Virgin Atlantic family holiday disrupted by airline - they booked us on a different flight

simonH123

Had a lovely family holiday to America booked, flying Virgin Atlantic.
Direct return flights from London to Florida and back, paid for, and seats for the family (husband, wife, 2 kids) picked next to each other.
After arriving in Florida, we were notified that out return flights had been changed, we were now flying back from Orlanda via Atlanta on a flight several hours earlier, effectively reducing our holiday by one day. Also, they'd only given us 40 minutes in Atlanta to catch our connecting flight, which is hard enough to do in any airport, but Atlanta is massive.
So, we missed the connecting flight in Atlanta, ended up flying from there to Washington and finally from there back to London.
And, our luggage didn't arrive, probably didn't know where to go... 
Does anyone have experience of anything I can do to get some compensation? 
Apart from all the inconvenience of connecting flights, and the stress, we essentially lost a day's holiday in Orlando as the original direct flight I booked was very late so that we could visit attractions during the day.
As a footnote, our original flight was not cancelled, Virgin just gave our seats, booked weeks in advance, to someone else. Wonder what qualifies you for that?

eskbanker

simonH123 said:

Does anyone have experience of anything I can do to get some compensation? 

Have you taken this up with the airline yet, and if so, what have they said?  You potentially have two separate claims, one for being denied boarding on your original flight and then a second for the delay to your rearranged itinerary....

If the holiday was booked as a package, you may be able to claim something from the package organiser too for the curtailed time at your destination, or if not, then your travel insurance may cover that?

P.S. This ought to be posted on the normal travel section rather than the old Covid one, perhaps admins or ambassadors can move it? @silvercar

simonH123

Hi eskbanker

Thanks for your comments, sorry about posting on Covid section, didn't realize it was going there.
Anyway, I tried dealing with Virgin Atlantic whilst on holiday in Florida and they didn't want to help me, and it ate up more of my holiday time.

There are many companies out there that now popup on my social media offering assistance with travel claims, but I wanted to see if anyone on MSE had experiences with this kind of issue first.

Cheers.

silvercar

Hi SimonH123 and welcome to MSE forums. I’ll request the thread be moved to the travel flight delay compensation board. It can be found here if you want to browse: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/flight-delay-compensation

As to companies to use, I’ve used Bott & co in the past and they were fine, they take a chunk of the compensation so you may prefer to DIY.

CKhalvashi

simonH123 said:

Hi eskbanker

Thanks for your comments, sorry about posting on Covid section, didn't realize it was going there.
Anyway, I tried dealing with Virgin Atlantic whilst on holiday in Florida and they didn't want to help me, and it ate up more of my holiday time.

There are many companies out there that now popup on my social media offering assistance with travel claims, but I wanted to see if anyone on MSE had experiences with this kind of issue first.

Cheers.

We'll see if we can help you first for free, this is in your interests especially as the claim may be large.

I'd pop a quick request to Virgin, stating this is under UK261 legislation, enquiring about the reason for offload with a polite request for £520/passenger if your flight left either more than 1 hour early or more than 3 hours late and you were notified of this less than 14 days before. It may take some time for them to get back. I'd also deem the missed connection as within Virgin's control as you had not booked this flight at the start.

I'll reply properly in the morning if you require further information, however the legislation can be found here
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2004/261/article/7

simonH123

Thanks for the advice CKhalvashi.
Have gone through Virgin's online claim procedure. They're going to get back to me in under 45 days!

simonH123

Thanks for the info Silvercar.
Bott & co don't seem to have very good reviews online, I'm a little reluctant to deal with them...

CKhalvashi

simonH123 said:

Thanks for the info Silvercar.
Bott & co don't seem to have very good reviews online, I'm a little reluctant to deal with them...

Bott are the specialists in this area. As always I recommend against using any lawyer/claim company unless things get technical (this looks very straightforward), but that is the choice of some people.

Westin

As you booked a package with Virgin Atlantic Holidays I would also be inclined to raise a complaint with them.  I think you have a time limit to raise issues post holiday so might be worth at least writing a complaint to them as well in case VAA drag their feet.

CKhalvashi

Westin said:

As you booked a package with Virgin Atlantic Holidays I would also be inclined to raise a complaint with them.  I think you have a time limit to raise issues post holiday so might be worth at least writing a complaint to them as well in case VAA drag their feet.

For legal issues, 6 years. This would be a legal issue.

simonH123

Thanks for all the advice everyone.
So, Virgin came back to me very quickly denying any claim on the grounds that "You arrived at your destination within 3 hours of your scheduled arrival time".
There was no mention of the fact the flight they put us on departed several hours earlier than the original flight that I'd booked.