V-Flyer

Hi, a bit of advice please as i'm going round in circles with VA customer services.....

I travelled back on VS44 from Las Vegas last Thursday and was booked in PE. A technial problem with a door on VGAL meant that the door had to be locked out of use and couldn't be used in emergencies. This door was at the front so they ended up moving people away from the affected area. This meant that UC passengers were moved back into PE, with PE being moved back into Economy...myself included.
I received a lteer after boarding the plane to tell me about "Virgin Select" whereby it outlined the compensation offered because of the circumstances. In this case all UC passengers could claim a free UC round trip ticket or 100000 miles, and all PE could claim a free PE round trip ticket or 75000 miles.
The letter mentioned about a voucher, to be used within 36 months to this effect......I received no voucher, just a letter.
Landing late at LGW on Friday I went round to the VA area, of course it was empty as all the flights had gone for the day. So I have been chasing up customer services trying to get hold of a "voucher" but it looks like they think I should have one already!!
AS I said, the moving of passengers that took place wasn't voluntary, we were just moved by the gate staff with new boarding cards printed off. And I only received the letter telling me to take it up with ground staff after having boarded the plane and before departure. Bit late then!!

Anyone been in this situation before.....or even better, anyone on that flight who had to go through the same process? I'd estimate that 60 passengers were affected in all.

Well the goodwill 'voucher' would be in addition to the EU261 treatment of involuntary downgrades wouldn't it? They should be refunding 75% of your flight cost too..

So which are you going to take, the 75,000 miles or the free PE round trip?

If the miles, the call centre can credit to your account easy enough with authorisation from upstairs. If the free trip, the letter might be considered 'the voucher'.... don't know personally as I have never seen one of these free flight vouchers. It is best to chase with customer services.

On a side note they were really stupid to do what they did as they should have just bumped the UC pax into ECO or offered to reroute them via SFO or LAX. In that way, they would only have to deal with 14 EU261 claims (capacity of the UC cabin on a LGW VS B747) ... now they will have to deal with those 14 UC and the 14 pax moved out of PE ... making 28 claims so far.. was some of the PE cabin non useable too?

Was it a hard landing and a speed to the gate on arrival at LGW? Just checked the arrival time .. very nearly 3 hours late

I find it odd that VS moved anyone? D1L&R are rated for 60 passengers each, so with one door out, you still have enough for all of PE and J...

Of course Virgin could be more cautious than is required.

joeyc wrote:

If the miles, the call centre can credit to your account easy enough with authorisation from upstairs. If the free trip, the letter might be considered 'the voucher'.... don't know personally as I have never seen one of these free flight vouchers. It is best to chase with customer services.

When we had one it was a hard copy voucher completed before we boarded and handed to us. Things will have changed since then, as they did use a quill pen...

Hamster wrote:I find it odd that VS moved anyone? D1L&R are rated for 60 passengers each, so with one door out, you still have enough for all of PE and J...

Of course Virgin could be more cautious than is required.

I'm with you on this one, Hamster.

I was on a flight from EWR on a 346 where door L2 was inoperable and locked. No-one was moved; the door was pointed out before take-off and landing and the alternative doors pointed out. The captain then went on to say that this was within both CAA and FAA regulations and he had decided to take the flight rather than cancel.

This was in 2009 and, unless regulations have changed in that time, it would seem that the decision to move passengers was the captain's based on the availability of space to accommodate them. In the absence of that it is likely that the captain on this particular flight might have decided to cancel

As joeyc has suggested, you should have a valid EU261 claim for involuntary downgrading and be able to claim back 75% of your ticket price for that sector of your trip. As usual it seems VS "forgot" to mention this using the letter as a distraction. They can offer you those benefits listed in the letter but don't let anyone tell you that it is instead of EU261 because they can't wriggle out of it. There's a form on the website to start an EU261 claim.