MCO Cancellations?

Some of you may have seen my post on the Dibb, but wondered if anyone here knew what was going on.

Long story short, kept a close eye on expertflyer, my VS27 in May suddenly went from being wide open (I was the only one in UC, confirmed by a Virgin staff member) through all classes to over night being 0'd out. Went onto the VS website and my booking still showed, however, the VS27 was no longer available for booking (I did a dummy run in all cabins), so rung premier team who advised it did indeed appeared to be cancelled and they moved me (obviously no charge) to the VS15. Same thing happened to a friend of mine (a travel agent) travelling later in the year, she noticed on galileo (?) the same as I had on expert flyer, she's also managed to get moved onto the later flight.

However, general joe public apparently has no idea, flights still showing on the flight schedules on the VS website (although no longer available for booking), and flights still showing on people's 'manage your flights' (3 friends are in this situation), they've been told that the VS call centre (?) have not officially been told the flights are cancelled/merged, but are blocked and not available for new bookings, so are unable to be moved (yet). [:?]

Sorry for rambling, but anyone know what's going on and when these flights will be officially announced as being cancelled/merged.

Thanks

Clare

[mitchja]

What you have to remember is that VS will only have the contact details of those pax who booked direct with them. They are unable to contact anyone else who has booked via an agent.

This applies to all airlines.

VH probably have a large percentage of bookings for MCO, so it's down to VH to tell their customers about any changes. The same applies to all the other travel agents and online booking consolidators.

Even when VS changed my SFO flight schedules last year by only a couple of hours, it took several weeks for this info to filter though to VH (who I'd booked the package with) and for them to inform me via a letter.

I already knew something had changed as my VS booking disappeared from the website and so I called VS, but even then, VS told me they could not to pass this info directly onto me as it must come via the agent I'd booked with. I then had to call VH to confirm the flight time change just to get my VS booking to show up again. I believe it's down to data protection rules.

Regards

Thanks James, wonder when they're going to formally announce the cancellations on their website though.

I think airlines still do a twice yearly timetable change, and this is when the cancellation would be advertised (as opposed to an ad hoc cancellation).
This year I think it's 28th March.
The fact that they have taken it off sale will stop more people than necessary being affected by schedule changes, although it's still rubbish if it affects you.

quote:Originally posted by Sealink
I think airlines still do a twice yearly timetable change, and this is when the cancellation would be advertised (as opposed to an ad hoc cancellation).
This year I think it's 28th March.
The fact that they have taken it off sale will stop more people than necessary being affected by schedule changes, although it's still rubbish if it affects you.


Thanks, I might suggest my friends call back and try and get moved, they're PE and are currently in the 'bubble', rather than wait until Virgin officially announce it and possibly not being able to choose the bubble (although of course we know it's not guaranteed).