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

@user1457017537 What more help do you suggest they offer to a customer that has cancelled her ticket and the refund been issued?

YABU. I know you are feeling very frustrated right now but it's completely unreasonable to expect the head of a multi-national company to pay attention to a customer complaint where they haven't done anything egregiously wrong. Everybody hates flying and dealing with ticket conditions - that's why there are customer service reps. The Chief Executive deals with the top-level managerial and financial decisions, not with customer complaints, and especially not customer complaints that tbqh aren't the fault of the company. They couldn't read your mind when you cancelled. Chalk it up to experience.

It’s like writing to a consultant surgeon when you’ve got a hangnail.

And you've considered getting someone to remove it for you but it was quicker to do it yourself and now you've peeled half the skin off your finger.

Of course he won’t answer you - who do you think you are?! And you cancelled the tickets yourself!

What's the time frame on this saga? Most big companies do say emails may take days to respond to.
You also said you emailed straight back when you got the cancellation email. Was that to the email address that sent it? That may be an unmonitored mailbox.
The two customer services reps saying different things may relate to system updates.

Hold on the Op cancelled tickets for a flight in September in January. A full eight months and has been refunded £152 per ticket. That is daylight robbery. The tickets will be resold probably for more money than originally. You lot must be happy to be robbed.

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

Good point

If I had been in this situation, there is no way on god's earth I would've hit the 'cancel' button without being 150% sure that both tickets were not going to get cancelled.

It seems to me you buggered up a booking cancellation and you now want to blame someone.

Why on earth did you cancel both, or indeed go to cancel one, without checking and double checking what would happen. The only way to do that would've been to ring them and ask the procedure.

I suspect the rules and regulations you refer to relate to the terms and conditions you agreed to when booking.

User I expect there was a higher-priced refundable ticket option (a flexible fare or whatever), but the OP chose a non-refundable ticket. Yes, it's annoying to lose the money when you know the seat will be re-sold, but it's not robbery if you knew the T&C of buying that ticket type.

You are utterly clueless if you think the CEO of virgin Atlantic is going to read your long letter and reply to you. He is probably paid thousands of pounds a minute so do you seriously think he will be spend his time reading long letters from customers and responding?.

But user if those were the terms the OP booked under (which we don't know) then that may be all she is entitled to.

You've managed to call them now? I really don't understand why you didn't leave the booking and call to cancel 1 ticket? Plus surely you check cancellation policy etc before booking? YABU.

Tbh, you never should have cancelled knowing that you were clicking for both. It's annoying because blaming yourself for an expensive mistake is so hard, but this is your fault. You should have picked up the phone and talked to a person instead.

What you should be doing now is appealing to them on a personal level, not yelling at them. They haven't actually done anything wrong here, but a lot of the time a company will help you out if you are honest and appeal to their human nature.

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.

It is not reasonable to expect a CEO to respond to an individual customer query. He or she would never even see the email or letter. They are intercepted and rerouted to the appropriate department.

To answer the original point, YABVU.

The CEO of Virgin must get over 1000 letters / emails a day, letters of complaint, of praise, from students asking for jobs or internships, from kids wanting to know how to become a pilot. If he answered all of those, he wouldn't have time to run the fucking airline.

He got to the position of CEO by being able to delegate. If someone on £1m a year of whatever is answering letters about cancelled flights, then that would be bonkers, and something has gone seriously wrong within the organisation.

Dear Mr

So who did you write to?

I am a VA current frequent flyer - AFAIK unless you book a flex ticket (which I’ve seen at four times the price of a normal ticket!) you aren’t entitled to any refund. Yes, I think it’s unfair, but it is in the T&Cs when you book.

I also doubt it’s the Chief Execs job to answer correspondence like that. You wouldn’t walk into Tesco for a refund of a loaf of bread and demand it be dealt with personally by their Chief Exec, so why would VA be any different?

Yes, it sucks that you’ve lost your money and I’m sure they could have refunded you if they wanted to, but I guess they don’t want to set a precedent. One to chalk up to experience.

It’s a shame really because their customer services have been great with me when I’ve needed them.

I can picture the scene though -

there is Shai at his desk dealing with the new business strategy, reviewing the partnership with Delta, negotiating new routes...

A knock at his door and an assistant posts their head round... "Erm Shai, I hate to bother you but Wendover has now posted on Mumsnet querying when you're going to reply to their letter.... yes Shai, the letter where Wendover cancelled their booking online but apparently we were supposed to know that the cancellation was only meant for one of the two tickets booked... Thanks Shai, I'll let Wendover know that once you've nailed the Argentina route she's top of your inbox"

this was after days of frustration trying to explain the situation to Customer Services who do nothing apart from quote rules and regulations to you

OP, this will be them explaining to you the Terms and Conditions you agreed to when booking this ticket. They've probably tried more than once to tell you that you've booked a ticket whereby you dont get a full refund.

You pressed cancel booking without finding out if there was any way round this to cancel just one... now you are blaming them???

With so much money involved, why the hell did you cancel without checking what would happen. I'm buggered if I would press cancel on £1,600 worth of tickets just like that. You'd have been better off just losing the money for your son's ticket.

I have a pretty good success rate from letters I write to senior management, including some CEOs, when first line CS/their complaint processes have totally failed.

But then I take a lot of care to make my request as clear and concise as possible, which includes explaining why I have escalated it to their office and requested they redirect it to their most appropriate colleague.

And when I do this, I also have a point to be made about clear-cut errors on their part; a genuine case of unsatisfactory customer service or other similar, addressable issue; and what my preferred outcome would be.

In OP's case, her only hope would have been throwing herself on the mercy of their goodwill and explaining she didn't understand the repercussions blah blah and is very sorry for the mistake she made. And even that would be a long shot.

You ABVU for:

1. Claiming you were forced to cancel the booking when you chose to do this
2. Expecting an email reply to the cancellation email to go to customer services - it's an automated email and replies won't be read by anybody
3. Thinking a contact number means someone is going to ring you - it is in case of an issue with your bank details, not to chat about your cancellation
4. Expecting a company CEO to write back to you
5. Expecting a refund on what was clearly a non-refundable ticket - you clearly don't read terms and conditions
6. Expecting a poor, underpaid, harassed customer service worker to be able to do anything except tell you the rules they have to follow

You sound very naive, OP, and your rant to the CEO and on Twitter does not make you look good.

Did you buy refundable or non refundable tickets?

And you may have well received ‘automated’ email resoponses so if you reply to that email address it does not actually reach a person.

A chief exec will not respond- it is not their job, hence why they have a whole customer service centre/s. Imagine if every person emailed them wanting a reponse 😂

Also your ‘letter/email’ is very disjointed and hard to read. You are ranting and not making a lot of sense, it is hard to follow. Sorry.

IN FACT I HAVE CONTACTED THEM TWICE TODAY AND THEY STILL HAVEN'T CALLED

Why didn't you talk to them when you contacted them, or have you not rung them yet?

Why don't you just ring them?

Why didn't you ring them when you saw the cancellation options online?