Virgin travel voucher query
 

Forgive me if this has been asked already (I am new). I have a voucher issued by Virgin Atlantic during the pandemic for flights for my family of four, to the USA. I was told that as long as there were travel restrictions in place, the voucher expiration would continue to be extended. It currently expires in December this year. There is still a requirement in place for visitors to the states to have been vaccinated, thus excluding us from travel. Our original flights were booked for Florida. I have been told that we either have to book for another destination- which we don’t want- or wait and see if restrictions are lifted. Alternatively, lose the thousands of pounds paid for the first class flights! Does anyone have any advice of how we can get a refund please? We can not afford to lose this much money and still can not legally enter the country. Many thanks

Doesn't Virgin Atlantic fly to places other than the US? Could you use the voucher for those flights?

Morning, yes they do but we don’t want to go anywhere else and feel aggrieved that our original destination of choice is unavailable to us. I don’t want to waste the voucher on simply just using it up and not visiting our destination of choice. Thanks.

This is a difficult one for you, and I sympathise.

I have no idea why you aren't vaccinated - whether by choice, medical or other reasons; but it isn't Virgin Atlantic who are stopping you going to the USA, it is the US Government.

If your reasons for non-vaccination are other than by choice, could you investigate an insurance claim?

I read recently, that both VS and BA have thousands of unused vouchers, worth millions of pounds, that could expire - maybe there will be some solution offered by the airlines for everyone who has paid out a LOT of money and faces losing it all?

Nick

I had a separate issue with Virgin where the terms of their voucher policy appears to be "use it or lose it" in terms of value. I had a voucher for myself and my girlfriend worth £2,000. I was told by Virgin that if I booked flights worth £1,500 I would just lose the additional £500 which seems very unfair to me. Other airlines (e.g. BA) give you a voucher for the total and you can chip away at it until you've used the full credit. Not with Virgin it seems - their response to my query questioning this policy is below

"It goes without saying how sorry I am to learn that you’ve been left feeling so let down by our policy relating to the use of travel vouchers. I assure you it would never be our intention to cause any upset.

Our Customer Services department are best placed to deal with your query as they will be able to look at options to try and utilise the full cost of the voucher. This could mean looking to upgrade you to our Premium cabin if Upper Class is more than the value of the voucher.

I can see that you're unhappy with the policy. While we can't change this, you can be sure that your concerns have been taken into consideration and will be helpful in making changes in the future."

So basically I'm left looking to find a flight for as close to £2,000 as I can even if it involves travelling in say premium economy which I personally don't see the value of paying the extra compared to economy - and it is no-where near enough for 2 x upper class tickets.

I have a similar issue, a ticket booked and turned into a voucher (flights were going but as it was TLV I was not going to be allowed entry as a non citizen) at my request the voucher was issued as I bowed to the inevitability. I am unlikely to use it as the winter season flight times are awkward and I am unlikely to want to fly during the summer period.
Has anyone used a voucher, paid extra to turn it into a fully refundable ticket then cancelled to receive the full cash refund?

I don’t believe thats possible.

It never worked in the past when people thought the same but with revenue bookings. The answer was that the ticket retained the original, as booked, ticket and fare rules.

Thank you, I appreciate your input

Used my voucher today, chatbot useless, so telephoned. The price of new flight exceeded voucher, just as I was about to get out my CC I remembered something about having booster value, telephone rep couldn't see anything on his system initially, I was able to pull up the email on my laptop and give details. Rep then put me on hold, after a minute or so he came back on and agreed that there would be no excess fee.
Posting as a word to the wise, have your email trail in front of you in case the rep doesn't proactively take any boost into account.
Other than this overlooked matter, I couldn't fault the assistance and service.

What’s booster value?

When I received my voucher following being unable to use my ticket during Covid a notional £400 was added to it to insulate against any increase in the cost of a new flight on the voucher- its called a boost on the voucher according to the email. So my original ticket was just over 1k but it allowed a rebooking to up to £1400.