pazza2000

What’s their reasoning there?

RAPC

Some recent data points to add in. I rebooked some recent redemptions at the start of last week so that I could get the half price mileage cost. This meant cancelling and rebooking in my case.

I had refund request emails come through on the day of rebooking.
8 days later I received another email saying that the transactions had been processed and that money should be refunded shortly
2 days after that, refunds have hit my card. 10 days after the original rebooking.

As a bonus, everything was refunded in full and I didn't get hit with 3 x Ł30 of cancellation fees, which is a result.

All in all, back to normal on a recent refund request.

AzureCao

Anyone having issue contacting their US number (either 800-365-9500 or 800-862-8621)? I want to cancel an award booking. I called couple times but never got picked up after hours of waiting...What is the best time to call?

pazza2000

6 days to receive a refund from an award booking cancellation

Klems

Something quite weird happened to me, and I'm sorry if it was raised before in this topic but I couldn't really find anything...

Back in April, I booked 2 roundtrip from the US to Japan on ANA for January 2021, using my Virgin Atlantic miles, each ticket costing 120k miles and around USD 226 in taxes.
At the end of October, they moved my flight one day later, and my companion's flight one day earlier so we were now traveling 2 days apart. I was going to cancel anyway with COVID, so that was the nail in the coffin and just called to cancel.
Everything went well, my 240k miles got refunded almost immediately, and they said they would refund my taxes on my credit card.

Fast forward to today. I got an email from Virgin asking me to confirm my credit card detail for the refund - turns out they never refunded the taxes up to now, I had not noticed/I forgot. Well they are refunding me over $1500 for one of the ticket, and $900 for the second ticket. On the receipt, they added some airfare to be refunded in addition to the taxes. Where is that coming from? because there's also quite a difference between both tickets so literally none of this makes sense to me .

blindman

The receipt refund amounts are incorrect.

You will get back what you paid viz $226

My refund receipt stated Ł3000 for each ticket!

I only paid Ł99 which is what I got back

Klems

Dammit. I hoped for a second . Thanks @blindman !

londonba2014

Managed to get a bargain flight to CPT in the Black Friday sale; the return leg which was subsequently cancelled due to a scheduling change; being rebooked a day later moving into the worst seat in the U/C cabin. Had scheduled this trip due to work commitments and as such am unable to just push back a week; not to mention all other services are now heaving due to the cancellations.

Hadn’t realised quite how pathetic the VS flexible change policy really was - can rebook the flight within 21 days free of charge; anything over that I have to foot the fare difference bill (which currently stands at over a grand). Suspect I’ll begrudgingly have to go for a refund as not sure I can make the dates works - but seriously poor given it’s an error on their part and a company who is at the moment desperate for $$$.

It also means I simply won’t bother with Virgin; they can stuff their offers and I’ll be sticking with BA who at least are incredibly fair to PAX when they make changes to services.

onlysuites

Doesn't matter what VS tell you. If they cancel your ticket then you can ask them to rebook you on any other date of your choosing without any change in fare. You are covered by EU261.I would suggest you call back again and speak to another operator and specify that its your right since they cancelled the flight.

YuropFlyer

That's the normal situation. Good luck during the current pandemic where alternatives are few and far between. And changing an extra time in FRA or IST (and being locked airside) is even more fun. Now that the EU is banning flights from the UK (which means also no flights TO the UK, or at least reduced amounts) one after another it will become even more tricky to rebook.

cauchy

You might be wondering if Virgin had crossed the line and scammed you:

If you looked carefully at the January CPT-LHR schedule you would see some flights had been retimed from an 8am departure to a 9.05am departure (and then again to a 9am departure). Schedule change emails went out 21 November.

Other flights had not been retimed, and at the time I thought this meant they would be cancelled. Indeed, the flights that had not been retimed were later taken off sale and cancelled (perhaps after the black Friday Ł999 deal ended, I'm not sure).

Did Virgin seriously think it was going to operate a daily CPT-LHR service in January?

Anyway, this doesn't matter. What matters is there's no 21-day rule in EC261. If there's enough of a financial loss to you I'd suggest taking them to county court. Rebook to BA for dates and a price you would have paid anyway, then going to court to reclaim the difference in price is largely risk free.

londonba2014

Good to know! Hadn’t realised - will give them a ring and report back.

cauchy

You've got to realise what you're dealing with here. For example, I have read EC 261 out to agents on the phone and they still refuse to budge from their instructions. My impression is that their modus operandi is to do everything possible to avoid fulfilling their obligations.

Another option open to you is an ADR scheme.

onlysuites

Yeah most agents will not know about EU261. I recently had a AF agent and customer services who refused to budge. I cancelled the ticket but I was confident that if I needed to fly the new dates I could simply book a new ticket and MCOL them for it.

You will have to see if it's worth the effort of buying a new ticket and waiting months for the court case and then money back.

Petdog

Refund received. It only took 216 days.

Travel (VS award on NH) scheduled for: May 2020
Refund requested: May 22
Refund confirmed by VS: September 10
Refund received (after 6+ follow-ups and one call at VS's request to confirm my credit card details): December 24

As expected, the refund equaled the taxes I'd paid, not the far higher amount stated on the refund confirmation.