To expect the Chief Executive of Virgin Atlantic to answer my correspondence and not FOB ME OFF with supposed Customer Services

[wendover1965]

This is a copy of a letter that I have sent to Virgin Atlantic. The story is all there. I have been fobbed off with useless people calling me who haven't got a clue what my query is really about and been told that the Chief Executive and his staff are "TOO BUSY" apparently to keep there customers happy. I was a frequent flyer member in the 1990's but after this shambles Virgin Atlantic will never get any more business from me. My OPINION IS AVOID THE AIRLINE AT ALL COSTS. There are plenty of other Airlines to choose from. Make Virgin Atlantic your last choice of airline not your first

Dear Mr **

(He is apparently the person who looks after customers) Certainly not in my experience

I am writing to you to deal with a complaint which your refunds/customer service team have been unable to find a solution to, in the hope that you can take a view and help with a reasonable outcome.

I booked 2 tickets to Memphis from Manchester on 4th September, 1 for me and one for my 17 year old son. This was in January.

My son decided he did not want to go and wanted to cancel his ticket so I went online to cancel his ticket. Your system would not give me the option of cancelling 1 ticket and said I had to cancel the booking. On the refund form it asked me for a phone number so that someone could contact me regarding the refund. I thought great when they phone I can explain that I only want 1 ticket cancelled. NOBODY called and then I find myself with an email today saying that out of £800 odd tickets I am going to get £152.00 each back. I have asked your customer services team to justify that, they have not explained themselves, I asked for it to be sent in writing to me why I am being charged for taxes when the ticket is not sold. Surely if you resell a ticket the next person pays taxes on it, how can you justify taking taxes from me as. That is twice and it seems conning the consumer springs to mind.

had someone from refunds done their job and called, I would still have a ticket and I would not be £1300 out of pocket, and it has left me in a situation where I cannot now buy another ticket because I can't afford it twice. I was going to visit an old friend who I haven't seen for 20 years and this is now ruined because no-one from your refund team could be bothered to pick up the phone. MY TICKET SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN CANCELLED and your processes online should allow for people to be able to remove some and not all of the party off.

The original person I spoke to at customer services said my ticket HAD NOT yet been refunded, so I saw a glimmer of hope that I could stop the refund of my ticket. I was subsequently told by a chap called J C* (who has no customer service skills at all, he just quotes rules and regulations) that my ticket was cancelled. Which is it you cannot deal with people who give conflicting information.

I am writing in the hope that you can take a view on this because quite frankly had someone from the refund team called. Firstly my ticket wouldn't of been cancelled and secondly my son would of probably kept his if he knew the amount of losses that were involved. He is a 17 year old on minimum wage and cant afford these losses either. Your refund team should have called and didn't and they have created all this. IN FACT I HAVE CONTACTED THEM TWICE TODAY AND THEY STILL HAVEN'T CALLED

I would like a response as soon as possible but all in all so far a very poor show from Virgin Atlantic

He won’t have even seen the complaint. His EA will have opened his post and passed it onto Customer Services.

Reminds me of Adrian Mike writing to Gordon Brown about his tax refund.

OP, I think you made a mistake when you cancelled the tickets and if you will be helped it will be out of virgin Atlantic’s goodwill

Actually when you want to cancel there is not an option to cancel 1 ticket so I was forced to cancel the booking. I was also asked for my phone number so someone could call me about my cancellation. At that point I would of explained fully that I only wanted to cancel one but their system wouldn't let me. Nobody called and then I got an email saying my booking was cancelled at 06.43 in the morning. I was at my computer and immediately emailed back to say I didn't want both cancelled and would someone ring me. Nobody did. I also called and was told that the ticket hadn't yet been cancelled by a customer service rep but was subsequently told that the ticket had been cancelled by a customer service manager. Too many inconsistencies in their story

if I write a letter to a person then I expect out of courtesy and common decency that they reply to it.

Does this mean if I write to Hugh Jackman I should get a personal response? Oh happy days, I never knew this.

I've actually had a similar experience - one booking ref for two tickets. Needed to cancel one only.

Called the airline, they split the booking into two refs. Cancelled one, kept one. Took about 15 minutes.

Not sure why you went the path you did knowing you were cancelling THE booking (which was for multiple tickets), not just one single ticket.

This is not old fashioned though. It's marginally deluded. The chief exec will not have anywhere near the available time to be courteous to you. And they certainly will not want to get into the habit of responding to complaint letters otherwise where does this stop? You need a senior manager in customer relations/ complaints

"I fail to understand why you pushed the cancel button when you knew it was cancelling both. They can hardly be to blame for that."

^^ this

Generally most are non-refundable.

"son decided he did not want to go and wanted to cancel his ticket" is tough. You bought the ticket adn agreed to those T&Cs.

An angry letter like this is just you throwing your toys out the pram because you've made more than one mistake.....

Generally if you're being unreasonable you're not going to get the best customer service......

You cancelled both tickets. That was your choice. You could have exited the system and rang to ask how to cancel just one, you chose not to.

Anything after that is irrelevant. Expensive mistake.

You weren't forced to cancel the booking though were you.

You had two tickets, you wanted one cancelled which couldn't be processed online. So instead of calling them to find out how you could go about cancelling just the one, you decided to cancel them both. Which they did, as instructed - YABU.

Yabmassivelyu.

1. There are rules and regs for each ticket, these would have been clearly detailed to you when you booked online. Presumably it was a non refundable ticket.
2. You knew that the system would only allow you to cancel one ticket, so if you have clicked on cancel then that's your fault.
3. The systems they use do not actually allow them to cancel one passenger off.
4. Why do you think your query is more important than everything else that a ceo has to deal with in a company the size of virgin.
5. Once you've cancelled a ticket, it's very unlikely that the same fare will be available.

Have you tried to call customer services and speak to them?

You weren't forced to cancel the booking. As buzzbobbly said, it's one of those mildly irritating situations where you have to contact the airline directly and explain what you need, not sit around waiting for them to call you. Virgin Atlantic aren't coming off badly here. It really will be goodwill if they sort this out for you, especially as you're trying to broadcast that it's all their fault.

So you cancelled your booking and now you’re cross that they cancelled your booking How were they supposed to guess what you actually wanted?

I'm with @edwinbear you can't expect them to guess. The procedure for cancelling just one is to call them and they process 1 ticker cancellation on their end. Online you can only cancel the full booking. You aren't likely to get the money back

So you cancelled both tickets?

If you only wanted to cancel one and the online system wouldn't let you, why didn't you ring them up. They would've also them told you the charges.

then*

So you cancelled your booking and now you’re cross that they cancelled your booking confused How were they supposed to guess what you actually wanted

This. Its not their fault they've done what you asked them to do. What were the ts and cs of the bookkjh?

I would take it off twitter

OP you remind of a character in Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads book.

so I was forced to cancel the booking

Forced? Really? Was there a reason you couldn’t just call up and say what you were trying to do?

If you want anyone to help with this you are going to need to explain in way more concisely and clearly than you have in the letter.

Of course you are close to it and super involved in the detail but you need to remember that anyone else just needs the bare bones, what the problem is and what you want them to do about it.

Why does your son get to say he wants and expensive flight then change his mind - that's the root of your problem right there.

Well when Customer Services and the refund department are unhelpful and ignoring you, then it is perfectly reasonable to write to the CEO in the hope that the matter will be resolved.

You've become too computer dependant, OP. There was no option to cancel a single ticket online, but you went ahead and cancelled both instead of picking up the phone and talking to someone who could have helped you. This is a bit like I want a pair of blue shoes but they seem to be out of stock so I'll order the red ones and then ask them to send the blue ones instead when they're back in stock and then complaining that they've sent me the ones I've ordered rather than understood my weird instruction.
I get it, I hate the phone and would also rather do everything online. But sometimes you've got to engage with the messiness of actually talking to someone. Before, not after.

The original person I spoke to at customer services said my ticket HAD NOT yet been refunded, so I saw a glimmer of hope that I could stop the refund of my ticket. I was subsequently told by a chap called J C* (who has no customer service skills at all, he just quotes rules and regulations) that my ticket was cancelled. Which is it you cannot deal with people who give conflicting information.

This is not contradictory information. Not refunded is not related to not cancelled.