IFE broken - what to do?

Hi everyone, first post on the forum, but I’ve been lurking for a while.

I’m just back from a round the world trip (using Virgin and Air New Zealand) – LHR – HKG – SYD – CHC – IVC – CHC – AKL – YVR – SFO – LHR. I’m a medical student, and I was studying abroad in New Zealand and Canada over the summer. If I have time I may write some trip reports.

I was mainly very impressed with the service onboard, but I have a question about a problem I had with IFE. I was flying in PE on the SFO – LHR sector on Mustang Sally. Unfortunately I couldn’t make use of the IFE during my flight as I couldn’t fit the headphones into the socket. I imagine someone managed to snap their headphone jack inside the socket on a previous flight, thus meaning that particular seat cannot listen to the audio on their IFE.

Now, my question is this. Is there any point in me writing to Virgin about this, for exampling requesting some sort of compensation in terms of miles. I acknowledge that a previous passenger damaging the equipment is beyond their control, but at the same time IFE is part of the advertised product, and it’s a long flight without any IFE. The flight attendant acknowledged the problem, and apologised, but I wasn’t offered any alternative, i.e. DVD player.

Any thoughts appreciated, thanks!

[honey lamb]

Yes, I'd write to Virgin about it. I was on a flight when the IFE went down and we were comped 5K miles

Best to ask the crew to confirm that a form will be put in at the time - if necessary ask to see the FSM who will actually do the paperwork. They can, in effect, comp. the miles.

Just looked up my account summary: one item "Customer Relations IFE Bonus" for rather more than 5k miles earlier this year - but that was in UC.

FSM a good option, not only to ensure you get the miles but also to make sure the defect is logged for rectification. I'm guessing this didn't happen into SFO (although not a VS manned station so possibly defered for repair at LHR).

Depending on airline & class of seat, the seat may be made "non rev only" for IFE or seat recline being unusable.

The cheapskates only comped me 4k miles despite saying it would be 5k for a broken IFE back in June - I emailed customer relations, but absolutely no response at all

Unfortunately some enterprising souls started to send letters when little or nothing was wrong - got miles - then bragged about it on another website.
A logged report on the flight is the only sure way.

Thanks everyone. Unfortunately I didn't speak to the FSM - lack of experience here I'm afraid.

That was my 3rd flight with VS, and apart from that everything was great. It's just a minor annoyance really.

I've sent an email to customer services, and will see what happens. I can understand why a logged report during flight would be useful.

This website is a great resource, incidentally.