Virgin Holidays - US two centre. Baggage charges on interconnecting flight.

macrotech

Hi

To anyone who has been on a Virgin two-centre US holiday recently - were you charged for baggage on the interconnecting flight? My wife and I recently went on all-in New York / Boston holiday, booking all flights / hotels and transfers in the package.

When we checked in for the New York / Boston Delta flight, we discovered that our tickets had zero hold baggage allowance. I've complained to Virgin, who at first rolled out the usual "different airlines have different baggage allowances" line, your problem if your baggage was overweight.

When I followed up with a second letter, pointing out that they hadn't read my previous complaint properly, and that the ticket had zero baggage allowance, they changed their tack to say that this was still perfectly acceptable, we should have checked whether we would have to pay to check baggage into the hold and they still wouldn't refund.

Is it just me who thinks this is completely unacceptable, particularly when I had asked when booking whether there were any additional charges? Are they saying that they expect holidaymakers to only have cabin luggage, or are they trying to cover up a mistake they made booking the tickets.

So much for Rock Star service, Seems more like penny pinching from Virgin if they do this to everyone.

Kevin

johnnyroper

have done virgin tours with an internal flight a few times and never had an issue,even back in the days when virgin allowed 2x bags each.

used american,hawaian and us airways as the internals and they just honoured the same as virgin allowed on the atlantic flight.

although in the terms and conditions on website and in brochure it does say they cannot guarantee that the baggage will be same on internal as on virgin.

did you not check the delta tickets prior to leaving the UK.

Alan_Bowen

All US airlines apart from JetBlue and Southwest Airlines charge for all bags that are checked into the hold. There is no escape but Virgin should have at least told you but usually you have to pay as you. It's not just Virgin Holidays whose customers will be caught, anyone flying internally now in the US is liable to be paying

johnnyroper

Alan_Bowen wrote: »

All US airlines apart from JetBlue and Southwest Airlines charge for all bags that are checked into the hold. There is no escape but Virgin should have at least told you but usually you have to pay as you. It's not just Virgin Holidays whose customers will be caught, anyone flying internally now in the US is liable to be paying

is it a new thing as i defo never paid in late 2009 when i last had internals?

Caz3121

johnnyroper wrote: »

is it a new thing as i defo never paid in late 2009 when i last had internals?

some introduced in 2008...guess the rest followed
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/business/13bags.html

dontone

Alan_Bowen wrote: »

All US airlines apart from JetBlue and Southwest Airlines charge for all bags that are checked into the hold. There is no escape but Virgin should have at least told you but usually you have to pay as you. It's not just Virgin Holidays whose customers will be caught, anyone flying internally now in the US is liable to be paying

When we flew with Continental last month from Newark to San Fran we got charged $50 for putting cases in the hold, and even though we booked through Virgin, we didn't know either.
It was a bit of a shock seeing it come up on those screens that they have now. It actually said "extra cases are charged at $50 for the first bag" we assumed this to be one case each is free then any extra cases are charged. The lady then "kindly" informed us that we only got charged for one case, the other was free.
I couldn't resist saying "well thats kind of ya, thanks" as the payment went through.
BTW it's a good job we double checked our flight details a few days before we were due to fly, because its mandatory to confirm your details to the airline 72 hours before you board or you can't get on the plane. Didn't know that until we happened to check that we had everything organised on the Virgin website. Make sure peeps to check before leaving if your are going on a US internal flight.

Westin

I have just returned from the USA booked with Virgin Holidays and took internal flights. The baggage information is mentioned in the holiday guide that was included with our tickets. Did you read this?

ferf1223

dontone wrote: »

BTW it's a good job we double checked our flight details a few days before we were due to fly, because its mandatory to confirm your details to the airline 72 hours before you board or you can't get on the plane. Didn't know that until we happened to check that we had everything organised on the Virgin website. Make sure peeps to check before leaving if your are going on a US internal flight.

Confused...we check in online the day before, but haven't reconfirmed anything 72-hours before for about 10 years. Which airline was this?

And on the baggage thing - I was surprised to read this has changed -there was another thread about this recently...we've been gold or platinum with AA for a bit now, and the charges must have come in between the point I did the platinum challenge and now as we didn't realise they had moved away from at least one bag free on internal flights if you were on a trans-atlantic ticket. I'm grateful for these forums as it could have been a most annoying surprise for us otherwise - especially as we generally travel with 3 checked cases between us (gifts on the way there, American stuff on the way back).

macrotech

Thanks for the replies. To the people who asked why didn't we look at our tickets, we had to chase Virgin four times over the two weeks before the holiday and ended up having them sent by e-mail the day before. I would have hoped that their IT systems would flag up that tickets hadn't been sent out - apparently not.

Also, why would I even expect that the internal flights had no baggage allowance? I had checked the single case baggage limits and knew they were slightly less than Virgin's.

Finally, is there something stopping Virgin supplying tickets that do include one checked bag per person, or are they just penny pinching at my expense?

Westin

It's just the way it goes now on American airlines. I'm not sure if they could even add in the cost as you say but if they did I guess someone would then complain that the second, third bags were not included. What about meals and drinks on those internal flights. The American airlines, if a meal is even provided, charge. Should Virgin also take a guess at what you might want to eat and add that to the price of your holiday as well?

I know it doesn't help you this time around but it's worth always using the Internet and checking other airlines website/hotel sites. That way you find out about those sorts of things plus benefits like if you can reserve your seat in advance, check in on line, if the hotel offers free wifi etc.

JennyJenJen

We flew US Airways at the end of June and didnt have to pay extra on the internal flights (nothing to do with Virgin though). The baggage allowance on the internal flight would have been less on the internal flight than the trans atlantic leg but the higher allowance was honoured.

We also didnt have to confirm our flights 72 hours before, just turned up on the day