trip reports

[tinkerbell]

My bad experience with Virgin I'm afraid to say was before September 11th, so can't really comment!!

[Biggus]

I am yet to fly Virgin but did look into it for when we go out in March 03. In the end found a much cheaper flight with American Airlines (indirect via Miami). We flew with Airtours just before 9/11 (yes we sat and watched it all happen on TV within 4 days of our first trip to the States!!) and to be honest I couldn't really fault them but this time we have decided to go the cheapest available. Will let you know how we get on with AA. Can't wait to go back

[mikewj]

Just returned from FLA with United Airlines via Chicago. I have to say that of all the airlines I've flown with, UA are by far the best (although this was my first time with them). And when I booked the flights, they were also the cheapest.

I've never flown with Virgin, but have heard good and bad things about them from different people, albeit nothing like Lexton had to suffer !!

Airtours, or MyTravel as they now seem to call themselves, came bottom of a recent reliabilty poll and from my experience, its no wonder. When we were over in Orlando in June, we were
delayed on the outbound journey by 3hrs, delayed coming home by 10hrs and their other flight heading to Gatwick that day was cancelled until the following day. The only silver lining was that as we'd not given our car back, we could spend another day in Disney !

Mike

[orlandobabe]

We've always gone charter apart from the time when we went Virgin Upper Class with two tickets worth £8,250 in a prize draw.

I've had no problems at all with the charters. You get on at one end and off in Florida at the other and that's all I want.

We take our own headphones and have started to take our own food and if they get me there safely-I'm happy.

[tinkerbell]

Have to say that I have only flown once charter to orlando and that was in 1992 with Brittannia! They were fine, but the charter service to Orlando has grown immensely in this time.

The thing is now that Florida is now so much more accessible to people, and the charter airlines prices don't vary too much, so the difference in the service they provide is what makes the difference.

There is so much competetion between charter carriers to Orlando, and having to compete aginst dropping schedule flight prices, they have a lot to live up to. Unlike my trip last summer with Air2000 to the US Virgin isles! It was appaling, but, as they are the only charter carrier on this route, they have no need to provide anything extra than they are required. I was disgusted with the lack of water being offered, especially with the recent DVT awareness, I think that there are huge differences between charter flights to Orlando and charter flights to almost anywhere else in the world!

[lexton]

Please has anyone got any advice as where to go from here ,as regarding the Virgin flight hubby and I had last September.Letter of complaint went to customer service dept end of Sept,letter back from them received end of October stating occurences like ours rarely occur,and that they guarantee that they will not recur again,they noted our displeasure at the offer of 50% off our next Virgin flight and offered us £200 worth of Virgin Atlantic vouchers to be used against the price of a published fare on any Virgin Atlantic Airways flight.I wrote back and asked for 50% off the flight we had already been on.They wrote back again stating that there is very little they can add to the comments already made,and my request for a part refund on my used tickets they will be respectfully declining.The offer of 50% is off a future flight.Will I just have to accept defeat?Is there any other way of resolving this issue or has this to be the end of the matter.Any ideas would be extremely welcome.

[esprit]

Write them a letter before action and threaten to take them to the snall claims court (give them so long to give a satisfactory reply and then carry out the threat if not satisfied, your local CAB will help with the forms) and/or to write letters to every newspaper, Watchdog type TV programme etc in the country saying what a heap of **** it was. A high profile company like this with a reputation for quality would loathe the idea of bad publicity.

[esprit]

PS. You need to ask for a specific amount of money as a refund not just let them offer what they want. There is a fee for small claims court which you will lose plus you would have to pay fixed solicitors costs if you lose the case. Depends how far you want to take it.

[Biggus]

Lexton,
How can they "GUARANTEE that they will not recur again." Logistics/transport operations are dynamic and subject to change on an ongoing basis - Virgin cannot GURANTEE anything - only have one guaranteed thing in life - and we all know that Virgin sorting these problems out permanantly isn't it!!
I would take them to task about that - state that you fly to Florida frequently (and have never encountered any problems with charter) and their offer of discounted flights in the future is of no comfort/recompense for your loss of days holiday/distress of spoilt holiday, to you as you do not intend to use their services again in the future (remember you are after recompense for what has actually ALREADY happened NOT what they COULD offer you in the future) nor will you be recommeding their services to family or friends, FORUM POWER!! Take them to task over their poor customer service AFTER your return have added further to your distress/upset. It is now 6 months after the problems and they are STILL not resolved to a satisfactory conclusion.
Then mention the option of small claims/-ve publicity to me would be a last resort.........good luck and let us know how it ends up.

[orlandobabe]

Perhaps writing to say that you will write to someone like the chap in the Express may help. I forget his name-something like The Complainer.
Bad publicity might just force their hand and be a lot cheaper than fighting it in court.

Has anyone read Richard Branson's biography? I suggest getting hold of a copy just to see how the whole organisation works. It's a real eye opener.