This post is mainly a way for me to vent my frustration and see if this happens routinely to anyone else.

I am flying tomorrow VX SFO-LAS, and bought tickets in January with a 7:45PM departure time. I check in tonight, and see that the flight time changed, and is now 7:00PM, meaning I need to leave work early instead of just slipping away at COB.
Also, in the same transaction, I booked the entire left-cabin row 4, with myself in 6D, brother in 6E, and friend in 6F. My friend checks in online, and has been moved to 16F. He calls, they overbooked, yadda yadda, and "fix" the situation by moving him to 6B, across the aisle and in a middle seat instead of his reserved aisle seat next to us.

This would just be everyday flight hassles, but in February I took my girlfriend to Vegas, and they changed the departure time (but not flight number!) by 3 HOURS. I luckily caught this one before we left, and they satisfied me by moving us to a later flight free of charge.

And all of these changes happened WITH NO NOTIFICATION TO ME WHATSOEVER. Itinerary changes, seat changes, all occurring with no notification, and no explanation other than "we must've made a mistake".

Is this becoming a habit with VX? Does this happen regularly to anyone else? Their customer service is barely passable, and a supervisor is needed to achieve any satisfaction at all. My previously high perception of the Virgin brand is going down the toilet.

Haven't had these problems, and I fly them nearly every week. I don't understand the seat changes, at all. They do not overbook, so I don't know why they would tell him that, since it wasn't true.

Could have been a gague change from 320 to 319?

I would send a quick note with "just the facts" to the VX guest care group. I'm sure any examples you can give assist them in remedying whatever caused this to happen so that it does not happen again.

That's exactly what I did last night.

A rep emailed me back today and apologized. Turns out the return trip departure time changed as well, which she also apologized for.

She said that she passed along the information to their "Schedule Change team" and that their records do show that a mistake was made in not contacting me.

Now I am satisfied. The most important part of customer service to me is when they acknowledge "we made a mistake, and know about what mistake was made and will avoid it in the future."

I was traveling with my wife 2 weeks before xmas in 2007. I had booked my flight several months in advance, we were going from LAX to JFK. When I booked my flight I also signed up for their elevate program. A week before we left my wife wanted to print up an itinerary, well thats when she noticed a change. The flight numbers were the same but the flight was pushed from 2100 to 2300, putting us in at 0730. This sucked because we had to be in Connecticut by 0800. I called them up and asked them if it was correct, and when did it happen. I told them that I was never notified, I signed up for their program and they had my phone number, email, and mailing address. They had 4 weeks since the chance to notify me and failed to due so. They created a huge inconvenience for us. They said the would give us a full refund, but at that time after looking at several airlines, it was going to cost to much to change. So we stayed with Virgin, their website said the flight was on time right before we left for the airport, when we got their we found out otherwise. They told me the flight was delayed an hour due to weather, having working in the industry at the time, I knew that was crap, their was no weather in SFO, LAX or JFK, after talking with the supervisor who had checked my luggage, he admitted it was due to crew rest, from the previous days weather.
Their was just a lot of confusion with their IT systems, I see no a lot has changed. I enjoyed the flights, but their ability to deal with the business on the behind the scenes activity needs drastic improvement.

A good way to avoid this in the future is to use a website like PageOnce, which e-mails you of any itinerary changes, just in case the airline forgets. Worked a few times for me in letting me know of an itinerary change, even though I received the airline's e-mail a few weeks later.

I think you hit the nail on the head...their IT is just not very good. I've posted before how their website continually logs me out, and I've submitted multiple bug reports to no avail. Their flight schedules change, and their automated system doesn't notify their customers.

Unfortunately for them, a "young a hip" company like they're trying to be needs to have good IT, since "young and hip" people know what good IT is and expect it. Either invest a couple hundred K and hire a few good IT managers, or hire 10 CSR's to go through flight changes and personally email people.

I'm happy with their personal response, but they are on "strike two" for me.