Fly Drive/Small claims court advice needed urgently

LilElvis

You might also want to point out to your former friend that if she cancels, and you have to rebook, that you will also claim for any increase in ticket price that you incur. From personal experience this increase could well be substantial. I booked 11 tickets with Virgin for my wedding 3 months in advance, and a 12th with 2 weeks notice. The 12th ticket cost twice as much as the others on the same flight. This might concentrate their mind as to the degree of cost that may result from their bloodymindedness surrounding this impasse.

RufusHound

LilElvis wrote: »

You might also want to point out to your former friend that if she cancels, and you have to rebook, that you will also claim for any increase in ticket price that you incur. From personal experience this increase could well be substantial. I booked 11 tickets with Virgin for my wedding 3 months in advance, and a 12th with 2 weeks notice. The 12th ticket cost twice as much as the others on the same flight. This might concentrate their mind as to the degree of cost that may result from their bloodymindedness surrounding this impasse.

I have told her that. In my initial letter I said if she canceled or changed the booking I would claim back the full cost of the ticket or the additional cost of the change (she said I can't do that as any money lost or charge incurred would be down to Virgin's admin/cancellation policy - I said that she is in control and if she cancels against my wishes I all be holding her liable)
I also said that if she canceled I would hold her liable for any additional cost incurred in buying a new ticket (she tried to say she wouldn't be liable for that either)

I don't know what else to do? I'm no longer excited about my holiday as I don't even know if I have a flight to get there!! She's claiming she is still waiting for Virgin to get back to her but it's been 8 working days - how long does it take a HUGE company like virgin to work out what the cancellation charge would be (bearing in mind I have checked this out in their terms and conditions and if we cancel before 10/7 then we would lose the deposit amount which would equate to £175 each) or what the charge would be for any changes (again I have checked in the terms and conditions and an amendment fee is charged at £50 per passenger)
It's all very suspicious and I've no clue what she is playing at

DandelionPatrol

RufusHound wrote: »

I have told her that. In my initial letter I said if she canceled or changed the booking I would claim back the full cost of the ticket or the additional cost of the change (she said I can't do that as any money lost or charge incurred would be down to Virgin's admin/cancellation policy - I said that she is in control and if she cancels against my wishes I all be holding her liable) [1]
I also said that if she canceled I would hold her liable for any additional cost incurred in buying a new ticket (she tried to say she wouldn't be liable for that either) [2]

I don't know what else to do? I'm no longer excited about my holiday as I don't even know if I have a flight to get there!! She's claiming she is still waiting for Virgin to get back to her but it's been 8 working days - how long does it take a HUGE company like virgin to work out what the cancellation charge would be (bearing in mind I have checked this out in their terms and conditions and if we cancel before 10/7 then we would lose the deposit amount which would equate to £175 each) or what the charge would be for any changes (again I have checked in the terms and conditions and an amendment fee is charged at £50 per passenger) [3]
It's all very suspicious and I've no clue what she is playing at [4]

[1] she is correct about money returned to the party being down to Virgin's cancellation policy. But she is is not taking into account the relations within the party, that she has a responsibility for any losses to you

[2] If she settles this cleanly now, you might find that a court would not award any extra cost - they might not award a loss of discount due to smaller party size. But as this rolls on and gets closer to the date without clarity, you may find that the price gets higher due to proximity of date. I would expect a court to award such a cost arising from the lead passenger messing about. I suggest you start to log the price, say weekly, for the 2 of you to go on your own booking

[3] It may be worth speaking to Virgin and explaining briefly the strained relations

• You have been locked out of the booking
• The lead passenger is not being clear about where you stand
• You suspect the lead passenger is minded to cancel

and asking whether they could split the 2 of you to your own booking for £50 each as an amendment.


If you actually go down this road, let the lead passenger have 48 hours notice and importantly make the alteration by email being sure to make it clear that you are not making any alteration to the booking for the other 3. Don't do it by phone



[4] As said previously, I think she is minded to cancel and is looking not to stand the losses for the 2 of you. And I suspect that she has been forwarding your emails to Virgin’s legal dept to ask for their advice on her rights in relation to your booking. Which, if they do these things in anything like the right way, they will not want to be involved in


[-] If she does want to cancel, she should not let this drag beyond 10th July, because it increases the cancellation costs. I have not thought this through fully, but I would be thinking of an email to her to remind her of this, plus the fact that you have now paid in full - just to put a bit of pressure on her to come clean.

RufusHound

DandelionPatrol wrote: »

[1] she is correct about money returned to the party being down to Virgin's cancellation policy. But she is is not taking into account the relations within the party, that she has a responsibility for any losses to you

[2] If she settles this cleanly now, you might find that a court would not award any extra cost - they might not award a loss of discount due to smaller party size. But as this rolls on and gets closer to the date without clarity, you may find that the price gets higher due to proximity of date. I would expect a court to award such a cost arising from the lead passenger messing about. I suggest you start to log the price, say weekly, for the 2 of you to go on your own booking

[3] It may be worth speaking to Virgin and explaining briefly the strained relations

• You have been locked out of the booking
• The lead passenger is not being clear about where you stand
• You suspect the lead passenger is minded to cancel

and asking whether they could split the 2 of you to your own booking for £50 each as an amendment.


If you actually go down this road, let the lead passenger have 48 hours notice and importantly make the alteration by email being sure to make it clear that you are not making any alteration to the booking for the other 3. Don't do it by phone



[4] As said previously, I think she is minded to cancel and is looking not to stand the losses for the 2 of you. And I suspect that she has been forwarding your emails to Virgin’s legal dept to ask for their advice on her rights in relation to your booking. Which, if they do these things in anything like the right way, they will not want to be involved in


[-] If she does want to cancel, she should not let this drag beyond 10th July, because it increases the cancellation costs. I have not thought this through fully, but I would be thinking of an email to her to remind her of this, plus the fact that you have now paid in full - just to put a bit of pressure on her to come clean.

Thank you for your help. I have reminded her as you state in point 1
I will start logging the prices of rebooking the flight as you suggest and take screen prints of the price breakdown with the date and time on them as proof
I will send Virgin an email today with what you suggest in point 3
I have asked for a response by close of business today but I know she won't give it. She is away this weekend and has told me she does not intend to get back to me until Virgin have answered all her queries and she has sought legal advice

RufusHound

As I know she won't get back to me by close of business today as I had asked her to I feel I need to send her a letter/email to make it clear she didn't respond
If I send a letter before action that gives a further 7 days for her to respond so would one of those be appropriate? If so what should I make sure it includes?

I have emailed virgin they said 5 days for a response unless it has to go to customer relations team then they have 28 days to respond - customer relations team are only available Monday-Friday so I think that's who is dealing with her enquiry as she previously said that the team she is dealing with don't work weekends

DandelionPatrol

It is premature for a letter before action. You have already made her aware of the fact that you could take it to court, which if you are into schadenfreude has already put her into a big enough panic to run to Virgin's legal department and put her at risk of missing 10th July for cancellation.

Wait until your losses are crystallized - the LBA is to demand payment of your losses with an explicit statement that you will take the matter to court. As you don't know what your losses are yet, you are not in a position to write it.

BTW, what in outline is the cause of the rift? I just ask in case it may be relevant later.

tykesi

DandelionPatrol wrote: »

It is premature for a letter before action. You have already made her aware of the fact that you could take it to court, which if you are into schadenfreude has already put her into a big enough panic to run to Virgin's legal department and put her at risk of missing 10th July for cancellation.

Wait until your losses are crystallized - the LBA is to demand payment of your losses with an explicit statement that you will take the matter to court. As you don't know what your losses are yet, you are not in a position to write it.

BTW, what in outline is the cause of the rift? I just ask in case it may be relevant later.

I've been wondering this. Assuming you were all friends before this how on earth has it got to threatening court amongst all this animosity? Purely being nosy, tell me to sod off if you want

RufusHound

It was a really minor thing that 3/5 people blew out of proportion!
2 of us dared to voice our feelings to what we thought were friends over a minor issue that has nothing to do with the holiday and it was taken wrongly, blown out of proportion and caused them to cut us out of their lives. There is no way that it is relevant to this mess we are now in

Unfortunately I have discovered I'm not as good a judge of character as I thought I was and I will chose my friends more wisely in the future as I'm not allowing this rediculous fall out affect my holiday that I have looked forward to for a year.

RufusHound

As suggested I emailed Virgin this morning. I gave them the booking reference. Told them I knew as I was only a passenger they couldn't give me answers specific to our booking but asked general questions which were.
(1) Is there a way to ensure that the 5 of us on this booking are sat in 2 groups away from eachother on the flight?
(2) Can they confirm the only way to get tickets for the flights is through "My Booking" on their website and if the lead Booker was the only one with access to that page it's their responsibility to distribute the tickets
(3) Is there a way the booking can be split in 2, this generating 2 reference numbers and 2 different bookings.

That email was sent at 9.11am today

They replied at 13.45 with the following answers
(1) yes seats can be allocated away from eachother with no problem at all
(2) the only way to get tickets is through the website and it would be the lead passengers responsibility to distribute them
(3) once a booking has been confirmed it can not be split. The only way would be to cancel and rebook but that would incur costs

What is my ex friend doing to my flight booking therefore that is taking so long if I can get answers to those questions in 4 hours

ThumbRemote

RufusHound wrote: »

What is my ex friend doing to my flight booking therefore that is taking so long if I can get answers to those questions in 4 hours

My guess is nothing - they are just trying to cause trouble.

RufusHound wrote: »

You need booking reference, lead Booker name, date of birth and postcode.
If I try to access it I get a message that states I have entered incorrect information. I phoned Virgin and they told me I have the postcode "slightly" wrong
The lead Booker is telling me no one can access the online booking info as Virgin are looking into the booking

Slightly wrong sounds like 1 digit incorrect. Have you tried just changing the numerical digits to see if you can log in that way? Its most likely that the postcode is 1 letter or 1 number off what you've tried so far.