Virgin Atlantic flight redemption cancelled - no alternative flight option given

giboning

Hi everyone. 
In December last year, I make a booking with Virgin Atlantic for this summer, redeeming miles and a Companion voucher. Outbound flight is London to Miami in June, return Sao Paolo to London in September. 
On 4th of March, Virgin Atlantic announced the delay of the London to Sao Paolo flights launch until October. I called customer services to discuss about my options, the agent told me my options will be either refund or rebook on a another airline, but to call back in a week time as the news were fresh and Virgin are negociating return option with their partners. 
The news on their website, later on updated, mention that whoever wants a re-route, to call on/after 12 of March 2020. 
On their website, it's mentioned that "passengers booked on Sao Paolo services between 29 March 2020 - 04 October 2020 that are due to be cancelled, have 3 options: 1)rebook (after 5 October), 2)re-route on Air France or KLM at no additional costs or 3)refund. Also, my understanding of the law is that airline must offer you an alternative flight option or refund. 
I called Customer Service and the agent told me that, since this is a miles redemption and I only paid taxes, they can't offer me an alternative flight, just refund or rebook after 5 October. She said the miles redemption thing is mentioned on the news article, even though it's not and I read all the text to her. At that point, she told me she could look into other flights back to London on Virgin Atlantic services (Miami, New York), but I will have to pay the difference in miles & taxes plus the flight from Sao Paolo to that city. 
I feel this is unfair treatment from Virgin. Whether it's 6 months or 15 days before the return, seems like Virgin can choose the easiest option to refund the money and leave the passenger to buy the return flight at a price risk. Buying separate return tickets would cost us around £500 extra in total at this moment after Virgin refund. But then I'm worried that if we cancel the trip due to the coronavirus, we won't be able to claim back the money from insurance as we were aware of the pandemic at the time of booking. 
Could someone help with how to proceed? What are my rights? Where could I complain and have justice? At this point, I'm not interested in a refund, but another return flight offered by Virgin.

mattyprice4004

They're perfectly within their rights to offer you a refund - sorry.