pazza2000

Agreed, best bet it to have a bookable date in mind for an easy change at the rate paid! Otherwise it’s an open ticket ‘credit’ with the restrictions and limitations that will carry

londonba2014

After success in getting my Tel Aviv ticket rebooked for July... looking like I'll need to cancel. Thinking about Barbados, which looks a strong bet for the next green list addition.

pazza2000

You never know, things could be back to normal by then! I’ve found in that part of the world things can flare up fast, but also simmer down and resolve just as quickly. Here is hoping.

annihilation

Welcome people's thoughts on the following:

- Cash ticket to Hawaii booked with VS departing 9th June
- Outbound LHR to LAX flights is still same
- Outbound LAX to OGG flight has changed to different flights multiple times
- Return HNL to LAX has moved by 6 hours
- Return LAX to LHR is now 3 hours later

It is looking very unlikely that the USA will allow the UK in for 9th June, what are your thoughts on getting this moved due to significant schedule changes?

pazza2000

Hard to say! I’m quite certain the USA won’t let you in by the 9th of June, so I would start the process now of reaching out and seeing what they will accommodate. It may take more than one call to get the income you would like.

londonba2014

This is true, just not sure I want to take the chance in case things do flare up again! VS keen for me to keep my booking with them by offering an upgrade voucher, however this can only be used where reward seats are available and of course none available anywhere near the dates I'm looking to travel... refund for me I think and stick with what I know in the form of BA!

pazza2000

Any recent data points on how far out in the future Virgin are allowing a rebooking? Have an award sale flight booked last Nov that has seen a schedule change, a call there suggested they are happy to move it at the 50% mileage rate booked, availability depending, however I’m unsure if they’ll only allow me to move it until November a year out from the original timemofmbooking, or say 11 months from now as far out as I can see award availability (April ‘22)

pazza2000

In answer to my own question, they’ll allow me to rebook as far out as possible, as long as there is award availability, in practice hopefully that will prove correct. So the original booking was in Nov ‘20 and I’ll be rebooking though to May ‘22

annihilation

We have moved ours to October now. Can’t do any later due to pregnancy. There were a load of schedule changes but in the end we had a flight cancellation. So worked well for us. Even managed some changes to the routing to allow for a stop in LA to get tested if Hawaii keep the same rules.

choosethedrew

I’ve just tried to rebook a ticket which was already rebooked once already, as I guess most tickets are these days.

I was somewhat taken aback to find out that, during the rebooking, the underlying value of my ticket reduced. Whilst I know Virgin doesn’t refund for this, I didn’t expect that this would become the new value of the ticket!

So now our credit towards rebooking is worth significantly less than what we originally paid. Is there anything I can do or should I just put this one down to experience?

choosethedrew

Wouldn't usually quote myself but if I take a travel voucher, the T&C state (my bolding):

"2. Your Travel Voucher has the same value as your original booking. It can be used to pay or part-pay for a new booking"

(Note that it does not say 'the travel voucher has the same value as your latest booking'!)

If Virgin issues a travel voucher at the lesser value of my rebooked ticket, this is surely against the travel voucher terms and I at least have some logic for getting a voucher for the price I originally paid...?

pazza2000

What do you mean by the value of your ticket has reduced? I suspect the credit is still the price paid, however the fare difference between that and future dates for rebooking is noticeable?

choosethedrew

I booked 4 x UC tickets at £1359 each. VS then rebooked me onto flights with a ticket value of £1281, I did not get a refund or voucher of £78 per ticket. I am now trying to rebook and VS are saying my credit is £1281.

This is not how the voucher terms are worded. This is separate to the cost of the new flights which are more, that of course I accept.

pazza2000

Ah I see, that seems unjust then! I can imagine in the majority of cases it’s the other way around. Let us know the outcome please

choosethedrew

Long story short, I got them to honour what I paid, but only after quite a few fights. A warning to others to look out for this.

VS kept quoting the price difference for us to change our JFK tickets to LAX, so the underlying value of the ticket was not clear. In the end I had to pull this out of them, and low and behold they were using the rebooked and lower ticket value. I had to quote the voucher terms at them to get them to budge. It seems a nonsense to use the latest ticket value when doing a straight rebooking, whereas when getting a travel voucher they will ultimately honour the original value, if higher.

A battle I didn’t win was to use miles to pay for the fare difference. Point 15 of the travel voucher says:

“You can use your Travel Voucher to purchase a new ticket combined with Flying Club points. If you don’t use the whole value of your Travel Voucher when making a new booking, we will give you a cash refund of the residual value. If the new ticket price is higher than the amount of Flying Club points and your Travel Voucher value, the difference must be paid.”

Virgin claimed that this was only applicable if cash + miles was the original method of payment. But the above doesn’t say that, does it? It doesn’t say that the voucher can be used for a miles plus points booking only if the original booking was made in that way. They couldn’t argue on a point of correctness regarding the terms, so they just pulled up the shutter and said it wasn’t possible according to the relevant department (which I couldn’t have access to)

Luckily, the LHR LAX fare dropped in the meantime which meant that the cash fare difference became much more palatable, so I just paid it.

Beware of Virgin. I know they are hurting but in my case they take repeated forensic analysis of their decisions vs. the relevant terms. There is either severe discombobulation or, much worse, selective application of what’s stated at the outset in order to extract £ from customers. What’s most irritating is the bouncy, amoeba-like delivery of what is very sharp practice beneath.