V-Flyer

I love Virgin, for the best part of 12 years it is the only international airline I have flown with. I would say in all that time they have been phenomenal in customer service and if anything has ever been in need of correcting they have acted quickly and efficiently..... but (!)
This flight was the absolute worst. Unfortunately the great customer service Virgin has always had was too late in coming, if it came at all.
We boarded and made ourselves comfy in seats 37 A& C. We chose those seats as hubby is a little claustrophobic and can recline back without bothering anyone...yes, I know but he just doesn't like to recline back on people. I am a recliner regardless!!
Hubby went to put his earphones in the jack and it didn't work, the jack was blocked. We pressed the call button no one came. In the meantime I put the monitor on and I couldn't see the picture. If I pressed the volume then the graffic for the volume stayed in the middle of the screen. We pressed the button again, still no one. Eventually we got an attendants attention. They explanined the jack was broken and it should have been reported at the switch over. Someone went off to reset the seats. In the meantime we settled back to read. The lights didn't work! Either of them. We pressed the call button, no response, again. We worked out by now Hubby's call button was not working. Mine turned the light blue at the front but, there was not a sound which I think there usually is. We got someone's attention, again. They said they would do a deep reset. As no one had returned from the first reset we didn't even know if that had been done yet. In total I think 3 or 4 cabin staff tried resetting our seats but not one came to see if it had worked! Not one. As the call button wasn't working I had to keep going up to the front to ask for help. They offered to move us to middle of a row of 4 seats which we did decline. Then they gave us a laptop thing which had about 15 movies on it.
I guess the thing that annoyed me most was the lack of follow up on the issue. I get they tried. But no lights and no entertainment (the movies on the laptop were not the same as the in flight entertainment) made for a long 10 hours. At the end of the flight I again asked if anyone was going to give us a remedy such as airmiles etc and we were told cabin stewards can not authorize air miles (must be a new rule as I have seen this before) but we were offered champagne. All in all just not what I expected from Virgin. Very disappointing.
All that said we are now in the Clubhouse, life is good....but I eagerly await my call from customer services that was promised.

I am sure a letter to Crawley Towers would get you something (miles) especially as a loyal customer. Doesn't sound like the worst flight in the world and at least it was a night flight and more incentive to sleep!

Sorry to hear about your bad experience. When I had a similar issue on a flight a few months ago, a polite complaint to Crawley Tower got me 10k of FC miles.Got to be worth a shot.

as above, polite letter of complaint

we got 8k FC miles each for no IFE on a night flight when we'd sleep anyway, with the other issues sounds like you should get more!

We thought all would be OK as we were in UC for the return leg .....LOL! If didn't laugh I would cry.....the monitors were broken, yep true story! In fairness all monitors wouldn't work, they reset them all and they all came back except Hubbies.....mine reloaded a few times but was only out for 10 mins or so at a time, usually not good but considering Hubbs had no monitor and the trip to the UK I accepted it! Was offered 10,000 miles off the bat (was told only upper class pax can get these on the spot!) and a bottle of champagne, miles gladly accepted along with a promise of a call from customer support, champagne declined, I would have taken a red wine!! I will do a return trip report, but felt I should update here first.

On our UC trip to MCO from GLA in May earlier this year, 1 of our IFE did not work and we were given 12,000 miles there and then from the FSM.

Dan

For some, travelling is a rare and often expensive treat. You count down your sleeps for months, well I do and something like this can ruin the whole experience in a heartbeat. I treated myself to a PE seat months ago and quite literally cannot wait. I would be so upset if something like that ruined the experience although I thought the laptop was a nice touch and certainly not the worse.