Need help- Virgin have changed my seats and allocated me away from my kids after I paid to sit together

[Fcukedupflight]

This is going to be a long one to get in all details, but here’s a short version- Virgin changed my flights, lost my seat bookings and have sat me away from my children and are now saying they can’t do anything about it.

long version- I booked my flights months ago, travelling as a single parent with two ‘disabled’ children (one is ASD with a physical disability and complex additional needs, one is deaf and adhd). I paid to upgrade to premium economy and paid to book our seats so we were next to eachother.
a few months ago Virgin text to say they’d changed my flight. I checked and it was only by an hour so no issues. Then today I had a thought and checked, yep, they’ve moved our seat allocations and we are all separate and middle seats.
so today I’ve spent 3.5 hours on the phone and gotten no where. Virgin say that it’s a delta flight so they can’t change the seats. Delta say I would have to downgrade to economy (I’ve said no problem, not ideal but I’ll it) but to do that I have to get Virgin to make the change. Virgin say they can’t and I need to ask delta to call them? I have cried, I’ve asked to speak to a manager (and got put on hold and then disconnected ). I’ve offered to pay to upgrade. No one can help me. They just keep blaming eachother and saying they can’t do anything.

I don’t think we can do the flight, my kids fly well and are used to travelling, but they’re very stranger conscious and won’t manage hours in the middle of random people. Also my daughter is only 7, she needs to be near me for safeguarding. I don’t know what to do. Does anyone have any experience of this happening? I feel like our dream trip has been ruined, I just don’t see how they’ll manage the flight.

any Virgin experts who can help me out? I’ve called (a lot!), emailed and tried their chat which no one ever responded to. Due to fly in two weeks

Try contacting the BBC's Rip off Britain programme. They are on Facebook or the email address should be on Google

No advice, OP, but much support and solidarity. I hope you get this sorted quickly.

I’ve never paid and always sat next to my kids - if the flights are 3/3 then who’s sat in single seats? Have they split up all passengers?

You may be able to ask someone to move- and believe it or not I have moved to allow others to sit together - others will too - they aren’t all ‘I’ve paid for this seat and i’m not moving’ brigade.

@Fcukedupflight Do Virgin not have a manage my booking check in service where you can move seats around? Maybe 24 hours before flying? Failing that, bag drop and check in should assist at the airport or special assistance.

Post on the Virgin and delta Facebook and Instagram pages. Write to the CEO. Phone the Sun and Daily Mail newspapers.
It's ridiculous. Kids that age can't be separated from a parent..

You need to tell Virgin that they are contravening the Disabilities Act. They can move other passengers to make reasonable adjustments to cater for your children. Your contract is with Virgin. They need to sort it. Try [email protected]

I checked in the day before my easyJet flight recently. All the seats were already allocated (couldn’t even pay to sit together) so my two children (3 and 6) and I were all dotted around the airplane. There’s no way my children would have put up with sitting alone! I just got on the plane and told the air hostess and she asked some people to move and they did no bother and was fine. Not ideal but suspect the same would happen for you if you don’t manage to get it sorted beforehand.

Very helpful.

OMG, I have a similar situation with another airline and it is driving me bonkers! I can't believe that they are allowed to do this. You paid for the seats, FFS! Once you've paid for a service, they shouldn't be able to take that service away. Completely infuriating.

It’s not an odd comment in the slightest. The Mail often print threads from here. If they pick this one up then it might push the airline into sorting the problem.

Have you tried the Virgin complaints process? The complaints team are very responsive.

So you are actually sat close to each other just not where you want to be.

this isn't a virgin problem. You need to contact Delta special assistance. They are most helpful I have found

OP we’ve had this happen twice to us with Virgin. The first time and after lots of frustrated calls/emails and getting nowhere, I decided just to beg cabin crew on the day 😂 However they reallocated us seats next to our children at check in, which is apparently common practice. Why they can’t do it in advance and save a lot of stress is beyond me though! They did the same the second time too.

You are flying to America. Everything out there is messed up.

Kids that age can't be separated from a parent..

But airlines don’t have to put children and parents in the next seat. Airlines term ‘beside’ as infront, behind or across the aisle.

However, these children have additional needs requiring adaptations. Disability act jumps to mind (though maybe not in the US?).

I have had similar with BA/American. The BA flight got cancelled and we were moved to an American flight and our business class seats not together. I was flying with my parent who has dementia so can't fly alone. After multiple, very frustrating phone conversations, I got it sorted at the check in desk. And after all that, my points got lost in the move too. I no longer fly BA for trans Atlantic.

You’ve made yourself look really daft here.

Ok, first things first. Are you in the uk?

If so, you need to be very clear when you call/ email/ tweet that you are concerned about a potential failure to make reasonable adjustments on account of disability. A failure to make reasonable adjustments is potential disability discrimination.

A reasonable adjustment could include intervening to ensure you are all seated together or upgrading you to business where you could all be seated together if premium economy is full abd they have fucked up the booking. Asking you to downgrade or rebook it yourself is not ok.

Nit sure why you have “disabled” in quotation marks.

They will 100% sort it either at check in or on the flight.

Eh? It would do the OP good for the Daily Mail to publish this, What's odd is you not understanding that!

I had very similar happen, booked via Virgin, flights were Delta. Got separated from our 4yo. Got absolutely nowhere on the phone. We actually didn’t even have seats anymore and were told they would be assigned at the gate. When we got to the airport, the gate agent told us we could sit together or sit in the class we had paid for ( premium). Delta doesn’t have a family seating policy so they don’t give a flying fuck about separating you. I was really tempted to call their bluff and put my 4yo, who was 2 hours past bedtime and screaming “you have to sit me with my adults” at that stage, next to whatever people and see how many seconds it took someone to swap… in the end we accepted economy seats and actually got put in the bulkhead row which was probably better for us anyway.

Never got any money back for the downgrade either.

Moral of my story is, if you need to sit together and they are offering you seats together, I would take them even if it’s a downgrade.

@Fcukedupflight this is true for Virgin but Delta DOES NOT have a family seating policy so very very unlikely they will move you. It does not matter if you booked via Virgin if you’re on a Delta operated plane.

It looks like as your children have disabilities they do have to sit you together. Not sure if you've contacted Virgin special assistance yet, but if they fob you off try contacting Delta's service.
Delta's website has a section about disabled people travelling - scroll down to #8.
https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/travel/accessibility-and-assistance/air-carrier-access-act.html

Sorry if you've already clarified this and I've missed it but is this a US domestic sector with Delta??

If so AFAIK US rules (such as the aforementioned ACA ) are of far more relevance than anything UK or EU.