Grr...what does it take to get an email out of Virgin (rant)

This is just a rant, as I'm a little frustrated at Virgin right now and need to take it out on something other than the poor cat

I also appreciate that this is a small matter in the grand scheme of things, nobody can ever be - or should be expected to be - 100% perfect and that I really do need to get out more!

Had to cancel a booking last year due to family illness. Travel insurance, reasonably enough, want confirmation from Virgin that I did a) cancel and b) how much the refund was.

So, off to the Gold helpline -

call 1 - lovely person on the phone, knew exactly what was needed, found all the details, confirmed everything back to me verbally (so I know she had indeed found them..) & promised everything was on its way

weeks 1, 2 & 3 - nothing...

call 2 - ring Au helpline again to get very polite man, lovely guy, but was unsure if he actually worked for Virgin due to his total unfamiliarity with their inner workings. Couldn't find the booking, long time on hold, he had to call me back later after speaking to customer relations (why not the billing dept?)

call 3 - did indeed ring me back, but said still could not find the booking, or indeed any record, depsite having the booking reference, FF number and call #1. He could not progress any further, I need to write (in writing - not email), with a photocopy of my passport and also my inner leg measurement and details of my most embarrassing teenage experience before they can do anything.

I've unfortunately had to cancel bookings before and have always managed to get everything sorted out fairly quickly and without passing all my personal details to Crawley so people can laugh at my passport photo (which is understandable actually, if you've ever seen it).

So, onto step 4 - give up on Flying Club gold and email customer services direct....let's see what happens!

Right, I feel better now - apologies for wasting all your time reading that!

Drew

When I speak to the Au helpline they are generally very helpful in offering their name and extension number, so if you do need to get back to them regarding a query, you can.

I know thats not much help for you Drew, but its worth others noting for the future.

I hope you get it sorted.

Cheers

Martin

There's been advice on here before, that essentially says
"Not all staff are as clued up as others, so if you're not getting anywhere, ask to speak with a supervisor".

That way, hopefully you can get to someone as helpful as the first person you spoke with.

As I've writen on another thread, given the UK snow disruption in Dec and the USA disruption recently, I'd imagine there's mountains of compaints/cancellations etc to deal with - not an excuse, just a possible explanation.

Keep going, you';ll get there in the end!

I've had a similar experience before, including the writing in and sharing of deepest secrets, and the slowness ... frankly this is one aspect of the VS service that sucks.

They need to take a leaf out of John Lewis' customer service book....