Virgin Holidays have taken >£3k from account. Am at wits end

[chocoLit]

So would I be unreasonable for accusing Virgin Holidays for ruining Christmas?!?

We booked online last night. £3200. Paid full price. Flights & car hire for whole family. Dates Oct 2016. Holiday of a lifetime and not undertaken lightly.

An error message came up on screen asking us to call which I did this morning as soon as I could.

They're now claiming those flights don't exist anymore unless we pay them £1500 more.

OR for only £1k more they'll send us a different way with two stops instead of one.

As for the money, they won't return that sooner that 7-10 working days.

I feel like am being blackmailed here and almost at wits end.

Girl dealing was very pleasant but new to company so wasn't able to help much or any further.

Someone called 'Dave' is to be phoning me back but she's not sure when or what he's going to be able to do!!?

So, AIBU to turn up at Branston's door with the 3DC and have him explain why they're not getting their holiday!!!

Has anyone had this before? Any advice gratefully received.

So how did VH get the cash back in the OP's account within 3 days?

Lynda. Up to 10 days. It isn't up to VH. Why can you not seem to understand that. It appears that once the OP confirmed she wanted a refund and they have it. And by the sounds of it it was less than 24 hrs. But BH were right to say 7-10'days as that what the card merchants stipulate.

Are you deliberately trying to not understand ?

VH didn't get to chose how quick the refund happened. Not sure whys one people don't understand that bit. The banks are responsible for that aspect of it. VH will give the refund advice they are given from the banks which is IME generally up to 7-10 working days. They are right to do so so that customers know not to expect it immediately. If the banks can sort it quicker than that's even better. And actually in the end it seems it was sorted very quickly - the refund happened just one day after being requested.

Hulababy. I think you are banging your head against a brick wall. People are either unwilling to accept the facts or just can't understand what they are being told........

I used to work for Barclaycard many moons ago. I'm amazed that you finally told VH on the evening of the 17th to clear the funds for refund and by 7am on the 19th it was done and you're still complaining, that's bloody awesome customer service from them AND their merchant. That makes me MORE inclined to book with them, not less.

The payment is automatic. They didn't "take" anything, the OP gave it to them.

No, she didn't "give" it to them. She paid it to them in return for their promise to provide the holiday at the price they offered, a promise on which they immediately reneged.

No, the initial person was unable to do anything, as is often the case, and it would have had to be referred further up the management chain. This would be the case with every large company. The "monkeys" on the front line can do very little outside of set parameters.

So whose choice is that, other than Virgin's?

Everyone seems to assume that Virgin had no choice other than to make a refund through the card company. Why should they not make the refund direct?

Ffs Dipak. Haven't you read anything earlier. It's because the payment was of a large amount ( normally over £1000 is classed as large) and there are regulations in place to that say that refunds should be made via the same method. Yes, it's part of legislation to stop money laundering. And it's not just the Merchant Services that VH use that have told VH it is how they should operate. The HMRC will have advised it, as will their accounts team who will tell their operations team how they should or shout be operating legally.

I even saw it earlier in Watersones for a much smaller amount - the person in front of me in the queue was trying to return a book and they were told that the refund had to be made to the card that paid for the book.

Bloody awesome customer service and I should still be booking with them?!?

You people are having a laugh right?!?

I bought something jn good faith.

The next day I was told I couldn't have said thing unless I paid an additional £1600-1700 pounds more.

No added extras/ no changes THE EXACT SAME THING. An increase of over 50% for the same product. Through no fault of their own apparently. Hardly my fault either .

We don't advertise things at my company unless we can provide them AND provide them at a specific price.

And if I didn't now want the EXACT SAME PRODUCT for £1700 more, I couldn't have my money back for possibly 7-10 days.

Regardless of the length of refund they still hiked up a price by £1700 of which £1500 was pure profit.

THAT'S HOW SIMPLE IT IS.

Regardless of legislations (which btw I FULLY understand as I am a business owner who is aware of money laundering regs & uses merchant card services etc) All they had to do was CANCEL A HOLD, not fully return a transaction.

I only got offered the reduced price, which one supervisor told me wasn't possible at all, AFTER emailing the CEO and telling them I'd been on Twitter & Mumsnet.

The supervisor thad told me there was only ever a 10% margin they could work within and that was ALL they could do. Nothing else. NOTHING.

By the time Michelle, not Dave FINALLY phoned me back (having waited in all day) it was 7pm and imagine, the accounts dept was closed hence she could do very little to help & offered no reassurance.

They were told to release the hold on the money when the accounts dept reopened again the next day.

Miraculously the next day I had an offer or a reduction of £1500 OFF their prices saying they'd drop all their PROFIT.

This offer came from the very first, bottom of the chain girl who I had been speaking to the day before. Not one of the supervisors, poor Lois who was new to company & couldn't help was tasked with phoning me back and taking back everything the supervisor had told me the previous day.

I thanked her for her help but as DH & I were both working could she please email me the details as we would like to discuss it and get back to her later. We would both be working till late as I had a missed day to catch up on.

She did email and of course the parting shot on the email was this offer was subject to change at any time due to flight availability

So no. No thank you. I will not be spending what we consider to be a MASSIVE amount of money with a company that one minute hikes a price up by almost £1700 and then drops it by £1500 again the next day. The £1500 was wholly profit so the flights had only increased by £150. The remaining amount, by their admission was ALL profit.

I agree the refund was thankfully quick however as pointed out so many times that not due to Virgin but the banks. All they had to do was release the hold which could have been done had someone phoned me back during the time scale they mentioned.

In a space of 2/3 days I have been on the phone for HOURS. Spent a whole day (away from MY business) waiting on a call from Dave which never appeared.

Worrying as to what was going to happen. Writing emails and being patronised several times on here in between.

I didn't rant at them once. My temper was never lost in any conversation. I expressed only my concerns and disappointment.

I was very positive in my feedback regards the first girl's customer service, she was mortified at the options she was given by her new company. I clearly explained to the supervisors our reluctance to travel with them was due to how the COMPANY handles their business and regardless of their eventual offer that I wouldn't be booking with them.

Had I not had the gumption or energy to question it I would be £1700 out of pocket.

So NO. I have no need go justify not booking with this shoddy company.

It is not how I would conduct my business and maybe am an old fashioned girl but it's not how I expect those to deal with me either.

So BA now have our business. The transaction on our credit card was simple, remained the same price throughout and has now been paid off by MY money which was returned to my account.

Florida is back on with no thanks to Virgin.

Thanks however does go to all on here that offered advice and support.

And to those working for VH, I appreciate you sticking up for your company but can someone please ensure Lois, Michelle & Dave are well looked after

Well said choco!!!!

Ohbehave: what choco said.

So long as you are happy with your final decision then it's sorted surely?

It wouldn't stop me booking with VA in any way however as I already know that any of these companies have the same procedures and a quick Google will bring up as many issues with BA and other travel companies as with VA.

But anyway - glad you got it sorted relatively quickly and your holiday surprise is sorted for christmas.

Yes Hula. Am sure there are but BA haven't treated me shoddily, yet. Maybe at one stage I'll stop having anyone to go anywhere with

However you are right in that it is quite definitely 'it' along with a sharp reminder why I stopped coming on MN . was nice to see a familiar 'face' though.

BA has always been a nightmare for us, rude, and most recently losing our luggage on a holiday to LA, without any indication as to where it was/how we should get it back. Our Virgin holiday to the US was on the other hand fantastic! Who knows which is better. Hope you have a great holiday OP.

Hula is right.

And in some areas I can't see how you can't see why there are checks and procedures in place.

They take payment because they don't want to have to pay cancellation fees to the airline should you not complete your booking or your card is declined. It just so happens that as this was a package you were paying for everything. The only way to stop this is book your flight with the airlines, although that won't guarantee the really cheap offer you want not being available. It just means they will not have to buy the seat up front.

They offered you a full refund at the start didn't they? Just because you got upset at the banks and card services issues that is hardly VH fault. And VH were just warning you that it may take a while.

And you had to wait until you had discussed it with your husband. So that's less than 3 days to refund the money. How long was it actually between you asking for the refund and them pressing the button to refund the money? Sounds like less than 24 hours to me.

As for expecting a junior staff member to be allowed to authorise a reduction in some or all of the profit are you really serious? Would you allow your junior staff members to make those decisions and affect the profitability of you business. Because if they were allowed to you bet they would do it for more people. And your business would suffer.

I guess you won't be buying packaged holidays from anyone now - just building them yourself.

Dipank - yes I do have an answer based on facts and knowledge of the industry.

I guess at least Christmas is now saved.

Ohbehave do you actually READ my posts?

To pay £3k and have nothing to show for it and cs waiting so long to call back that accounts is closed is hopeless. Far too stressful way to book a holiday.

I don't blame the op for avoiding them.

So you have no idea how seats on airplanes are sold, OP? That airlines sell limited number of seats for X amount and others for Y amount? You've never seen that message telling you only 3 seats left at this price on a half empty plane when you book online?

I'm sure you have. So why all the rage? Totally common problem and I'm also quite impressed they pacified your massive overreaction. They'll be getting my business!

I've had good and bad service from all sorts of airlines, including BA and Virgin. To be fair, BA have improved quite a lot over the last few years. DH went from avoiding them for business travel to choosing them over other airlines. It was a sad day for him when, due to a job change, he lost his BA Silver Card.

Yes I have Choco. And you seem to have lost all sense of proportion. They never once refused your refund. When you agreed that is what you wanted to do they did it almost immediately. And Christmas was saved. All in the space of 72 hours.

And as has been repeatedly stated, it's the way the airline industry work. Why not try a holiday without the need to fly if it's that much of a problem. Jeez.

I don't think anyone without gumption or energy would have stumped up the extra £1700, who on earth would just go ahead and say ok we'll pay that, they gave you a choice.

Why couldn't you have just had your mobile on your desk at work waiting for Dave to call?

I started off seeing your POV but really do think you've been unfair since then given that the money was returned so promptly. I think we've all had frustrating occasions where we've spent hours on the phone to a company being passed from operative to operative and do understand how irritating and worrying it can be but I think they dealt with it pretty well on the whole.

So you have no idea how seats on airplanes are sold, OP? That airlines sell limited number of seats for X amount and others for Y amount? You've never seen that message telling you only 3 seats left at this price on a half empty plane when you book online?

Its been mentioned and ignored a few times over.

I think the reality is that very few seats are sold at the rock bottom price, they are loss leaders or break even fares so to speak, and anything above that price is what gets them the profit.

thisis yes i agree.
Don't understand why va are still the bad guys??
They always said they would refund the money, they came back with a reduced offer..you didn't like it fair enough but to still bash them?
We personally had no problem with va, went to florida with them.
It certainly wouldn't put me off, this could have happened with any of them.
I would have judged how they took care of the problem, fairly quickly it seems.

Blimey is this non-event still rumbling on. OP you are being very unfair. I'm amazed you already have your money back.

You have been foolish not to accept the offer of £150 for the flights you wanted. Bet you end up paying way more elsewhere now.

I think va have come out of this very well.

I would use them, but I don't think they fly anywhere culturally important.

Not still rumbling on for me.

Have thanked VH for their offer but politely declined. Made sure supervisors knew that Lois was professional in all her correspondence.

Money was thankfully released from hold within 3 days, not 24hrs.

Still think the whole system is shoddy and caused unnecessary worry/concern and NO, I can't just take my mobile to work and wait on a call or I would have done so

Got flights for almost