Booking Protections

In the current climate does anyone have any views on if there any advantages or disadvatages in booking a Codeshare with any of Virgins partners, Delta, KLM, AirFrance rather than a booking direct with Virgin?

It depends what you mean in “the current climate”.

I have a few immediate interpretations, if you mean around covid and restrictions and needing to change things, then I think you need to check the Covid travel page on each of their websites for their policy, but bare in mind it will be driven by the country of that carrier. So there could be nuances that may apply in a British context that might not work or be beneficial to Air France’s restrictions.

My other interpretation is one around the company going bust? I don’t really see this as risk anymore, VS have come this far, forward bookings are good, they are buying aircraft and the recent raise of capital was used to partially pay down debt. Other than standard protection - booking with a credit card etc, I don’t think you need to do anything else.

What sort of protection are you looking for?

There are statutory protections that come into play in case of cancellation such as refunds or rebooking and rerouting. But some restrictions apply depending on the operating carrier - no Eu/UK261 on DL ex US for example

There are the options provided by their airlines that they have introduced by themselves - think being able to take a voucher rather than just getting a refund of taxes and fees if you choose to cancel.

Then assuming you’re in the UK using a credit card then s75 and chargeback add a separate set of protections that would protect your cash if not your trip.

If you have a specific question or situation in mind it might be easier for us to answer

Just to say thanks to both of you for those replies.
ColOrd - Very perceptive, I had both areas of concern in mind.
Tonty mentions the EU/UK261 which is clearly a disadvantage when using Delta to book v's VS or KLM.
I was merely wondering if more experienced travellers than me may have had some other views on advantages/disadvantages I had not considered.

Having flown Virgin regularly for over 20 years I have the feeling that they have not been up to the mark for a while now.
I read on Vflyer of the difficulties in just being able to make a simple online booking, which mirrors my own experience and yet I can go to Delta or KLM website and could have made the booking online.
Its very poor when the operating airline can not get their own website to work correctly.
I either got 'we dont fly every day' or the spinning wheel timer and then page returned to itself.
I called them (30min wait) and booked sucessfully ,and I also mentioned these issues and they promised to pass to technical to see what they could do.

ATL where they quietly drop the schedule and apparently dont tell their customers...
Log in to Flying Club - 'Cant do that at the moment'
Flying club - Record zeroed

They just dont inspire confidence in me like they used to.
I like Virgin but they seem to make it hard work sometimes.