Virgin flying club - Virgin Atlantic / Virgin Holidays

A classic example of the state of UK Commerce and how someone using a grain of common sense could actually a) make more money b) save time and cost and c) give great customer service.........

Booked a Virgin Holiday flying Virgin Atlantic to Kenya and internally to Mombasa for a Safari/Beach Holiday. Checked on Virgin Atlantic today to see how much an upgrade to PE would cost. Online, £72 for the two of us on the inbound leg, £392 for the two of us for both legs. Had to avail myself of that !!

Phoned Virgin Holidays, they can only quote for an upgrade on both legs, price......£1,100. Won't budge. Phoned Virgin Atlantic, they can't do anything for me as my contract is with a "Travel Agent" i.e. Virgin Holidays.

Spoke to Supervisor at Virgin Holidays.....£1,100 or nothing. Mentioned Watchdog and he scampered off. Came back with "we'll cancel all your flights including internal and refund you the cost of those flights and you book direct, everything else stays the same"

So.... the credit is £1,200. Same flights PE with Virgin Atlantic direct £1,316. Same internal flights with Kenya Airways £230. Total new flight cost £1,546.

So effectively my "upgrade" doing it the long winded way is £346, a saving of £46 on the Virgin Atlantic upgrade on my original flights !!

Downside is I've got to go through the hassle of cancelling, waiting for the refund, booking direct and you just know something will go wrong ;-)

If somebody at Virgin Holidays had the capability of a bit of flexibility, they take £392 off me and upgrade me to PE on my existing booking.......job done.

Unfortunately UK commerce and Customer Care ain't that simple these days.

Plus side is, I'll join the Virgin FF Club and get some miles ;)

Not sure I see anything wrong. You bought something from VH at a price you were happy with, knowing full well that prices can go down as well as up. If you weren't happy with the original price you should have gone elsewhere or waited.

Ok let's keep this simple......

Bought the Holiday with economy flights. Price to upgrade flight part to PE direct with Virgin Atlantic is £392. As I booked through Virgin Holidays, the price is £1,080. Virgin Atlantic won't do it as my contract is with Virgin Holidays.

How can the same Virgin Product be £392 with one Virgin Brand and £1,080 with another Virgin Brand ???

To go through the hoop of getting the upgrade for an effective cost of £346, Virgin Holidays cancel my flights and refund me £1,200 and I have to book them direct with Virgin Atlantic.

Surely to save them admin costs and lose my revenue, a quick call to Virgin Atlantic to agree an upgrade at £396 would be far simpler on the existing booking. I am happy to pay £396 not £1,080, but to do it will cost all of us time and money (but I do save £46 effectively!)

PS bought the holiday 3 months ago, got some more money and thought we'd spend it upgrading the flight. Would you pay £1,080 when you could have got the same thing for £392 through effectively the same brand ????

I always assumed that the different companies under the Virgin brand were in no way related to each other, they just share the same name.

I would say something about the fare class your VH flight was booked on being lower than the upgradeable PE flight you later booked, however if you were able to refund your original flight it must have been booked in a fairly high fare class.

Ok let's keep this simple......
How can the same Virgin Product be £392 with one Virgin Brand and £1,080 with another Virgin Brand ???

To go through the hoop of getting the upgrade for an effective cost of £346, Virgin Holidays cancel my flights and refund me £1,200 and I have to book them direct with Virgin Atlantic.

Surely to save them admin costs and lose my revenue, a quick call to Virgin Atlantic to agree an upgrade at £396 would be far simpler on the existing booking. I am happy to pay £396 not £1,080, but to do it will cost all of us time and money (but I do save £46 effectively!)

Think of it this way, the VH person you spoke with did you a huge favour, they agreed to cancel your booking without penalty (probably not always possible given you were on a discounted fare) then allow you to book directly with VS at the price you favoured. Yes, short term your cash flow will suffer and its a bit of hassle, but overall, a good result.

Why? Well, stupid as it may seem, VH have an allocation of VS seats at particular fare codes. Many of these are non-upgradeable or are at a cost that differs to other fare codes, no matter what is available through other channels. This is not a VH insanity and they are constrained by these fare code restrictions no matter what 'scampering' may occur - it is travel industry norm so don't flail at VS / VH alone, even if in this case they are the wrong doers to you!

On reflection, I think Slinky is correct, I got a great result and your explanation makes perfect sense. Yes I had to persevere and I have short term hassle, but I've nw got a PE upgrade at a cheaper price than if I had booked Virgin Atlantic direct originally.

I guess it's the Virgin brand that gets them into trouble - if you want all your group (franchises) to masquerade as the same company, then there should be consistency in all their "branded" offerrings. You wouldn't expect Tesco to have huge price differentials across their product range via different distribution channels. If I had booked through Thomas Cook on a Virgin flight then I probably would have accepted it.

So in hindsight, I used it to my advantage!