Virgin Holidays complaint - advice needed please !

madmaxman66

Several months ago, my partner and I booked and paid in full for a 5 night break to Dubai with Virgin Holidays and Virgin Atlantic.

Two days ago (less than two weeks before the travel date) we received a call from Virgin Holidays to inform us that the flight we are booked to return home on has been cancelled by Virgin Atlantic ! They offered us two options and said that we could either stay for an extra night - at a cost to us of more than £600 ! or we would have to change the dates of our holiday and travel and come back a day later. This is a huge inconvenience and has involved us spending a lot of time dealing with this and changing other arrangements etc but we agreed to change the flights to the following day.

Virgin dealt with the whole thing very badly and we have been on hold for more than two hours to various Virgin call centres trying to sort this out. However, I have now discovered that Virgin did not transfer the Premium Economy seats that we pre-booked more than two months ago on either flight and there are now not two seats available together in Premium economy on either flight - never mind the good premium economy seats that we booked originally. My partner and I do not intend to spend an 8 hour overnight flight sleeping next to complete strangers - never mind having paid several hundred pounds for the premium economy upgrade for the priveledge !!

This was a luxury break that we have been looking forward to for a long time and Virgin have turned it into a stressful headache.

Can any one offer any adviced regarding our rights regarding the flights and what Virgin Holidays or Virgin Atlantic should do to resolve the situation.

Thank you everybody

Caz3121

If they informed you less that 14 days before the departure of the cancelled flight then you should be entitled to compensation...I know you mention it is less than 2 weeks before the outbound flight, but how long before the affected flight?

madmaxman66

Caz3121 wrote: »

If they informed you less that 14 days before the departure of the cancelled flight then you should be entitled to compensation...I know you mention it is less than 2 weeks before the outbound flight, but how long before the affected flight?

Thank you for that info - they called us 13 days before the outbound flight (which was not cancelled) but 18 days before the homebound filght that was cancelled. But, as they cancelled the homebound flight this meant that we could not travel out on the booked outbound flight without paying them an extra £600+ to stay an extra day as the next flight after the cancelled one was not till the following day - if that makes sense !!?

Are you able to tell me where you get the information about the 14 day cancellation period please?

Many thanks

richardw

Your DXB-LHR flight appears to have been cancelled. If cancelled, VIrgin Atlantic is an EU carrier so reg 261/2004 applies http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32004R0261:EN:HTML

Article 5 refers to Article 8 and thus Virgin must offer you a choice of

1. Where reference is made to this Article, passengers shall be offered the choice between:
(a) - reimbursement within seven days, by the means provided for in Article 7(3), of the full cost of the ticket at the price at which it was bought, for the part or parts of the journey not made, and for the part or parts already made if the flight is no longer serving any purpose in relation to the passenger's original travel plan, together with, when relevant,
- a return flight to the first point of departure, at the earliest opportunity;
(b) re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity; or
(c) re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at a later date at the passenger's convenience, subject to availability of seats.

It looks like you may want (b), if Virgin don't fly on the date you want then ask them to put you on emirates or BA. The regulation doesn't say you can only be re-routed on Virgin.

madmaxman66

Thank you so much. This is extremely helpful, at no point did Virgin Holidays offer us a a refund or an opportunity to re-route - either by Virgin Atlantic or another carrier !!

Thanks again

richardw

Btw it is the "operating air carrier", Virgin Atlantic, that is responsible for complying with the regulation, not the tour operator.

madmaxman66

Thank you again Richard for taking the time to help. Point taken re carrier (Virgin Atlantic) responsibility.

richardw

Btw lewroll's story https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3070460