Virgin Balloons - horrific customer services.

[boxtrot]

Urgh, I am so disappointed. Booked vouchers for a hot air balloon flight. After you've done that, it actually turns out that if you have a morning flight, you have to be somewhere miles away by 6am in the morning. Also it's only after you've booked the vouchers that you realise that the flights are listed maybe once a week and most of the time they're booked out MONTHS in advance. In my area, the ones suitable for use are booked up past October, so realistically not going to be able to book until 2024. Their customer services are so slow that they've taken beyond the 14 day cancellation period to get back to me and when I ring up, the woman said there were "hundreds of people" ahead of me in the queue trying to get a refund so I just had to wait my turn. Luckily, I have the email to them saying I want to cancel well before the 14 day deadline, but I am still so disappointed that something that was meant to be a fun treat has turned into such a nightmare. Now have over £200 of vouchers that I can just tell they're going to make it a merry hell trying to get a proper refund. Terrible company.

Not only the very early start but we had many flights cancelled the evening before due to weather.

We did finally get to go. Was fantastic rising on a sunny morning. You do need to wrap up as can be very cold.

I'm sure it's great if you actually get to go. Just currently reading hundreds of reviews for people who've been waiting for actual years to try and go up. Virgin customer services team are now being an absolute nightmare trying to wriggle out of refund. It's taken hours to deal with them and they keep asking for emails and then saying they'll take 3-5 working days every time to respond. Absolute scammers.

Wow - if anyone ever considers getting a voucher for Virgin Balloons, for the love of all that is holy read the online reviews first. Hilariously, they've had them shut down on lots of review sites. Absolutely shocking company.

Balloons are a very unpredictable thing! I live in Bristol and we have the Balloon Festival each year, in summer when the weather is most balloon-friendly, and almost without fail every year they have to cancel one or more elements of it because the winds are too strong or in the wrong direction or whatever else. It must be a nightmare trying to coordinate booked flights because as you can see, even the night before they can't guarantee whether the flight in the morning will go ahead, and yet you have to all be there at the crack of dawn for it. Unless you live very local to the flight area and are flexible about your dates I wouldn't recommend it!

It's more likely the weather that's the issue with people waiting, we've done a virgin balloon ride and it got cancelled once and then went ahead second time round and I couldn't recommend it more!

@givemushypeasachance I'm sure it is complicated - but fundamentally they shouldn't be taking money off people without explaining the facts to them beforehand. It's insane that they're taking large sums off people and only then explaining that their chances of getting in the air any time soon are completely non existent. I'm not even able to book a flight, let alone get around to the excitement of having it cancelled. That's nothing to do with the weather - that's them not scheduling enough flights. Their customer services is terrible too. They're just trying to make me extend voucher rather than refund as per rights under 14 day rule.

Yes, my Dad and Grandad had a balloon trip gifted to them ages ago - I bet it is at least 30 years now! - and I still remember it took literally 2 years for it to happen because it kept getting cancelled the night before because of the weather conditions. I'd only consider doing one somewhere weather-sure.

They are a dreadful company. I used to work somewhere that arrange theatre tickets using the vouchers.. awful seats, awful customer service. Even the venue could not get hold of them. I won’t use ‘Virgin’ companies out of principle. People need to avoid anything with that logo on.

They're amazingly awful. They basically tie people into never ending contracts and don't supply enough balloon rides for people to ever actually access them. Outrageous.

I think they've taken this as a business model and done the same for Virgin space travel....

Everything Virgin now has terrible customer service. It used to be renowned for great customer service. Richard Branson should hang his head in shame. Virgin balloons, Virgin pure water, Virgin flights, Virgin gyms etc. All provide a terrible service and do anything to get out of refunding you. They need to go and do a customer service course with Amazon and learn from it!

@Speedweed I think you're probably more likely to get into space with Virgin than you are to get on one of their balloons!!😂

I went on a Virgin train and the service was incredibly good.

Until it broke down outside Penrith.

Virgin Balloons isn’t owned by Richard Branson, it’s owned by Kenneth Karlstrom. Virgin Active is 20% owned by Richard Branson.

Reigniting this because I want to share my devastating experience everywhere and find some real life solidarity .
I bought flights with a local balloon company.
I paid extra for weekends only because of work and school age children.
This was a 50th birthday flight, my bucket list dream come true for me & my two kids.
We’re all autistic and I have a physical disability so logistics are hard.

We got the flight booked for a couple of days after my birthday, it was stunning weather and felt perfect.
We got as far as sitting in the basket, in and out a few times, causing my son stress as we had no idea whether we’d fly or not.
The flight was cancelled and we sadly climbed out and went home.

The local company went bust and @VirginBalloons took over. Since paying extra for the weekend only vouchers , I have now experienced 3 failed flights and virgin keep offering me mostly midweek flights often at locations inaccessible to me as I am relying on enablers to transport us.
They never offer anything other than 6am start times, the previous company offfered afternoons as well, making it much easier to plan or deal with cancelled flights but only offering one early morning flight each weekend means I have very few chances to fly and have to stay up late the night before for the weather reading and then up again at five the next day which is no good for my disability and strong night medication.

I have been using a PA to help secure flights, unbeknownst to me, the PA company had not tried to book the flights for a considerable amount of time, virgin have not been understanding about this, giving me until march to book flights - a windy season which has only just started in terms of ride availability.

I’m disabled and on a low income. 3 years on I feel I will be unable to book any suitable dates by the extended deadline given by virgin as it is so early in the year and I’m due to lose in the region of £300.
Since virgin took over the customer service has been awful, completely rigid, with no compassion, empathy or understanding.

To say I am devastated is an absolute understatement.
I’d say it’s not worth booking this unless you have ample spare time and are able to drop plans at a minutes notice and can deal with the disappointment of getting on the balloon on a fine day only to be told to alight again.
Such a shame and a sad outcome for my little family.