also a Heathrow to LA route, with many single business passengers, rather than families, yet no one gave a toss about helping us. the apathy was clear at every option.

with regards your check list, we did check in online, within minutes of it opening, and our option to change seats was still barred. we arrived early at check-in and politely asked for our problem to be addressed, but again the apathetic response followed and the standard 'no seats are guaranteed' T&C quoted. again, why could we have not been moved back together and someone else been reallocated - after all, if our seat isn't guaranteed, why is the next man's..?

i have real sympathy for the woman with an autistic son, and i would gladly have moved to help this person out. in fact, had other passengers not been so caring, i would have spent both of our flights on my own next to strangers.

i have to say that before this flight, i was a Virgin supporter. the only reason we had so many points towards an upgrade was because of previous flights with them, and we had been hammering our Virgin Amex to build up the miles. the marked difference in customer service this trip was obvious, and we paid around £2500 more for the privelege. we wished we had just flown ecomony and saved the money. that said, we've learned our lesson with Virgin. I think they may have hired Mr O'Leary in the customer service department...:cool:

donny_osmonds_mad_fan

In a way sadly you answered your question yourself....why wont they move the single business man...and you were a family on a fairly non family route....the answer will most likely be 'business'. As sad as it seems you may only travel once a year with them, those business men may well travel each month or more so, plus of course their companies may travel with them etc.

Having worked for airlines on check in, trust me the high status flyers are king...sad but true.

This is why I am even unwilling to attempt to fly virgin out of heathrow after my awful flight into gatwick. I know from working at heathrow in T3 that the virgin staff were always the ones unwilling to be friendly to other airlines (unless they wanted seats on our flights) at times you have to check info with other airlines and with them it was always like pulling teeth and anyways they always come up more expensive for the routes I wish to fly.

I paid £86 return on a staff ID90 for my return, thankful they got me home mind you when my employers planes were full out of vegas, however the level of service made me feel like I paid about £85 too much.

unfortunately in this day and age the airlines do champion the business passenger, but then of course there are also some who will go out of their way to help families sit together etc.

gibbyni

Just to update this is what i got back from Virgin

Thank you for contacting us regarding the change to your pre-assigned seat onboard.

We have recently made amendments to our London Gatwick seat maps, which has meant that certain seat numbers are no longer available to pre-assign to anyone and will only be available on the day of departure upon check in at the airport. As a result passengers already assigned these seats have had to be moved to alternative seats.

We understand and appreciate that you may have pre-assigned these seats some time in advance and apologise unreservedly for any inconvenience caused. We always try and accommodate a request but can never guarantee them due to many factors including aircraft and operational requirements.

It is not possible for us to contact passengers when pre-assigned seats are changed, as they can happen at anytime including right up to departure. When it is necessary for us to change a passenger's seat number, we endeavour to assign a seat of similar position, although it is not always possible to do that.

We appreciate your feedback and constantly strive for a perfect solution to accommodating the great variety and volume of seating requests that we receive.

Thank you for contacting Virgin Atlantic Airways.



At least there admitting its cos there changing the seating plan and dropped the rubbish about Airport Authority. They say they they try to get a seat of similar position but thats rubbish they didnt pick one at all and im assuming it was the same for summercherry.

David_Bicker

debs66 wrote: »

David, re your earlier comment about the age of my children, yes they are older (16 + 18), but when we paid more than £4000 (and my partner and I pay that, because the kids are students and not able to pay their own way), you do expect some level of service. OK, Virgin changed the plane, but they had our email address, mobile number and home number, so why could they not give us the courtesy of some contact to inform us of the change while the flight was still not fully booked? This was also a Heathrow to LA route, with many single business passengers, rather than families, yet no one gave a toss about helping us. the apathy was clear at every option.

with regards your check list, we did check in online, within minutes of it opening, and our option to change seats was still barred. we arrived early at check-in and politely asked for our problem to be addressed, but again the apathetic response followed and the standard 'no seats are guaranteed' T&C quoted. again, why could we have not been moved back together and someone else been reallocated - after all, if our seat isn't guaranteed, why is the next man's..?

i have real sympathy for the woman with an autistic son, and i would gladly have moved to help this person out. in fact, had other passengers not been so caring, i would have spent both of our flights on my own next to strangers.

i have to say that before this flight, i was a Virgin supporter. the only reason we had so many points towards an upgrade was because of previous flights with them, and we had been hammering our Virgin Amex to build up the miles. the marked difference in customer service this trip was obvious, and we paid around £2500 more for the privelege. we wished we had just flown ecomony and saved the money. that said, we've learned our lesson with Virgin. I think they may have hired Mr O'Leary in the customer service department...:cool:

Debs I guess you were unlucky with the OLCI then and the other passengers unwilling to move to help. I may be wrong but I'm sure larger airlines like BA don't allow you to pre-assign seat requests like Virgin do? It may be a good or bad thing that we get a choice of seats with Virgin.

I know it is inconvenient that they do not honour these requests sometimes but it is clear in the booking T&C's.