Virgin Holidays are Useless

Avnon

Hi guys, im basically having a dilemma with Virgin Holidays and im not sure what i can do next.

Back in January i booked a flydrive tour of Route 66 for me and a friend over 16 nights in August, and was quoted £4200ish. Originally i rang up to get a quote but the agent was pushing for a sale and kept asking "shall we get this booked for you then". I agreed to book and paid the £300 deposit on my credit card. I had asked the agent for young persons surcharge on the car rental as im under 25 and he confirmed he added that to the booking and also confirmed i was on the best insurance, i even asked about 3 or 4 times before the end of the booking and he kept confirming that was the case.

2 months later someone from Virgin rang me up and told me there was an error on my booking and i had been charged for the holiday twice and the actual price was £2961.

Between now and then i have added quite a few things onto my booking such as upgrading the car and recently changing my return flight for an internal one so i can come back at a later date. Basically on all of my paper and email invoices before i changed my flight it said "Insurance: Exclusive Car Hire" which is what i asked for but when i amended my flights the insurance changed to "Insurance: Basic Car Hire".

I rang up to dispute this as i had only changed the flight and the woman on the phone told me i had no insurance! Obviously i went mad and questioned it telling the lady i had the best insurance and she kept telling me i had NO insurance. I asked her why would i book a car without insurance and she told me because some passengers prefer not to drive. Why the hell would i book a car that none of us can drive? She then told me Exclusive and Basic car hire are the same thing they just changed the name (how can you compare the two words? On their website they have 3 insurance levels, basic, all inclusive and exclusive platinum). I said she had made a mistake and escalated the complaint. I demanded to speak to a manager to which she refused and said it wasn't a valid reason to speak to her manager but the person who made the booking would contact me.

3 days later i got a phone call and the I explained my situation and he said he would listen to the booking phone call and would get back to me. He rang back and apologised as i had received the wrong information from the agent and give me two options, paying the extra £300 or cancelling my holiday. Obviously im going to have to pay the extra as im not prepared to lose my holiday. I can understand i probably never did pay for the best insurance but the agent specifically told me i had the best insurance package and i have saved accordingly now 3 weeks before i have to pay the total amount they are demanding more money. I told the guy it was their fault but he refused to accept liability and refused giving me any form of compensation or upgrades.

I've physically got on paper that i have exclusive car hire but they don't seem to care that they have made any mistake and have the attitude like it or lump it. I rang back to inquire how much it would cost to upgrade my vegas hotel and the guy told me on the phone ive booked flights but no accommodation! I was on the phone for 20minutes before he realised hotels were included in the package.

I will never ever use Virgin again! This post was as brief as i could make it but Virgin customer service is one of the worst ive had to deal with. Im not sure if they have their call centre in India but i don't understand any of their accents and could not get through to someone who could sort any form of problems out without waiting 2 days for a "callback"

Any tips on how i can progress this would be appreciated. Thanks for reading

jonesMUFCforever

What does your actual holiday invoice say?

If the insurance is detailed on there then its on there and Virgin are talking through their backsides.
If its not its not - is it?

Avnon

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

What does your actual holiday invoice say?

If the insurance is detailed on there then its on there and Virgin are talking through their backsides.
If its not its not - is it?

All of my invoices say Insurance: Exclusive Car Hire

up untill i changed a flight and on the new invoice it changed to Insurance: Basic Car Hire

Both the incompetent booking woman and the manager told me it was the same thing they just changed the name.

I told the guy if i never rang up i'd turn up in Chicago to be told i don't even have insurance! To which he didn't reply.

jonesMUFCforever

Go to their website and find out exactly what the insurances cover - print them off if you can - then write a formal letter of complaint.
I have to say though you have not made things easy with all of your changes - I make my mind up what I want then book it.

To each their own I suppose.

blue_monkey_2

I feel your pain.

We booked holiday 1 and then realised within a few days we needed to change the date.

Spoke to Virgin and (as per the T&C on the back of the booking form) was told we could cancel the holiday and book holiday 2 instead, we had to pay another deposit but the deposit for holiday 1 (less a £35pp fee) would be used to pay off towards holiday 2.

Great. Or not.

8 weeks on they still have out £700 from holiday 1 and it has not been cancelled. I called [STRIKE]India[/STRIKE] Customer Services to be told they could not help. I called [STRIKE]India[/STRIKE] customer services during the day hoping to get someone from the UK to speak to at Head Office but they told me that they could cancel holiday 1 but I would lose all of my Deposit, I had to speak to the sales person I booked it with which is just shocking IMO.

I've never had a problem before but I am really, really disheartened with them now. I've emailed the sales person that booked it again tonight and see what happens. They tell me it is done, i wait a few weeks for my money on the other booking but still nothing. I figure I've got 9 months to sort it out but if I have to take Virgin to court for my money back then I will do. I have kept all of the emails from Virgin Sales so I will have them to show the court I have been promised the £700 back.

Will I use them again..... I am not sure to be honest. We used them as we wanted to use the V-room in all fairness but it has not been worth the hassle.

They even have my Date of Birth wrong on the booking and 4 requests for it to be amended and it still is incorrect. As is the location for picking up our hire car. However, it is my DOB I am more concerned about as this alone would stop me from flying as it'll be different to my passport. :mad::mad::mad:

blue_monkey_2

Go and post it on their Facebook page, apparently they deal with things quicker if you post on there. We will see!!

https://www.facebook.com/virginholidays

withabix

blue_monkey wrote: »

Go and post it on their Facebook page, apparently they deal with things quicker if you post on there. We will see!!

https://www.facebook.com/virginholidays

I expect they 'deal with things' by deleting your Facebook post, like most companies do when people post negative comments or complaints on their page.

Only the poster or Facebook should be allowed to delete posts.

littlereddevil

I try to avoid companies who use foreign call centres, they are so awful

blue_monkey_2

littlereddevil wrote: »

I try to avoid companies who use foreign call centres, they are so awful

Do you know, I honestly did not know they did. I was surprised when I called and so tried calling during the day and still got them.

blue_monkey_2

withabix wrote: »

I expect they 'deal with things' by deleting your Facebook post, like most companies do when people post negative comments or complaints on their page.

Only the poster or Facebook should be allowed to delete posts.

I agree.

I posted and since my post loads of complaints are showing.

Withabix, you are a seasoned traveller, can you tell me how I go about getting the DOB changed??

I think I am going to send a recorded delivery letter giving them 2 weeks to sort it and then I'll take them to small claims for my £700 back for holiday one.

And if they are still not changing the DOB despite numerous requests I'll have to do the something about booking 2. That is going to mean, I guess, booking elsewhere and then suing for my money back. Just how long is a reasonable amount of time to keep on asking?

That is the way I am feeling about it right now. Luckily I have kept all the emails promising me my deposit back and being told it has been done (its in their T&C anyway) but I think I am going to have to kick some ar se to get it sorted now. I need to get it sorted before we pay the final balance of course.

Just what do you do though if they actually do not change my DOB on the booking? It'll mean I cannot go, surely?

bunty109

There is a way you can avoid going through to the foreign call centre as we had problems: I'll check with my OH and see if he can remember.

I too had a problem and they said that they would listen to the tapes (they booked the dates wrong due to a fault with the new computer system so when I got paper confirmation my return date was quite obviously wrong): turns out they didn't have the tapes and I was told I could have X or they would cancel the holiday and refund the deposit (we'd got a big discount and to put right the error on the booking was going to eat into any profit they had!).

We've booked a lot of holidays with Virgin and I've been less than impressed with them on the past few occasions (both the Virgin Hoildays and Virgin Atlantic). We wouldn't have booked with them this time if it hadn't been for the discount we got. After our booking fiasco this time I am looking to use Trailfinders next time. I've just checked our flights for the Summer online and the times have changed but as yet we haven't had anything warning us...it's typical of our experiences with them