I booked my first UC flight the other day (very excited, travelling on the upper deck of VS02), and as expect, my card went for referral (my bank seems to have a thing with high value transactions... I wonder why :p). No problem, it's happened before, and normally I get an email from Virgin the following morning that all is fine.
Today, no email with my booking number. So I called the centre, and was eventually put through to 'upper class bookings' where a gentleman told me to hold on while he investigated. He came back and informed me that VIrgin's Meastro card processing was broken, and that they wouldn't be able to process my transaction for sometime, possibly up to one month, whilst it was being 'fixed'. It all sounded quite phoney. I asked him to budge on the CC processing fee, since that was the only other option, and not my first choice, and he said no.
Now, what's a girl to do. She needs booking confirmation, and whilst 15 isn't much compared to the ticket price, it's the principle - why not book with someone else rather than Virgin direct.
Nevertheless, this all sounded like nonsense, so I called up again direct to the UC booking number where the very helpful lady said, no worries about the referral and that she would try to process the transaction again there and then. Of course the transaction was successful and moments later my confirmation email arrived.
I'm really not sure what happened with the first man. It was the first time I have *ever* received less than stellar customer service from Virgin. Has anyone else experienced anything like this....
FWIW I'm flying LON-SFO PE and NYC-LON UC to go on a live streamed to the internets karaoke road trip across the US called the Whuffaoke (http://www.whuffaoke.com) if anyone is interested :p
Emma
Today, no email with my booking number. So I called the centre, and was eventually put through to 'upper class bookings' where a gentleman told me to hold on while he investigated. He came back and informed me that VIrgin's Meastro card processing was broken, and that they wouldn't be able to process my transaction for sometime, possibly up to one month, whilst it was being 'fixed'. It all sounded quite phoney. I asked him to budge on the CC processing fee, since that was the only other option, and not my first choice, and he said no.
Now, what's a girl to do. She needs booking confirmation, and whilst 15 isn't much compared to the ticket price, it's the principle - why not book with someone else rather than Virgin direct.
Nevertheless, this all sounded like nonsense, so I called up again direct to the UC booking number where the very helpful lady said, no worries about the referral and that she would try to process the transaction again there and then. Of course the transaction was successful and moments later my confirmation email arrived.
I'm really not sure what happened with the first man. It was the first time I have *ever* received less than stellar customer service from Virgin. Has anyone else experienced anything like this....
FWIW I'm flying LON-SFO PE and NYC-LON UC to go on a live streamed to the internets karaoke road trip across the US called the Whuffaoke (http://www.whuffaoke.com) if anyone is interested :p
Emma
