Good Virgin Customer Service

I just want to say how fantastic the guys and gals at Virgin really are.

Some of you might remember my dissatisfaction with both my flights cancelled/merged last December, that problem was swiftly rectified by Virgin and I've moved on and put it behind me.

I was pricing up flights and it was a toss up between Virgin and BA. Decided to look into the BA option - to cut a very long (and boring) story short, I was 'quizzed' by customer services about my medical conditions which would allow me to 'pre select' my seat. At the end of a rather embarrassing (from my point of view) 10/15 minute phone call I was advised there was no guarantee I could pre-select my seat (I requested an aisle seat for one of my conditions), as my condition (it's not exactly common) was not listed on their medical assistance list I was advised that if I did decide to book with them, my request for preselecting my seat would have to be sent separately to the medical assistance department, and they would make a decision [V], it's bad enough living with this particular condition, yet alone some person at BA deciding whether it was worthy of being able to pre-select a seat. Needless to say I gave up!

I then rung Virgin, what a refreshing change. No problem - all my conditions were noted, seat requests made (and a note put on my booking not to change them), but most importantly I was not made to feel embarrassed or a 'burden' by the staff.

I know sometimes Virgin get knocked, but their customer service really is far superior to BA and certainly the best I've come across in the industry. [y]

Clare

Well it is good to see that Virgin is recieving some much needed good feedback as it has taken a bit of flack in recent months.

After all the negatives generally about both their customer services I have had quite good experiences with both this week!

Firstly Virgin, last yeay myself and 7 other family travelled to Orlando UC but during the booking process had issues with holding the seats at the rates quoted, while I confirmed the dates with family. We are talking 2 hours here, well the upshot was the trip cost us best part of 3.5k more due to this. At the time on my final call to Premier Team the lady I spoke to was very apologetic but could do nothing as the fares had changed. She did say next time we are booking to call her and she would try to do something to help! Well sure enough my wife and I recently went to New York and I had called her when booking, she put something on the booking which got us upgraded to UC from the PE we had booked!
We will now be travelling again with Virgin when we go away as a family as we thought this was a nice touch!

Got a phone call from BA yesterday, we were caught up in the tail end of the T5 mess! Flying back from Houston was fine but delays at T5, which meant we were 4 hours late into Manchester, so apart from the choas getting the plane to depart wasnt to bad, but obviously our luggage didnt make it for another 10 days! Anyway to cut a long story short the phone call was to apologise, confirm a cheque was in the post for our compensation claim, no questions asked and thats we would be credited 40000 miles each. Granted we did fly back from Houston First Class, but it was booked using miles and an amex voucher, so 80000 miles is nearly enough for another trip with my next amex voucher so I am quite happy!

All in all a good week and maybe customer service with UK airlines is not dead yet!

[preiffer]

Were you informed by the lady at Virgin that you were going to be upgraded, or did it just happen that way at the airport? [:?]