virgin holidays are a nightmare

hi. I am having a nightmare with VH.
1. They send out a Invoice with names spelt wrong!
2. after 2 months we finally get a Invoice and booking confirmation!(I am thinking, I hope this is not a sign for things to come)
3. Than we find they have booked us in to the wrong hotel.
4. They are saying it is our mistake and they booked us in to the hotel that we requested as are trying to charge us extra to book the hotel we original wanted! Argh!
5. when you phone them you are on hold for 20minutes and than finally get though to someone who can barely speak English!

It is shocking, and they obvously don't want repeat customers! we were planning on booking a East Coast trip with them, I maybe will be going with TCS next time, surely they can not be any worse.

anyone else have problems with virgin holidays? or is this hopefully a one off experience?

[Nottingham Nick]

If you look back in this forum, there are a lot of negative comments about VH, or more specifically, their outsourced call handling centre.

A senior VH official came onto the site a few months back, and managed to resolve some issues that members had. I thought it had improved since then, but maybe not?

I have never used VH, so am unable to give first hand knowledge.

Nick

I would hope that it is a one off, but you're right when you get through to the VH Call Centre in India, the language barrier can be a problem. Perhaps you should contact the customer services by email or snail mail and air your concerns.

Is this your first VH trip? I have been on a few and have not really had any problems. I am a FV so call the club directly if I have any questions or queries.

yes It is my first time with VH. Which is why I was wondering if it was a one off as I was planning on other holidays with them.

I only have great things to say about customer relations at virgin - email them

[email protected]

[mitchja]

You could always try ringing the FVC number, which is based in the UK. Even if your not a member, just explain your problem.

If you do get though to an out-sourced call centre simply ask them to put you though to someone in the UK as they should do it if you ask them to. (This applies to any UK based company with an out-sorced call centre)

Regards

Originally posted by Nottingham Nick
If you look back in this forum, there are a lot of negative comments about VH, or more specifically, their outsourced call handling centre.

A senior VH official came onto the site a few months back, and managed to resolve some issues that members had. I thought it had improved since then, but maybe not?

I have never used VH, so am unable to give first hand knowledge.

Nick

Hey Nick

Any information on which posts this senior official dealt with?

[Nottingham Nick]

Originally posted by thejoose

Hey Nick

Any information on which posts this senior official dealt with?

I can't remember if the official ever made him/her self known in the open fora, but if you look back, you will see several references made by posters that they had been contacted personally by a senior person from VH, and that their problems had been dealt with. This one for example.

Nick

Originally posted by FV75
I would hope that it is a one off, but you're right when you get through to the VH Call Centre in India, the language barrier can be a problem. Perhaps you should contact the customer services by email or snail mail and air your concerns.

Is this your first VH trip? I have been on a few and have not really had any problems. I am a FV so call the club directly if I have any questions or queries.

How disappointing to learn they've outsourced to India. Have had similar probs with customer services in India (though with BT) - the problem seems to be that they understand English, but they don't understand issues, or evenwhat you're talking about half the time. So frustrating.

Never had any problems and never spoken to someone who wasn't UK based-my first VH was in 1993!.Try ringing FVC as previously suggested as they IMHO are very helpful.

Well its all been sorted out and the holiday is even costing £200 less, I am happy with the result.

[mitchja]

Glad you got it sorted Claire [y]

Saving yourself £200 as well - result

Regards

[Nottingham Nick]

Originally posted by Claire1902
Well its all been sorted out and the holiday is even costing £200 less, I am happy with the result.

Just for future interest, and without naming any names... which department sorted it for you?

Nick

I cannot fault them - they have always been good and on occasion I have got a special discount or deal for being a FVC member!!!

I am sure that with any business there will always be probs from time to time - its how these are delt with thats important

I'm about to go on our 3rd trip with VH, and never had a problem. We've always booked on the internet, so had an e-mail confirmation almost straight away, and through the post in only a few days. Fortunately we've never had to speak to anyone in a call centre yet, so can't comment on that side of things, but we've certainly never had anything to complain about with VH.

Originally posted by alanjones
I'm about to go on our 3rd trip with VH, and never had a problem. We've always booked on the internet, so had an e-mail confirmation almost straight away, and through the post in only a few days. Fortunately we've never had to speak to anyone in a call centre yet, so can't comment on that side of things, but we've certainly never had anything to complain about with VH.

If you about to go on your 3rd VH then you should look at the Frequent Virgin Club as you would save yourself 10% on the holiday and also get some extras like free room upgrades etc. We are about to do this with our 3rd VH as well.

Have a look here - [url][/url]http://www.frequent-virgin.co.uk/[url][/url]

[RichardMannion]

FVC is great - I don't book as many VH as I used too, but when I have spoken to the girls in the FVC team they are very helpful and knowledable.

I know some people have reported issues with VH, and Stewart has intervened and helped resolve the issues, so I can't fault them for trying to make amends.

Thanks,
Richard

I know there can often be some problems with them, generally I have found them to be good to exceptional. For example we have just booked part of our ski trip this winter in UC with them. It worked out around 4800 for the two of us with flight to SFO and return LAX with four nights at The Hotel in Vegas. Doing a search on VS the best price came in at 4900 without the four nights.

I called them at about 5:20 Sunday afternoon and got the last two UC seats for our return, we needed to check with the rest of the family and as they were closing soon the lady offered to hold the line for nearly 20 minutes so we got the seats (plus perhaps her commision) but it seemed to me she really went out her way to help us. [y]

Originally posted by AndyR

Originally posted by alanjones
I'm about to go on our 3rd trip with VH, and never had a problem. We've always booked on the internet, so had an e-mail confirmation almost straight away, and through the post in only a few days. Fortunately we've never had to speak to anyone in a call centre yet, so can't comment on that side of things, but we've certainly never had anything to complain about with VH.

If you about to go on your 3rd VH then you should look at the Frequent Virgin Club as you would save yourself 10% on the holiday and also get some extras like free room upgrades etc. We are about to do this with our 3rd VH as well.

Have a look here - [url][/url]http://www.frequent-virgin.co.uk/[url][/url]

Yeah, I've already signed up for that. Signed up as soon as our latest holiday was being recognized on their system Took a couple of weeks from the time we booked with VH to the time the FV system had caught up and actually recognised our booking ref for the 3rd holiday Got our pack a short while after that (complete with that little square of red carpet. Anyone found a use for theirs yet?), and a few weeks after, a new invoive from VH with our new FV 10% discount To be honest, I wasn't expecting them to apply the discount to the already booked holiday, so I was well chuffed when that came through