Issues with Virgin Holidays and New York

Layla_CK

Help!

We booked a holiday and paid a deposit to go to NY in December this year for my husband's 30th.

We booked the holiday with Thomas Cook, who I believe, acted as an intermediary for Virgin Holidays who we are flying with and booked the hotel.

We get a letter from Virgin, via Thomas Cook, to say our hotel - The Hyatt in NY, is having major refurb works to its top two floors for the next 12 months (must be major then!) and sorry for the inconvenience!

Thomas Cook said that we could book another hotel and between them and Virgin they would swallow any costs as best they could!

We ring back with a list of hotels we want to swap to, and out of them they can do possibly 2 at the same/lower price - our holiday has gone up significantly since we booked it, but they will only credit us the price we paid in April against the cost of a new hotel in NY. Virgin won't budge on any discount on a new hotel due to inconvenience at swapping at all!

Fine - we asked for the Beacon Hotel and Apartments - Thomas Cook said we would get £150 back off the holiday price (as it's a cheaper hotel) and they would ring Virgin to book it. Virgin told them that it would take 3 working days to apply for the room with the hotel and they would get back to us!?!

4 working days later we ring Thomas Cook as no news, leave them a voicemail and they ring us back, miss the call as we're at work. Ring them back and our advisor isn't available and will ring us back - she doesn't, so we ring back this evening and find out she left us a voicemail (no she didn't!) and that the hotel is no longer available with Virgin and we have to find another hotel!

We have had enough of Virgin and Thomas Cook, and are down to possibly 1 hotel we could swap to without further cost incursions to us!

I guess we haven't got a leg to stand on have we in complaining? :mad:

Thanks for reading!

Alan_Bowen

The problem you have is that the changes are not the fault of the operator, although I fail to see how refurbishment of 2 floors of the Hyatt which has 1300 rooms could possibly affect you in the first place. The top rooms are not usually the ones you get at the basic price and I wonder if they realise they sold the holiday below cost and don't want to pay for the hotel at all? You have a couple of choices, say you'll stay where you are, the Hyatt and the Beacon at not in the same league at all, or if they can convince you your holiday will be ruined, and I doubt that it will, you may have to stick with the overall cost you paid in the first place.

dmg24

I agree - the Hyatt is massive so I can't see the problem. Also the rooms need upgrading so any works being done would be a definite positive.

Layla_CK

Hi!
Thanks for the replies! I mistakenly said they were refurbing the top two floors, I was wrong!

The letter states "Two floors of the hotel will be taken out of inventory at a time whilst they refurbish the guest rooms. No noise should be heard as the floor os not being used and guests cannot gain access. The Manhattan Sky Restaurant is also closed....Work is taking place 7am to 5pm daily. Some of the work may be done later in the evenings, but this will be confined to moving furniture"

Our luck we would be just above/below the floor being refurbished/having furniture pushed about! Although we will be out of the hotel all day I guess - such a pi$$ off though, booking a dream holiday and then having to choose a new hotel from a list of about 2 or 3!!

KarenG

Truly I wouldn't worry. You'd be really unlucky to even be aware there was a refurb going on.

Being that you are going to get a worse class of hotel if you swap - if you even can - I would stick to the Hyatt. If it's not acceptable when you arrive - complain to the manager. You'd be unlucky not to get a different room.

photome

Layla_CK wrote: »

Hi!
Thanks for the replies! I mistakenly said they were refurbing the top two floors, I was wrong!

The letter states "Two floors of the hotel will be taken out of inventory at a time whilst they refurbish the guest rooms. No noise should be heard as the floor os not being used and guests cannot gain access. The Manhattan Sky Restaurant is also closed....Work is taking place 7am to 5pm daily. Some of the work may be done later in the evenings, but this will be confined to moving furniture"

Our luck we would be just above/below the floor being refurbished/having furniture pushed about! Although we will be out of the hotel all day I guess - such a pi$$ off though, booking a dream holiday and then having to choose a new hotel from a list of about 2 or 3!!

Stay where you are. I have stayed in hotels in the US when refurbs are going on and not heard a thing.

Remeber that in the US customer service is king. If you did happen to get a room where you could hear anything ask to be moved and they will move you

Pinklepurr

I know it's annoying but I really don't think this will affect your stay. You'll be out of the hotel so much and you'll be so tired when you get back that you won't be worrying about refurb work. I too have stayed in hotels in NYC where facilities are being refurbished and it has never been a problem. You are move likely to hear traffic & street noise than you are furniture being moved! Go and enjoy your holiday and really try not to worry.

windswept

Can you not simply remove the hotel portion of the trip and book one yourself? That's what we did when one of our Egypt hotels was changed by Thomas Cook.

Layla_CK

Hello again!
The saga continues! Due to Virgin wanting money on top for every decent hotel we could swap to (if they weren't sold out!) we decided to stick with the Grand Hyatt. Got a phone call on Weds night from Thomas Cook to say that Virgin had informed them that due to the number of complaints received they had put the Grand Hyatt on 'STOP' and that we had two hotels we could swap to - Comfot Inn Manhattan and 70 Park Avenue. Comfort Inn reviews look pants so did a straight swap to 70 Park Avenue - funnily enough when we enquired about stopping there a few months ago Virgin said it would be approx £150 each on top, but now it's a straight swap?!

We are glad we have a decent (we hope) hotel booked without building work - but sooo peed off with Virgin's pants customer service it's untrue! They wouldnt even give us a discount on their Lounge in Heathrow to say sorry for all the messing about!!!

Grrrr

ferf1223

so they've put you in a hotel that would have cost you more, after taking the decision to stop sending customers there due to complaints about the work going on, without charging you extra...that seems like a decent outcome, doesn't it?

Layla_CK

Yes it does, we are happy with the hotel!

But why not just do that in the first place instead of giving us undue worry about our holiday?