APD

Originally posted by Jon Morgan
I did pay by Amex late on Friday afternoon, so PayPal was accepting it without problems then.

I have to say that I've never seen a process as shonky as this from an organisation as big and aware of its reputation as VAA. The email copy contained typos, the email images and link were broken, the pages on virginatlantic.com contained a load of improperly coded characters (so lots of question marks in place of pound signs), and then it was being paid through PayPal (which I think was the most shocking single element), with Virgin showing up as an unverified supplier!

The broken images and dodgy characters have since been fixed, but considering people will rightly resent paying extra for a ticket they've already paid for, this didn't strike me as a particularly positive process to try and present Virgin in a good light.

And as for the "we don't think you should pay this tax so we'll give you a voucher for money off your next purchase" line, that's disingenous at best, since the APD will apply to the next purchase too.

Hear hear!

Originally posted by AlecK

Originally posted by neal
I just tried paying the extra APD amount online using my VS Amex but the Paypal site errored saying I cannot use a credit card and must use a bank account instead. Using a MasterCard doesn't throw up this error message.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Maybe VS realised that Amex users would incur the conversion charges and therefore stopped accepting it via Paypal?

Thanks,
Neal

Just tried to pay our APD and got the same error, spoke to VS and they tried to blame paypal but had payed someone else ten minutes earlier with no problem. Only advice VS could give were email paypal or pay at check in - not good enough, GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER VIRGIN [n]

I e-mailed Virgin about this and the response I got says:

...Thank you for your email.

I am sorry to advise that Virgin Atlantic is unable to assist with any PayPal queries.

For assistance, please log on to the PayPal website...

Pretty terrible customer services in my opinion. As far as I'm concerned, I'm paying the extra APD to Virgin so they should be able to assist me with my queries in paying it!

[/quote]

I e-mailed Virgin about this and the response I got says:

...Thank you for your email.

I am sorry to advise that Virgin Atlantic is unable to assist with any PayPal queries.

For assistance, please log on to the PayPal website...

Pretty terrible customer services in my opinion. As far as I'm concerned, I'm paying the extra APD to Virgin so they should be able to assist me with my queries in paying it!
[/quote]

Either that, or absorb the cost....[:0]

Have VS actually broken any laws with all this, ie. a load of their customers unwittingly parting with money - all because they paid with their Virgin Credit Card as opposed to any other card? To be emailing everyone back with words to the effect "it's not down to us, please contact PayPal" stinks IMHO [n]

It kind of makes it worse when you see that sale prices that were currently on offer - they all include tax and they're no higher than previous sales. Have to assume they can absorb tax when it suits!

WOW!!! S**t could hit the fan on this one. I have just read todays Mail, and it seems that the APD could be illegal, as far as the treasury not being within their rights to collect it retrospectively. It seems that a spokesman for them has stated that it in fact is "a tax on the airline, and NOT the customer", and it is up to the airline weather they collect it from us or not(as BA have decided not to do). I for one, will not be paying my £80 in advance of my travel plans in May.

I think I will hold out for my flight in May too! See what happens. [:?]

Originally posted by stoneman
WOW!!! S**t could hit the fan on this one. I have just read todays Mail, and it seems that the APD could be illegal, as far as the treasury not being within their rights to collect it retrospectively. It seems that a spokesman for them has stated that it in fact is "a tax on the airline, and NOT the customer", and it is up to the airline weather they collect it from us or not(as BA have decided not to do). I for one, will not be paying my £80 in advance of my travel plans in May.

Per today's Times, even more interestingly, the Tax has not gone through the normal parliamentary process and thus it is not on the statute books as a "legally collectable tax" let alone retrospectively. [:0]

It isn't a legal tax at this point, and it would be interesting to put that point at check-in...[}:)] for as you say, it has been confirmed that it's "a tax on the airline, and NOT the passenger" - hence the discretion that the airlines have to NOT pass it on to the pax as BA have done.[:(!]

Originally posted by stoneman
WOW!!! S**t could hit the fan on this one. I have just read todays Mail, and it seems that the APD could be illegal, as far as the treasury not being within their rights to collect it retrospectively. It seems that a spokesman for them has stated that it in fact is "a tax on the airline, and NOT the customer", and it is up to the airline weather they collect it from us or not(as BA have decided not to do). I for one, will not be paying my £80 in advance of my travel plans in May.

Is there some sort of legal challenge being brought? Think I'll also hold back on paying my tax. Cripes, imagine it it WERE to be proved illegal and then good old MBNA would be into refunds.... yikes![ii]

Originally posted by catsilversword

Is there some sort of legal challenge being brought? Think I'll also hold back on paying my tax. Cripes, imagine it it WERE to be proved illegal and then good old MBNA would be into refunds.... yikes![ii]

According to the Guardian more than one challenge may be in the offing.

Paul

I tried to pay mine and had no luck. I already have my Amex registered to Paypal, so I got a message to say register a new card. Why?! Surely I can use the card that's verified and confirmed to my address already? It's a ridiculous system for a company the size of Virgin. [:(!]

Our kids are also on their own booking and when you enter the passenger details, there's no option to put 'zero' adults in the dropdown menu. When we called to point this error out, they said 'just pay it at the airport'. Again, why should I?! I want my discount voucher! They agreed we could just put 1 adult, 1 child on each payment in the end, even though that doesn't match the bookings.

After reading those articles though, i'll be holding off and paying it at the very last minute.

I am holding out on paying at the minute as my flight is not until the end of March....but I have some questions... I am flying PE, LHR - JFK. This is the inbound portion of a ticket purchased in US$ originating in JFK. The outbound journey was made Jan 1, before the APD went into effect. Does it make a difference that our ticket was purchased in the US? Originated from the US? Is the APD based on each leg of the trip, or just the leg exiting the UK? Sorry if my research skills are not up to snuff and these answers can be found elsewhere.

I've paid the APD via paypal the other day, yet when I check on virgin, they say I need to pay 40 pounds still. Does the site not update after you pay?

Originally posted by stars
I am holding out on paying at the minute as my flight is not until the end of March....but I have some questions... I am flying PE, LHR - JFK. This is the inbound portion of a ticket purchased in US$ originating in JFK. The outbound journey was made Jan 1, before the APD went into effect. Does it make a difference that our ticket was purchased in the US? Originated from the US? Is the APD based on each leg of the trip, or just the leg exiting the UK? Sorry if my research skills are not up to snuff and these answers can be found elsewhere.

It's just the leg of the trip originating in the UK, but yes, tickets originally purchased outside the UK will have the increased APD applied. This page from the BBC site attempts to clarify everything on the subject:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6258327.stm

Originally posted by irishboy22
I've paid the APD via paypal the other day, yet when I check on virgin, they say I need to pay 40 pounds still. Does the site not update after you pay?

I shouldn't imagine so - you can get PayPal to send back a payment confirmation to the originating site, but given the previously noted 'ad hoc-ness' of Virgin's solution to this I can't imagine they've also put in place a mechanism to update their own booking records. Though to be fair that would probably require a significant back-end development process.

If they had we wouldn't all need to take the recepit from the PayPal payment along to check-in as proof of payment.

Originally posted by Jon Morgan

Originally posted by stars
I am holding out on paying at the minute as my flight is not until the end of March....but I have some questions... I am flying PE, LHR - JFK. This is the inbound portion of a ticket purchased in US$ originating in JFK. The outbound journey was made Jan 1, before the APD went into effect. Does it make a difference that our ticket was purchased in the US? Originated from the US? Is the APD based on each leg of the trip, or just the leg exiting the UK? Sorry if my research skills are not up to snuff and these answers can be found elsewhere.

It's just the leg of the trip originating in the UK, but yes, tickets originally purchased outside the UK will have the increased APD applied. This page from the BBC site attempts to clarify everything on the subject:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6258327.stm

Thank you for the link, Jon.

I received an e-mail this morning concerning APD and in it, it says:-

'The following passengers are exempt from paying the additional tax: Infants (under the age of 2), those passengers in transit who are connecting to an onward flight within 24 hours of landing in the UK and passengers who have booked their flights via Virgin Holidays.'

I have a booking with Virgin Holidays so does that mean I don't have to pay [:?]

If I go to the pay your APD link on the Flying CLub Website and input my flight, it tells me I owe money [?]

Think like lots of others I will hold on until the last minute and see what the gods decide then

thelaceys

[Neil]

As long as your flights have been booked via VH then you will not have to pay any extra APD, this is because of something written in their t&c's.

Neil

Originally posted by thelaceys
I received an e-mail this morning concerning APD and in it, it says:-

'The following passengers are exempt from paying the additional tax: Infants (under the age of 2), those passengers in transit who are connecting to an onward flight within 24 hours of landing in the UK and passengers who have booked their flights via Virgin Holidays.'

I have a booking with Virgin Holidays so does that mean I don't have to pay [:?]

If I go to the pay your APD link on the Flying CLub Website and input my flight, it tells me I owe money [?]

Think like lots of others I will hold on until the last minute and see what the gods decide then

thelaceys

I'll only be in transit in london for 4 hours and we had to pay it! Flights were booked through ebookers, however it's all under the same PNR reference. Raging! What should I do?!

I had guests arriving at my villa yesterday and I asked them to email me when they arrived to say to what happened at check in.

The staff asked to see their receipt as they had no record of their payment. For people who had not paid the staff had card readers to take the extra tax.

As my guests had paid they then issued them with a £20 voucher per person which was just taken from a large pile. There is no name on each of the vouchers and nothing that links them to it.

They also said there were no signs of any problems or arguments between staff and customers.

Jilly

[mitchja]

Originally posted by Attitude23
As long as your flights have been booked via VH then you will not have to pay any extra APD, this is because of something written in their t&c's.

Neil

That's only the case if you have booked your Virgin Holiday package before December 12th 2006. Anyone who have booked a V hols package after this date will have to pay APD.

Regards

[Neil]

Yes, sorry James I didn't make that clear in my post[:I]

Originally posted by mitchja

Originally posted by Attitude23
As long as your flights have been booked via VH then you will not have to pay any extra APD, this is because of something written in their t&c's.

Neil

That's only the case if you have booked your Virgin Holiday package before December 12th 2006. Anyone who have booked a V hols package after this date will have to pay APD.

Regards

As I read it James, anyone who had booked on 13 December or later will have already paid the APD, but ISTBC.

Jilly

[RichardMannion]

Just tried to sort out my APD for upcoming flight to SFO - what a joke it is. System doesn't check your PNR at all, it's just to popualte the field on the receipt. So it's not smart enough to work out that I actually need to pay £60 as I booked an L, and used miles to go to a G.

You can't do a manual adjustment, nor can you pay via the call centre. So I have to pay at check-in and forfeit the voucher. PayPal is struggling with AmEx and Switch cards right now. I tried logging in using my PayPal account and couldn't use any credit cards at all. Useless.

Not amused.

Thanks,
Richard

[mitchja]

I booked my next V Hols package in early Jan and the APD is on my invoice.

Regards