koakalekona

My upper class ticket for VS23 to LAX on 7/11 was involuntarily downgraded to prem economy when I got to LHR. The manager at check in said the compensation would be 100k points and I was told to email the customer care team, which is the team that handles compensation. Before the flight took off, I got an emails from VS about a voucher for the downgrade saying under EU261 my comp was 75% of what I'd paid for the ticket. I paid 77k points and 453 GBP for the ticket. I emailed the customer care team and didn't hear back until last Thursday the 28th. The rep tried to call me twice at 530 am pst so of course I wasn't awake and emailed saying 75% of the fare had been refunded. I haven't received any miles though, whether the 100k or 57,750 (75% of what I paid). The front line support reps can't help since it's a compensation issue and I have no idea when this customer care team will get back to me. The customer care team is email only with no phone number so I have no other way to contact them either. Should I hold out any hope of getting the 100k points or was that manager just lying to me? I'd at least like the 57k back.

After this experience, I'm worried about this happening again on a AF J flight and a Singapore suites flight I have soon.

RAPC

They are email only, so the awaiting a telephone call bit is unfortunately what normally needs to happen.

How award tickets are priced for any downgrades is a question that I've seen asked a few times, especially in the BA forum. It is certainly unclear as to whether it should be how Virgin are playing this (75% of cash and miles returned for the award ticket) or 75% of cash price for the downgraded leg (and how that is actually priced up) is used.

I think the key part is whether you had anything communicated in writing to confirm the 100k offer? If not, it will be a case of pushing back on the CS team and relaying what was confirmed to you. I have had a similar issue with broken UC seats on a flight where an amount was confirmed by crew. I then received a fraction of that and Customer Services told me it was the best they could offer. I wheeled out a photo of the note the member of staff was submitting on their iPad (which they gave me permission to take) and offered to send it in. At that point, there was a sudden shift to getting what was offered originally.

I'd certainly be pushing back firmly to the CS team and also making clear your UK hours when a call would be convenient.

Good luck with hopefully getting what was promised.

Concerto

Oh they're still doing this, are they? I was downgraded all the way to Economy and in the end got 57,000 miles (or maybe 67,000, can't remember) and a free Economy ticket anywhere on the network. I just accepted it and discovered St Lucia with the free ticket, which I really liked. But they shouldn't do this sort of thing.

koakalekona

Do they downgrade more frequently than other airlines? It'd never happened to me before this

koakalekona

Unfortunately I didn't get it in writing. I asked for the manager's name as well as his manager's name, and he wrote down the customer care email for me but nothing about the points stupidly