Connection flights not taken

Hi
Sorry for posting in general thread- I’m not entirely sure if I can claim and if so who against

We flew to San Diego via LAX a few weeks ago. Me, my husband, 7 children and 70 year old parents - so 11 of us

We booked through netflights and and as there were so many of us they did it in two separate bookings. So me, husband and 5 boys on one booking and then my parents and my twin daughters in another.

It was a Virgin Atlantic flight but my ticket said Delta.

So on departure we were firstly delayed 20 mins and then whilst on plane we sat on tarmac for a further 1hr 40 mins so took off at 17.30 instead of 15.30 - this was due to traffic in Europe originally and then we’d missed our push back slot and had to wait.

We were flying into LAX for a 3hr 30 mins ish layover before catching a connecting flight to San Diego.

We landed in LAX at 20.15 and should have been getting the flight to SD at 21.53
We landed at the Tom Bradley part of LAX which meant we had to wait for a bus to connect to the main airport
As we got off the plane a virgin groundstaff man advised us that we wouldn’t make the connection and that they would put us in a hotel and fly us in the morning.
We then carried in through to immigration and luggage where 3 awful, rude and unhelpful virgin reps were waiting - they basically gave me a piece of paper that said the name of a hotel (which didn’t exist as was spelt wrong) and a flight number and 06.55. That was it.

I asked if we could not take that flight as it meant we we would get there 9 hours after we were originally due to arrive and were travelling back up LA way anyway so seemed pointless at we’d wasted a day
They said no they couldn’t help- made out I was crazy for suggesting this. After my persistence they told me to go to Delta!
After about half a mile treck to Delta with 7 kids and 11 cases and a half hour queue the delta man said this could be done but as virgin had issued the new tickets wrong I’d have to go back to them. After 3 hours of backwarding and forwarding in LAX and phone calls back to virgin customer services they finally cancelled the new connecting flights. (And actually found out that they’d booked my parents and daughters on the 06.55 flight and myself, husband and 5 boys on a later flight at 12.35 but hadn’t actually bothered to tell us)


They kept saying if I cancelled this connection my return flights would automatically be cancelled.

Now I’m home I’ve read that if the arrival time at final destination is 5 hours later than original time I was entitled to cancel it with a refund? No one has ever given me this refund?

So my arrival time if I’d taken the new flights offered would have been 9 hours later with one flight and over 14 hours on the other?

I’ve spoken to virgin who have offered me 10,700 airmiles (not each, just for me)

I’m confused. Do I claim for the delay or the cancelled flight and who do I claim to/ask for refund from?
Hope all that makes sense
Thanks