Originally Posted by
kawoh
I booked a trip with VAustralia LAX-SYD-BNE-LAX with a planned stopover in SYD which I planned to call them up and arrange a couple weeks ago. Surprisingly VAustralia decided to completely cancel the LAX-SYD and put me on LAX-BNE without even telling me of the schedule change. Had i not called, I doubt they would have even bothered telling me about this schedule change and i would have likely missed my flight at LAX because they put me on LAX-BNE instead, which leaves 1 hr 15 mins earlier. My flight on UA from PSP allowed me about 3 hours to connect to my original planned LAX-SYD flight on VAustralia, but now with their change, it only affords me 1 hr and 15 mins, i'll likely completely miss the VAustralia flight. thanks for telling me VAustralia.
To the other posters - I sincerely doubt either travel insurance or the credit card will provide funds to cover a change of only 1hr 15 mins. The change is not really material especially as check-in is required 3 hours prior to departure.
What's not entirely clear from kawoh's posting is the new timing at LAX. You state you originally allowed 3 hours, and the LAX-BNE is now leaving 1.15 hours earlier. That still leaves you 1hr 45 mins? Tricky but doable.
As for the LAX-SYD cancellation. It sounds from your post that you hadn't booked the stopover in SYD at the time of booking but were planning to organise that later? In that case then Virgin probably thought they were doing you a favour by routing you directly to BNE. I have had Swissair do that to me before in the event of a cancellation (that is, route me direct rather than via a intermediate hub).
If the stop wasn't already booked in SYD then I tend to agree with Virgin that they are delivering their part of the deal to get you to BNE.
Oddly, if you had turned up for your original flight to SYD and missed it because it had been cancelled you probably would have found yourself booked on another carrier. Although whether they would have granted you a stopover once you got to SYD is another issue.
It is a shame about the customer service. I haven't had to deal with Virgin but I can understand your frustration. Qantas is usually very good but their wait times to get through cann be 30 mins or more (thankfully as a top tier platinum I get through with no delay.)
Regards
lme ff