UC downgrade to PE, happen often?

Hi all,

I flew back from SFO on 24th Jan and I had upgraded from PE (W fare) to UC using miles four hours before the flight was due to take off.

Flying club stated at that the time of the upgrade that one seat was available in upper and I was transfered to the UC team who confirmed that the seat had been allocated to me.

I checked 'update booking' on the web to check that my class had changed from PE to UC and all looked fine, I also confirmed that the miles had been deducted from my account.

On arrival at SFO UC check in I was told that UC was full and that if I wished to fly home that evening I would need to downgrade to PE. I spoke to the check in supervisor / manager who stated that the flying club had made a mistake and that this happens all of the time... after a lengthy conversation I conceded defeat and accepted a PE seat.

I politely requested access to the clubhouse as I had left work early to take advantage of the facilities and still had work to do and they refused, stating the clubhouse was only available for UC passengers and gold card holders. I explained that I as far as I was concerned I was flying UC when I set off for the airport, that I am only 5 tier points away from gold and I already have a UC out / PE back trip booked for Feb.

The supervisor wouldn't budge and replied only Upper Class passengers or gold card holders are privileged to use the clubhouse, you will be able to use the lounge in February if you travel in Upper Class or if you have a gold card

I have upgraded many times from PE to UC using miles and have never experienced a downgrade back into PE. I understand that UC is sometimes oversold but given that I only upgraded 4 hours before take off... would FC have an upgrade seat showing on their system if the cabin was oversold or was looking potentially very busy?

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Ant.

I cant comment on how often this happens, what I can say is, the supervisor handled the situation very poorly if he did not grant you access to the CH.

We know the rules, however you have just been involuntarily downgraded. It is my understanding that once an upgrade is confirmed you ahe as much right to UC priveleges (excl CDC) as a D or J ticket.

I think you handled this situation very well, as unless you was the last UC passenger to arrive, rightfully you should not have been downgraded.

I hope you are not going to let this matter rest here.

I agree that this is something that you need to sort out now that you are back. Was Upper full in the end then - that would have been an interesting one if there had been a no-show and you were still not allowed to be upgraded. I am assuming that the miles have been refunded?

That sucks and I would have been very frustrated at the turn of events.

In your circumstance I would have escalated the Club House access issue - technical correct may be but a little latitude is often called providing exceptional service. Shame that didn't happen. Others who had effectively been downgraded would normally be given access - I've seen this happen. I would definitely lodge a stern letter to VS about the run around you had and hope that the feedback reaches where it needs to.

The supervisor should have offered you CH access as a minimal gesture of goodwill IMO.

Very poorly handled situation and I would be composing a letter to highlight a few area's for improvement.

All supervisors have a certain level of discretion that they can use, I am a little shocked that you scenario was handled in that way. [n]

Thanks all for your replies!

I enquired if it would be possible to go on a stand-by list just in case someone doesn't turn up and the supervisor stated 'that never happens and it wouldn't be possible'.

I definitely wasn't the last UC passenger to check in as I noticed a couple of UC passengers checking into PE while I was conversing with the supervisor at UC checkin.

The supervisor stated that the upgrade miles would be refunded by the time I got on the plane... funnily enough they were not and were refunded by FC when I called them after landing at LHR.

FC stated that the only reason that I would have been downgraded after receiving confirmation of the upgrade would have been for a medical emergency (normally whilst in the air) or diplomatic reasons and they had nothing on file against that flight.

They actually recommended that I complained asap and were annoyed that they had been blamed.

I didn't unfortunately take the name of the supervisor but I can describe her and I would imagine that it wouldn't be too difficult for Virgin to find out.

Ant.

It is heartening to see that Flying Club have sided with you.

I hope that you get a full and thourough explanation as to what was the cause of your downgrade.

[RichardMannion]

Sounds like you had a complete muppet of a supervisor that was trying to fob you off.

'that the flying club had made a mistake and that this happens all of the time...' - nope, news to me. Fob off.

'I enquired if it would be possible to go on a stand-by list just in case someone doesn't turn up and the supervisor stated 'that never happens and it wouldn't be possible'.' - again, nonsense. Fob off.

Clubhouse access should have been extended to you in my opinion. Can you please make sure you do complain about this as this is unacceptable by the outsource staff at SFO. Please let us know how you get on.

I'll agree with everyone else. Sounds like you were dumped on by the SFO station staff, who seems to have looked 'down' on you for being a 'G', and wrote you off as trying it on. It would cost them 'nothing' to let you in the Clubhouse as a 'favour', because it's a sunk cost, and you probably wouldn't be so angry now.

Last time I wanted to upgrade ex-SFO, I basically had to talk an agent through processing an upgrade for me, and they made terrible hard work of it.

Good luck getting past the brick wall of the oxymoron that is 'Customer Services', though. They'll probably give you miles, but seldom explain, and rarer still fix, the problem.

Once a V-Flyer 'darling', the VS station at SFO has gone totally down the tubes since the outsource, IMHO.

Thanks for all of your replies!

I've sent a 3 page detailed complaint letter to Customer Relations...

I've flown 8 return trips to BOS, SFO and LAS in the last year in PE or above and flown a similar number of flights per year with Virgin for the last 10 years... I've included this information in my letter as I would like to think that this adds some weight to my complaint.

I'll let you know what happens!

Ant.

Any response yet? Can't believe how badly they treated you. I've 'touch wood' never been downgraded yet. At one point I was being upgraded fifty percent of the time, but that was a few years ago.

Lounge access is something they definitely shouldn't have argued over.

Oh, ouch! What an awful experience. And that horrid jobsworthian hag that denied you entry to the golden bliss that is the CH should be forced to swab the loo of a charter for Incontinental Airlines. I hope you receive justice, ant.

GJ

Hi all,

I received a letter from Richard Branson's office this morning.

Virgin Atlantic apologised for the experience I had at check in at SFO and they have apparently passed on my comments to the station manager at SFO.

The rest of the letter was generic and offered no insight into the specific reason why I was downgraded. [:?]

They have credited 10,000 miles to my account but I would like a better explanation so I am planning to reply.

Ant.

Originally posted by ant_flyer
Hi all,

I received a letter from Richard Branson's office this morning.

Virgin Atlantic apologised for the experience I had at check in at SFO and they have apparently passed on my comments to the station manager at SFO.

The rest of the letter was generic and offered no insight into the specific reason why I was downgraded. [:?]

They have credited 10,000 miles to my account but I would like a better explanation so I am planning to reply.

Ant.

How appalling, a generic letter after such a disppointing experience.

This echoes the appaling treatment EGG received at the hands of Virgins customer services after his equally as disappointing situation.

for starters 10,000 points is a bog standard reply. if i was you i would be getting a FREE UC flight next time.

my next flight is a entirely upgraded to UC on the back of complaining and tbh i don't think we were treated as abdly as you were.

[RichardMannion]

Originally posted by esf666
for starters 10,000 points is a bog standard reply. if i was you i would be getting a FREE UC flight next time.

my next flight is a entirely upgraded to UC on the back of complaining and tbh i don't think we were treated as abdly as you were.

I think those days are over. A number of us have had conversations about the 'compensation culture' that has been established by Customer Relations in their habit of throwing miles at issues. I use the word issues in the loosest terms as I have seen and heard of the most trivial of issues being given miles. For a free UC flight that has a minimum value of £1500, then something would have seriously had to go wrong and I don't think this issue warrants that.

If you have a serious issue, then I do beleive that miles are a valid option, along with the right procedure beign followed to investigate the issue and try and negate it happening again. At the same time, the weight of the issue should be coupled with the value of the customer. All customers are not equal, if you have a regular Upper traveller that is Gold, then they will be merited different to your once a year on the cheapest of cheap tickets.

well we got back from vegas to gatwick in april 07 and had about 10000 miles each, and i swore to my wife that i thought Virgin was a waste of time and told her when she complained that unless we got enough to upgrade to upper i wasn't going to bother with virgin again.
fortunatley they played into our hands with their utter incompetance when dealing with our legitimate complaint and 3 phone calls later - voila

[RichardMannion]

Originally posted by esf666
well we got back from vegas to gatwick in april 07 and had about 10000 miles each, and i swore to my wife that i thought Virgin was a waste of time and told her when she complained that unless we got enough to upgrade to upper i wasn't going to bother with virgin again.
fortunatley they played into our hands with their utter incompetance when dealing with our legitimate complaint and 3 phone calls later - voila

You had a very lucky day, and obviously got through to a rank amateur in Customer Relations. Dare I ask what issues you encountered during your flights to LAS that you deemed worthy enough to warrant enough mielage to give you both an upgrade to Upper for a future trip?

Originally posted by RichardMannion

Originally posted by esf666
well we got back from vegas to gatwick in april 07 and had about 10000 miles each, and i swore to my wife that i thought Virgin was a waste of time and told her when she complained that unless we got enough to upgrade to upper i wasn't going to bother with virgin again.
fortunatley they played into our hands with their utter incompetance when dealing with our legitimate complaint and 3 phone calls later - voila

You had a very lucky day, and obviously got through to a rank amateur in Customer Relations. Dare I ask what issues you encountered during your flights to LAS that you deemed worthy enough to warrant enough mielage to give you both an upgrade to Upper for a future trip?

sorry if i've hijacked this thread btw [:#]

we had meals that were still frozen on the way out, i'm diabetic and advised them and several times snacks were handed out which were totally unsuitable for me, the service on both flights was very lacklustre and on the way back my wifes salad had a life beetle in, (which there response was 'would you like a new one?')
we then got home, wrote in and received a response 4 weeks later advising us that they were dealing with the issue and would contact us, they didn't - 2 further months on we finally got thru to a supervisor on the phone who said the problem was 'short staffing', we advise them 'it wasn't OUR problem' and to cut a long story down a bit, several calls later we ended up with about 45000 points for me and 38000 for my wife, enough to top our accounts up for the 60000 required for a UC upgrade to LA.

Hi all,

I received another letter from Virgin Atlantic this morning... the catalyst to this seems to have been my posting and your replies on V-Flyer!

The letter began 'I've been passed a copy of your comments from V-Flyer'.

The content of the letter is more in line with the the customer service expectations I had when I first contacted Virgin and contained more information as to why I was downgraded. I now feel that they have taken my comments on board and that someone is taking my feedback seriously.

VA have stated that I was downgraded due to overbooking in Upper Class... they have also acknowledged that the situation should have been dealt with differently, with particular regard to Club House access.

I have been given an additional 50,000 miles due to the service I received in SFO. This is very useful of course but I did not complain to obtain compensation, I was more interested in the reasons for the downgrade and denial of access to the clubhouse.

The cynic in me does wonder if I would have received a similar reply if I hadn't posted on a public forum but I am willing to give Virgin the benefit of the doubt [:w]

Thanks all for your comments on this matter,

Ant.


containined a more customer focused muc

[Nottingham Nick]

Good news about the power of V-Flyer, Ant. [:D]

Makes a membership seem even better value for money. [;)][8D]

Nick

v-flyer rocks[oo], I noticed TheDibb has lurkers from VH lately as well who are answering and listening to gripes.

Hope your upgraded flight is as good as is usually to be expected.

Originally posted by easygoingeezer
v-flyer rocks[oo], I noticed TheDibb has lurkers from VH lately as well who are answering and listening to gripes.

Hope your upgraded flight is as good as is usually to be expected.

We have VH lurkers and posters also on here..