FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - first and last time flying Virgin Atlantic
Old Jul 18, 2012, 2:11 pm
  #9  
sdix
 
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 3,011
Originally Posted by ajcopley
Well until I'm on a flight that crashes / has a pilot or flight attendant that has a mental breakdown / ends up landing at the wrong airport / forces me to sit on the runway for 13 hours / <enter worse flying experiences here>, then yes...for me personally this was the worst airline travel experience I've had to date. Perhaps you have experienced far worse, and therefore my personal experiences can't compare. Maybe I'm just lucky.

But when I'm paying for a premium product, my expectations are just a bit higher than were I flying US Scare / RyanJet / some other low cost budget carrier. Yes I do expect my kids to be able to watch videos / TV shows...yes...the ones that the airline advertises that they offer on the flight. Yes I do expect those videos to aid in entertaining them while stuck on a on a plane for 10 hours. Yes I do expect my luggage to arrive at my destination with me and at the same time. And yes I do expect the airline to honor seat requests, especially when traveling as a family. When traveling alone, not so big a deal. When traveling with small children, it all of a sudden IS a big deal. I can't personally remember the last time that my seat request was not honored. Virgin was made well aware of the situation with their website not permitting me to manage my reservation and they had many many opportunities to verbally inform me of the 13 hour OLCI rule (i.e. if I wanted to keep those seats I needed to call back and do a phone check-in).

I completely understand that "stuff happens", but IMHO this "stuff" is usually reserved in the "you get what you pay for" situations. I certainly did not get the quality of service that I expected and thus my complaint. Maybe these travel hiccups happen to you on a more regular basis and therefore your expectations are lower, but they don't happen to me, and they certainly better not happen when I've chosen to spend more money for a supposedly premium product. And I had MANY options (and many CHEAPER options) that would also have gotten me to the correct destination and gotten me there safely. I personally think that is a rather reasonable expectation no matter what carrier we're flying on (Singapore Airways, RyanAir, ValuJet, etc). If arriving safely and to the correct destination were my ONLY consideration when flying, then I certainly could have saved myself quite a bit of $$$ by flying a different carrier.
Thought you said you were in economy? If you were then you weren't paying for a premium product.

The 13 hour giveaway your seat policy is close to as idiotic as I have seen anywhere. I've done several trips with them recently and I get a pre flight email warning me of this even though I'm in UC.

I've also had luggage issues with them. At LHR 1 of 6 bags didn't make it. Ground staff insisted that it made the plane so it must be at LHR. Probably true but LHR's a big place and it wasn't where it was supposed to be.

Eventually got it 24 hours later and I filed a claim. Don't know if I'll get a payment but I did get a automated email basically thanks for my claim and they were still looking......

Overall I've had mixed luck. If I was paying full price for UC I'd probably write more but given the deep discount UC fares I figure it's still a cut above UA or AA and a little hassle's ok
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