Re. Cancellation/suspension of the Chicago route from May

Some advice would be gratefully received please on this issue.
Last october I booked return UC reward flights to Chicago for September '17 for 3 weeks. Our plan was to spend 3 nights in Chicago and do a road trip around Lake Michigan, then fly home from Chicago. So far I've only booked some hotels having spent $1,000, luckily I haven't had time to do more planning/booking.
Just 4 days ago on Monday I bumped into an old friend, she works at VH. She asked what trips I had booked & when I told her she said but that route will be suspended by then! I was pretty shocked but on Googling it when I got in found the info sent to Virgin staff in Dec '16 saying pax will need to be contacted re the route ending. I called yesterday and spoke to someone who was pretty shocked I hadn't been notified. What he offered me was flights to Detroit, then I could either get a train (!) 4.5 journey, or hire a car and drive to Chicago. I called my friend and she said rubbish Virgin have to get you to your destination at their cost is necessary.
My husband is adamant he wants to fly directly. I checked BA flights and the equivalent flight would cost thousands up against the less than £1,000 I'd paid for flight tax.
If I call tomorrow I can obviously cancel the flights and get back miles and money but is that good enough? Should I receive some miles possibly as an apology for this mess up? An explanation would be good too.
Bearing in mind if I hadn't fortuitously bumped into an old colleague I would be none the wiser my flights for my 30th wedding anniversary road trip don't even exist. And the worrying thing is just when would I have found out?!
Apologies if this has been covered before I haven't been on the forum for a while. Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated before I call back tomorrow.

afaik under eu rules it's your choice whether to be re-routed to/from your original destination, or take a refund

the cost and on which airline VS needs to book you is not your problem, that is for VS to sort out

unless i'm wrong on that, it's essential that you stand your ground, if you accept a refund VS will have no further liability

Yes, that is correct.

You may have to fight to get rebooked on BA (or United, who have several LHR-ORD flights a day) as VS will want you to fly indirect with them or their partner Delta and connect somewhere, as you've found. But fight you should.

Getting VS to book you on a competitor with a direct flight will be tough to achieve but do try - if not do not accept anything other thanVS getting you to ORD itself, not DTW and driving (which I am amazed that they even tried to pass on you and is completely against the rules).

Thanks very much for taking the time to reply. I'll certainly give it a go today!

You need to do some research in alternative VS and DL routes and present them to VS.

For example DL fly from DTW to ORD and MDW. They should put you on one of those flights and not expect you to drive (what if like me you don't drive!)

You could for example fly VS/DL to JFK/MSP/ATL and then take an internal DL flight.

However, you cannot just demand to be booked on another carrier and VS will severely push back on that.

EU261 states 're-routing under comparable conditions'. That does not automatically mean a direct flight on another carrier and especially this far out from your flight dates

It is generally taken to mean in the same cabin class (and that definition is the airlines not yours) I won't get into a debate whether BA Club World is comparable to VS UC for example

Virgin cancelled my 5th July LHR to MIA flights in december and moved me onto the 4th july flight.

The only alternative was a refund. Under no circumstances would they reroute me onto the MCO flight or ATL with a delta connection to mia.

I argued and moaned but no dice at all. Take the flight the day before or a refund was the only options I had.

Part of me thinks VS are playing hard-ball here when they know the passengers have no recourse to EU261 compensation. Take the refund, or the re-route they offer, or leave it.

Maybe they are starting to crack down on compensation payments as many people on here have been successful in claiming EU261 from them when delayed (but needless to say, Virgin never mentioned this during the delay). I fall into this boat too for a shade under 4hr delay to Orlando - an extra 10mins delay would have got me an extra €200 too.

I would be very interested to know how Virgin would treat a UNIQ passenger when they cancel their flights? I can only hope they are little more accommodating.

As an add-on to the above, a few years back a friend was booked on Continental (I think) into Manchester from somewhere in the USA. The MAN flight was cancelled and Continental re-routed pax onto other flights. Friend got routed to Birmingham & as he lives near there, asked for his luggage to be off-loaded at BHX and he'd make his own way home.

Continental refused this request & the pax had to collect their baggage at Manchester after a coach ride up from Birmingham. Don't ask me how it was possible to avoid customs in BHX - but it can be done / does happen (even if it should not). I have done DEN-ORD-LHR-MAN and never seen the bags since Denver until they arrived on a domestic reclaim belt in Manchester T3 & we were straight out with no customs as in the domestic arrival area.

Hi All, Thanks for your advice/thoughts.
Unfortunately I can't change the day I travel the route ends 4 months before! I'm just typing a letter to them I hope for a more experienced response than ' get a train it will only take you 4.5 hours to get there!'
I'll let you know how I get on when I get a response.
Thanks

Hmm. When VS cancelled the NRT route we were also booked on to an UC flight using Gs and we were offered either a BA or ANA flight in J. guess this is slightly different as VS fly to a "nearby" airport in your case.
Hope you get something sorted. A train from Detroit. I wouldnt want to do that at all.

I have the exact same issue, logged in randomly and saw my flight had been changed from direct to via JFK... Called them immediately, 3 hours later and 5 people inc several supervisors, customer care etc and was effectively told they will only rebook or refund!

Now I'm flying economy and its a reward flight but as they cancelled the original flight they are duty bound to rebook you on an alternative to your original destination or refund you, I ended up on a indirect via JFK a day earlier as only have 2 days in Chicago... they won't offer any compensation as I reckon someone has done the cost analysis and decided its worth pissing off a few people as will save them money long term....

Now of interest to you, a staff member let slip if I wasn't on a reward flight they would have rebooked me on a BA flight thats direct in same level of seating, i would call them up and say its totally unacceptable and you want a direct flight on another airline etc and see what you get. The should at least put you on a connecting flight via JFK or Detroit.

You are not entitled to any compensation if a flight's cancelled more than 2 weeks out.

You are, as you say, entitled to a refund or to be rebooked on an alternative flight to your final destination. However there's no obligation for VS to put you on a direct flight on another airline and if it was a reward booking they're very unlikely to.

As long as they get you there "at the earliest opportunity" they've fulfilled their obligations under EC261/2004 so an indirect flight a day earlier or on the day is fine.

You are not entitled to any compensation if a flight's cancelled more than 2 weeks out.

You are, as you say, entitled to a refund or to be rebooked on an alternative flight to your final destination. However there's no obligation for VS to put you on a direct flight on another airline and if it was a reward booking they're very unlikely to.

As long as they get you there "at the earliest opportunity" they've fulfilled their obligations under EC261/2004 so an indirect flight a day earlier or on the day is fine.

Ok. However, virgin refused point blank to book me on a connection on 5th July when they cancelled my LHR > MIA direct.

I asked them to move me onto either the LHR > JFK > MCO (with delta connection) or the LHR > ATL > MIA (again delta connection) Both were a definite no-no as apparently they cannot use delta flights if its a reward booking. My only option was to go a day earlier or get a refund. I tried to get on the MCO flights, but that was a no as well.

Tried 4 phone calls over several days with lots of different agents. Always got the same answer. The only way they would have moved me onto the MCO flight would have been if there were reward seats still available (they would have waved the £30 change fees though) Aparently the only reason they actually gave me the Tuesday 4th july flight was that there were still reward seats available, otherwise it would have just been a straight refund!

However, Im still going, so I've accepted the terms. I'm out £150 for the heathrow hotel, extra £75 for the whole 1 day more car hire (grr!) and $127 for the mia hotel as they were on non-refundable prices (that one I'll learn from!)

Those extra things sound like the sort of thing your travel insurance may cover.

Indeed. And are exactly what it's there for.

hmmm. travel insurance you say.

On the phone to aviva. £100 per person excess (£200 cap) but they're paying me back remaining £39, so that's good. (the replacement LHR hotel was a £65 premier inn and they're only paying out on that.)

But this site has earned me £39 today. yippee. lol

Yes I was told can only rebook you on a flight with reward seats available, seems if you fly via JFK plenty of seats as so many flights it seems. Seems the JFK-MCO are fully booked then or it just the dates you are flying on are unluckily busy.

Good job you got some back via travel insurance, i fortunately had a cancellable hotel so rebooked in another one, still costing me more money tho!

Similiar thing happened to me , found out by chance that my may flight had been cancelled and virgin had taken it on themselves to move me to a Tuesday flight two days earlier .
Still doing battle with them , trying to find a suitable alternative .
Up to date have spoken with 6 different members of staff with attitudes ranging from , tough take it or leave it to really sorry about that but there's nothing I can do .
Seems virgins new policy us to p off and screw up the holidays of as many customers as possible.