Virgin Vacations Kaput?

We chose one of the Virgin Vacations packages for our trip to London in December. It's the "A Touch of Class" package with UC tickets and many other amenities for a great price. Deal is, we were called and told we must pay the rest of our balance by the 15th or we'll have to pay full price for the airline tickets. Seems Virgin Atlantic airlines is severing the relationship with the "vacations" site and will begin to charge full fee on tickets from now on. What's the deal? Doesn't sound like something Sir Richard would do but maybe this is a "bean-counter" move to help with revenue? Hmmmm.... Anyway, we paid our bill and will still have the vacation but sure hate the idea of these nice packages disappearing with Virgin.

An odd request. I would have thought you already had a contract with Virgin, and as such they could not change the terms by requiring you to pay early to avoid a price increase.

Exactly, sailor! Just didn't make a lot of sense to us, but we didn't want to lose everything else we'd put into the trip by withdrawing. Must have been a rude awakening for others in our situation who couldn't just ante-up and keep the bookings.

Anybody have info about this to help me understand what happened? Is this separate entity, Virgin Vacations, going under or what?

I'd guess (though this is pure conjecture on my part) that the fare rules for the flight contract are changing.
Doing a quick search for that holiday on their www it now stipulates that payment must be made within 1 day by 2pm. So it would suggest that whilst previously the contract for this particular fare allowed seats to be held until full payment was received this is no longer the case.

Whenever you hold a flight you'll usually get the message somewhere in the Terms and Conditions that the actual fare is not guaranteed until the fare is paid.

If Virgin is pulling the original fare contract with Virgin Vacations and issuing another then all bookings made under the old contract need to be paid for and ticketed or cancelled.

As I say, this is pure conjecture on my part but Virgin Vacations should be able to clarify this for you.

It's a bit like if you booked a holiday a year in advance with, say, Hayes and Jarvis. Then 3 weeks later they suddenly try and make you pay for the flights, even though the contract says you only have to pay up 6 weeks before the holiday. They just couldn't do it!

But they could indeed (although there are slightly different EU rules for Brochured holidays).
Almost all tour operators/ travel agents should advise when purchasing scheduled flights that the fare cannot be guaranteed until full payment has been received.

It happens a fair bit with most airlines... when the airline removes a fare contract they give the agent/operator time to issue all the bookings, but obviously most will then ask for full payment.

Just to repeat this is still conjecture, I'm just suggesting one possible/probable reason for this...

So as for the contract the passenger has with Virgin Vacations then this will depend on whether they have been advised (ie ticked the 'I have read the Terms and Conditions' box) that the fare is not guaranteed untill paid for.

I deleted my previous reply as I managed to find an explanation of VV's T&C here.

Unfortunately you had already replied to my previous post before I could delete it. However, the T&C seem to support exactly what you are saying:

Q: What happens if the package price changes after I have booked my package?
A: Once a package is booked and paid in full, the price is guaranteed. If our prices change, no price amendments will be made to existing bookings.

I have since had a look at our holiday contract, as I had not noticed this sort of term before. Ours says that once you have paid the deposit your price is guaranteed. This is of course significantly different (phew!). So my guess is that this is a difference between US and UK custom and practice.

Sorry Betsy. It seems that until you have paid in full they have a right to change the price. So in a way, by suggesting you pay up to secure the price they have done you a kind of favour.

Hey, thanks for all your research into this quandry. Yep, the virgin vacations folks did us a great favor by letting us know and giving us a few days to come up with the $$$$. We saved something like $10,000 or so! Turns out we had to pay in full on the airfare but could still leave the rest to be paid a little later. That helped considerably and indicated what you were thinking is true...it's about changes in the air contract. Hallelujah, it's settled! Now, I can look forward to all the fun to be had in Dec.! Going to Spamalot, Gordon Ramsay - Hospital Road, Paris for the day, lots of shopping, and lots of pints imbibed at various pubs!!! Yippee!!!

betsy06

Just make sure you bring a shrubbery for the Knights who say Ni!

[HighFlyer]

Originally posted by sailor99
Just make sure you bring a shrubbery for the Knights who say Ni!

Could be unwise ... Those who hear them seldom live to tell the tale!

Thanks,
Sarah

No, no, no - that's just a woodland myth!

If you recall, they just cannot abide you using the word "it", so you should be able to pass unhindered with a shrubbery and the judicious use of "it" every so often.

I understand that in Spamalot, when they change their name each night is different, with the new name dependant on current events.