Celebrating a birthday on board
 

Hi All
A family member lost their brother in a motorcycle accident a few years ago and coming out of a depression slowly but surely^
I'm trying to celebrate their birthday this year in a big way
I gifted them with tickets in business class to Australia including a week at the Park Hyatt Sydney to cheer them up
As well as purchased their passport as this will be their first trip out of the US.

In social media I saw that a VA team on board brought out a slice of cake and candle and sung happy birthday on board to a passenger which had been previously arranged
Anyway to arrange this officially?
I tried calling their overseas reservations who didn't sound overly reassuring and certainly didn't sound Australian :eek::D
Oh well they were reasonably nice.Fingers crossed
Was hoping to join them on board but I will now be in London and will now fly Qantas from London to SYD and catch up with them during their journey
Cheers

Maybe try a short message on Twitter and they can re direct you to who you need to speak to.I find this usually works.

Appreciate the message and thought
I'm out of the loop looks like its time to join twitter :)

I'm a bit miffed with VA at the moment but my honest neutral advice:

-Don't expect call centre staff to be in Australia. This isn't Qantas.
-Cake etc. won't happen. It happened that I've spent my three last brithdays over the pacific in J with them and nobody even said anything to me despite having status with them (not that I'd expect them to).
-Your best bet would be to have the non-birthday family member say something to the crew once onboard. They'll definitely do something if they're asked to and will probably go above and beyond.

Thank You
Got it.They really hurt their brand with a disappointing call center
It leaves a bad perception of their customer service
Now I'm thinking they just told me what I wanted to hear :(

I booked Qantas for my next trip and all our flights within Australia
VA support reminds me of IHG rewards :rolleyes:
Think we will wait till they arrive Down Under
I cant imagine asking even for myself on board.Its really about the surprise of it all.
Oh well the trip will be awesome even if VA isn't onboard with the party/celebration :)

As a Platinum, I think Im batting 100 with aussie local call centre staff answered within 90 seconds, except for the occasional person that migrated to this country but they are locals. No idea what non status callers get when they phone.

BTW, Qantas call centre currently is experiencing 1hr to 2+hrs on hold ("new" call centre call back system actioned prior to Christmas).

For the cake situation, maybe via their Facebook account and there is a Rep. on Australian Frequent Flyer named VelocityFrequentFlyer who might be able to assist.
http://www.australianfrequentflyer.c...ent-flyer.html

Hope your brother has a great trip.

Good to know and thanks for the kind words ^

Frankly speaking, Ive never heard of any airline providing birthday cakes and songs. After all there is likely to be at least one birthday boy/girl on each single flight. Imagine the consequences.
But what you/ the travel companion of birthday boy/girl could do is to take a nice birthday cake with them (no candles for obvious reasons) and give it to staff members at some time during the flight. Im pretty sure they would be happy to serve the cake with the meal and say some nice words.

I would hope that there would be no singing "Happy Birthday to You" on board. It's bad enough when tacky restaurants do this.

Some airlines, such as SQ, do supply special cakes upon request.

A good hotel can do something special if you contact the concierge in advance. If you're willing to pay, the limit is your (and the concierge's) imagination.

Emirates provided a cake for my parents 50th anniversary. All it took was a phone call....

SQ does this quite often. Birthday, honeymoon, anniversary. No songs but cake, you only need to contact them and ask.

Ok, totally out of left field here.

I am booked on VA, SYD MEL on 12AUG, back MEL-SYD on 14AUG. Going to watch the Swans v St. Kilda on 13AUG, the day I turn 50 (my birthday)

I have upgraded my flight (only 10K miles, who cares) on the way back on 14AUG, so in J from MEL to SYD.

Can I expect anything? Apart from a few hours in the Lounge, of course!

Dave

Without contacting VA first, then probably not.

Give them a call ... you never know. :D

Similar to my experience as well. I've had nothing but excellent service via their phone centre. Hopefully this is a good sign for you OP! Good luck

Would you able to provide us with a list of any business, let alone an airline, that excels with their call centre? I agree (generally) with posters who report good service from the Platinum boys and girls but once they have to hand off a query to another division eg. "Why is your iPhone App so bad - here's a list of things where the App says one thing and your Web site something completely different for my account"? then you're back in the standard call centre black hole (I've never had an answer to that question by the way)