VS73/74 Cancelled throughout September

Sorry to hear about your bad experience Nevil30.

Just be thankful that you followed your curiosity and decided to check-in in Downtown Disney otherwise you wouldn't have returned home on the day you did. And if you had plans straight after you got back they would've no doubt be in tatters as a result.

It pays to be curious trust me. I've done it before and its helped me out in a lot of situations:)

[Neil]

Originally posted by Nevil30
We plan to write in and complain do you think it is worth it as it messed up our whole plans for the day.

All I would say is that it can't harm, obviously VS will say that they tried to contact you and left a message, which as you said is no good when you are away already[ii]. I imagine you will get the standard reply and probably 5k miles, which if is the case is better than nothing. As VS075 has said be thankful you did use DTD and did manage to make your flight, or it could of been a terrible end to your hols.

Be interested to hear VS' response if you do decide to write in.
Neil:)

I would kick up a stink! They should have known you were already out there!

Had we gone straight to the airport to checkin at the obligatory 3 hours before the flight we would have missed it!!

Interesing subject,
Just wondering what would happen if you had turned up at MCO and found that you had missed the flight... Would VS have put you up in a hotel or would they say its you fault for not checking the flight times and let you fend for yourself.

I'm sure there will be something in the small print that covers this eventuality.

I'd write in, if only to get an answer to this question.

I remember seeing on my flight ticket one time "Please phone the airline 24 hours before your Inbound journey to confirm the departure time" I can not remember the Airline, I also did not call.
[:(]

I thought the "please re-confirm your flights 24hrs prior to departure" wording on an itinerary was pretty much standard for all airlines. It gets them off the hook when they make changes to the flight times as it puts the onus on you to check.

I know I have definately seen this wording on BA & Ryanair flight itineraries / e-tickets... now where is my e-ticket for November to check what wording VS use?

Originally posted by Kraken
I thought the "please re-confirm your flights 24hrs prior to departure" wording on an itinerary was pretty much standard for all airlines. It gets them off the hook when they make changes to the flight times as it puts the onus on you to check.

I know I have definately seen this wording on BA & Ryanair flight itineraries / e-tickets... now where is my e-ticket for November to check what wording VS use?

I throw all the supporting gubbins from VH away but ISTR they say that if you have bought your flights with VH you don't need to re-confirm. I assume that they rely on the VH reps to communicate any changes, though how that works if you're on a fly-drive with periods of non VH accommodation is a mystery.

Paul

[Neil]

Looking at the VH t&c's, it just says that the actual flight times will be confirmed on your tickets, and makes no reference to re-confirming 24hr in advance etc. So if the holiday tickets show a flight on a certain day/time and it is changed without notification from your holiday company then you should surely have some sort of comeback (it does also state that a flight time change of +/-12 hours is only a 'minor' change though)

Neil:)

Thanks for the various responses..............much appreciated

We have decided to complain, will let you know the response we get.

We have checked our itinerary, tickets and receipt (paper tickets were issued as we were travelling with an infant) and can find no mention of re-confirming our flight times.

On checking VS conditions it refers to altering flight times however they did not alter the time they actually cancelled our flight therefore not sure where they will stand on that one. The other point is they did not actually offer us the opportunity to gain a refund!

I must admit we will now always reconfirm our flight time although when do you do it as they could cancel at any time and it can be expensive ringing when abroad. I mean how many people actually reconfirm??

Regards
Nevil

Good luck in your complaint Nevil30 [y]

When we were out in Florida last time we rang up VS to reconfirm our flight and fortunately it was running as scheduled. Thye should give you a number for a local office which you can ring to make the call cheaper.

As Attitude23 has said their response would most probably be a standard reply and 5k miles thrown in for good measure which is better than nothing.

You're right in saying that it did mess up your plans for the day and no-one likes that. It will be interesting to see what they have to say about this and surely it shouldn't be something that they'll wipe under the carpet rug.

Out of interest was it all booked through VH or was it booked independently/through travel agents? And did they know exactly where you were staying also. I know this would be difficult if you booked independently but surely it would take some common sense to realise that you weren't in the UK at the time.

Anyway good luck again in your complaint.

I am assuming that your complaint is with Virgin Holidays (VH) and not Virgin Atlantic (VS). As far as I am aware VH will reconfirm your flights for you without all the 24 hours stuff so you can enjoy your holiday. What did it say on your VH itinerary and final travel details because at this point they would know of the 74's cancellation?

It was actually booked direct with Virgin Atlantic, we provided our e-mail address and mobile phone number when we made the booking. They had our hotel details from the API info requested prior to departure from the UK (but to be fair to VS that only confirms the first night). We spoke to several other passengers who had all been contacted by VS early in September by mobile / e-mail.

We will definately be ringing in future (thanks for the point about the local office VS075), like you say 5000 miles is better than nothing although to be honest an explanation would be nice.

Regards
Nevil

Originally posted by Nevil30
It was actually booked direct with Virgin Atlantic, we provided our e-mail address and mobile phone number when we made the booking. They had our hotel details from the API info requested prior to departure from the UK (but to be fair to VS that only confirms the first night). We spoke to several other passengers who had all been contacted by VS early in September by mobile / e-mail.

We will definately be ringing in future (thanks for the point about the local office VS075), like you say 5000 miles is better than nothing although to be honest an explanation would be nice.

Regards
Nevil

Looking at what you've said I'd expect more than an explanation. It will be very interesting to see what they have to say about this one.

However like you said the hotel details you gave to them only confirms your first night and they would've not known whether you was staying there for the whole of your hols or you was doing a flydrive. But still if you gave them your email address and mobile number then an explanation would be expected[:?]

Light loads is the reason as has been mentioned earlier.

Due to it being out of school holidays, hurricane season and not many people taking holidays in Sept.

The VS16 was very light when I traveled back on it- and I even thought to myself why havent VS combined both LGW services as we had round 150 pax on our service!

Light loads is the reason as has been mentioned earlier.

Due to it being out of school holidays, hurricane season and not many people taking holidays in Sept.

The VS16 was very light when I traveled back on it- and I even thought to myself why havent VS combined both LGW services as we had round 150 pax on our service!

Thanks Willd, we know why it was cancelled we would just like an explanation as to why they made no attempt to contact us in the USA.

On the flight out to MCO there was only one other passenger in UC so our son had the front of the plane to explore, the pilot even advised that passengers could move seats once airborne.

Regard
Nevil

Is there any news yet on whether or not VS are cancelling the VS073/074 service in November?

Or, can someone with Expert Flyer access check what the loads are like on the VS075 & VS073 on 11th November? (I used up my free EF searches a while back - on non-VS flights too, I am sorry to say - did help me to save some dosh on BA fares though).

[Neil]

Originally posted by Kraken
Is there any news yet on whether or not VS are cancelling the VS073/074 service in November?

Or, can someone with Expert Flyer access check what the loads are like on the VS075 & VS073 on 11th November? (I used up my free EF searches a while back - on non-VS flights too, I am sorry to say - did help me to save some dosh on BA fares though).

Kracken - nothing announced by VS about cancelling in November, so you have to presume that it is going ahead unless you hear differently, I am sure VS will advise all pax with plenty of notice if any future flights/services are cancelled. We just have to presume that the Sept cancellations were due to light loads and the lack of a/c availability for whatever reason and that all will be sorted for October onwards.

Neil:)

All will be answered tomorrow.

VS075 - Are Virgin announcing tomorrow what flights they will run / cancel out of MAN in November?

A quick look at their website now shows that they have only cancelled 3 VS073/074 flights in November at the moment, all on Thursdays.

Thanks
James

Originally posted by Kraken
VS075 - Are Virgin announcing tomorrow what flights they will run / cancel out of MAN in November?

A quick look at their website now shows that they have only cancelled 3 VS073/074 flights in November at the moment, all on Thursdays.

Thanks
James

According to the website VS073/74 is also not running Thursdays in December.

Where does it say that?

I'm on VS73 on Thurs 2nd Nov

[Neil]

Originally posted by Kirstielou
Where does it say that?

I'm on VS73 on Thurs 2nd Nov

Hmmm just noticed that the VS site does not agree with the posts above either, here is the VS latest news section which confirms the cancellations but I can only see ones for Sept and then some in Dec/Jan[?].

Neil:)

The VS073/074 is running on the 2nd & 9th of November. It is cancelled the the remaining 3 Thursdays in November & all of December.

Info off the Flight Timetable page on the VS website here


{edit:mitchja - to shorten the URL}

Thanks Kracken. I'm safe!

Originally posted by Kirstielou
Thanks Kracken. I'm safe!

Don't worry flower all will be fine, the Thursdays without the flight were up there a long time ago, in fact the 16th was detailed in January when I booked.