Claiming compensation for travel agent mistake

tlj7

We booked our holiday to the USA with Virgin as we had Tesco club card points to use. Normally we book our own holiday. We booked for San Francisco, Napa and Vegas. All was great until we got to Vegas to find Virgin had booked us into the wrong Hilton Grand Vacatins location! We had requested the one by Flamingo but had been booked into the one at the end of the Strip by Circus, Circus which was an awful location.
We arrived at our choice to be told the error and that they were fully booked so we had to go to go to where Virgin had booked us.

We emailed Virgin and they got the Vegas rep to get us moved to the Paris Hotel which was a similar location to our original choice. No offer of covering the extra costs of taxis or phone costs to sort. So we then emailed to ask for a flight upgrade for our return journey home as a good will gesture. Again we had to chase this and got a message that maybe we could get extra legroom! We arrived at the airport and nothing had been sorted for us so we asked again for an upgrade. Whilst waiting for a response we realised there was a flight to Manchester leaving 20 mins after our Gatwick flight. We had originally requested flights to/from Manchester but informed London flights were our best option due to flying out to San Fransisvo and returning via Vegas. As a result we had then booked domestic flights to transfer us to/from Manchester at extra cost.

We then asked could we transfer to the Manchester flight? We were initially told yes at a cost but they finally felt sorry for us and transferred us to this flight home. Not an upgrade though, just an economy swap.

Question is can we claim compensation and if so what and how best to go about this? As we normally book our own holiday we cannot believe that as supposed experts Virgin have completely messed up a simple accommodation booking and left us in the lurch, with no real approach to offer a goodwill gesture for this.

Would much appreciate any advice on the best way to approach this, as we do feel badly let down.

Many thanks in anticipation.

Voyager2002

A flight upgrade would have cost more than the total you spent on hotels, so I'm not surprised that you didn't get one.

Anyway, if you kept receipts for your extra taxis and telephone calls then you could ask for those costs to be refunded, although the amounts are likely to be small change in relation to the cost of your holiday.

And all this talk about the travel agent completely messing up your holiday -- I mean, you got to stay in the Hilton in America, so why worry about the little details? It's people like you who give the Brits a reputation for moaning about nothing.

stoneman

So what do you what compo for, a couple of phone calls and a $10 taxi ride? They put you up in a very nice hotel centre strip (actually better location than you originally booked) Get a grip. Why did you thing Virgin would upgrade you, economy to Premium at the airport is about £275 each, so they would have been giving you nearly £600 worth of compensation. Keep your taxi receipt and if you are still hard up go through their complaints procedure. You will find everything on the website.

ferf1223

I can see the issue with location - the one near Flamingo is in a much more central location which is much more convenient for most people.

What did the documentation you received from Virgin say in regard to the location of the hotel? Just thinking that it may be an error that could have been caught sooner...plus, I'd guess that the Flamingo location costs more than the one at the north end of the strip...so may be worth looking into which one you were charged for, if there is any way to do that?

But agree that suggesting an upgrade as a 'gesture of good will' is very much over the top in relation to the issue...I think they did do what they could for you in moving you (depending on what your reservation details say - this may be a 'gesture of goodwill' in and of itself?) and allowing you to transfer to the Manchester flight at no charge (again another gesture of goodwill it seems?)...

Incapuppy

I agree with the above comments and would add the following:

Was the Hilton Grand Vacations Suites at the Flamingo on request from Virgin as they do not appear to (currently and in a previous brochure) offer this as standard, just the one into which you were booked?

Why did you not look at flight schedules and pick the routing that best suited your requirements, especially since you comment that you are used to DIY bookings?

mackemdave

This compensation mentality borders on greed at times

Westin

Virgin Holidays only seems to sell and brochure the one Hilton Grand Vacation Club hotel - the one you booked is the one they reserved for you near to Circus Circus. I don't see it was their mistake.

photome

Westin wrote: »

Virgin Holidays only seems to sell and brochure the one Hilton Grand Vacation Club hotel - the one you booked is the one they reserved for you near to Circus Circus. I don't see it was their mistake.

If that is the case then the OP did very well to end up at the Paris, IMO a better choice than the hilton GV anyway

ferf1223

I agree - would still be interested to know which location was shown on the OP's confirmation...seems likely that it was the north strip location based on detail posted here...so seems likely that the OP paid for the north strip location...so getting moved to Paris seems more than fair 'compensation' to me.

claire16c

I used virgin once and they completely messed up so many simple aspects of our holiday from putting the wrong name on flight tickets, booking the wrong flights (including one connecting one that left before another arrived....), informing us wrong about flights, and then taking til the morning of the flight to get it sorted. I would never ever use them again. They gave me £100 virgin vouchers in compensation - as if Id ever risk booking with them again!

My friend booked a hol with them, then received an invoice for 2 different holidays - shed only booked one! One was for a country shed never even glanced at on their website let alone booked, and was also at the same time as the holiday she had booked. They told her to sort it out with her credit card company!!

So you could try writing to them but I wouldnt expect a good response as they cant even manage to book holidays properly in the first place.

tlj7

Well that's me told good and proper eh!
However I would like to state that I am the complete opposite of the type of person some of you have judged me as. I hate complainers and have previously not had cause to, or seek any compensation - hence my genuine question on this forum.
We picked the Hilton, by the Flamingo from Trip Advisor and emailed the Virgin shop to ask them if they could book this. They confirmed yes and the invoices stated the name and the street name, so we had no reason to doubt this and no one mentioned there were 3 Hiltons in Vegas. We had asked for flights to/from Manchester so when told they couldn't do Manchester, we naively accepted this.
From your responses our request for an upgrade was obviously a lot to ask but we were not aware of this, not being in this situation before. We assumed it would not be a big deal for such a large company, bearing in mind it was their mistake.
So thanks for the advice, I think it sounds as though we didn't do so bad after all. This is what these forums are about after all - just a shame I feel like I have been slated and judged for it!