Still no ash compensation?

Hi V-Flyers,

Wondering what to do about VS's complete lack of contact over ash compensation. I put my claim in on the 3rd May, was told by the automated response to wait 28 days, heard nothing. Resent the email on 6th June and got another automated response that all claims would be resolved by 3rd July.

I've not even had any sort of initial contact. I've looked on the VS website for a Customer Relations telephone number, since I've completely lost faith in their ability to answer email, and there doesn't seem to be one there. (Or is a suitable tack to ring FC and ask them to put me through?)

Any insight would be appreciated? (Also, if anyone else submitted claims and has heard or not heard from VS, that'd also be interesting.)

Cheers

Matt

[Nottingham Nick]

The same question was posted on the VS Facebook site - this was Greg's response : I don't normally cut and paste from other sites, but this is an official VS response to the question posed -
Due to the events of April we have set up a special claims handling team and they are working hard to respond to all the correspondence we have received.

We had initially estimated that we would be able to process customer claims for meal and accommodation expenses within 28 days of receipt. However, due to the volume and the complexity of the claims we have received, we have found this time frame has now passed.

I'm sorry you have not heard back from us to date, but please be assured we are doing all we can to address the situation. We have recruited more claims handlers and we hope to have finalised the majority of claims received by the end of July. Claims will be processed in chronological order based on the date they were received and then entered into our claims system.

We apologise for the delay and appreciate your continued patience and support.


The full thread can be found here - if you can find it among all the spammers.

Th

Greg

Don't if this helps or not but my manager put her claim in on the 28th April. She received her compensation around the 28th May, so a month later.

Saying that, her friend who put her claim at the same time hasn't heard a thing.

Thanks. Still haven't heard anything and Customer Relations is being completely evasive on the matter, refusing to discuss it via phone and suggesting I email (hmm).

[mitchja]

It took over 2 months for BMI to credit me back for the flight they cancelled due to the ash.

I only received my debit card + miles refund this week (it was a reward flight).

Spoke with the Premier line 2 weeks ago who said I should call back in 2 weeks if I had not heard anything.

Guess what - yes, I had to call back.

Premier line transferred me to Cust Relations (said they would detail my query before the transfer, but was just left hanging on the telephone for 20 minutes).

Anyway, they reiterated the end of July timeframe.

Interesting thing though. They said my claim was rec'd on 2nd June. I protested and said that the email was sent on 17th May. 'Ah yes' they said 'but we didn't log it until the 2nd June' !

All claims are being handled on a strictly chronological basis.

We shall see.

Matt,

I can provide you an email address for their VP of customer service that gets answered pretty promptly. As I had a ticket issue a few months ago, I email-bombed until I found the right addresses.



I got my problems sorted out quickly with those. Hope that helps

[mitchja]

Please do not post staff email addresses.

Whilst it might be frustrating waiting for refunds, everyone is is the exactly the same situation. V-Flyer does not promote tactics such as email bombing to speed the refund process up.

As already mentioned VS (and probably all other airlines) are processing refunds in chronological order.

Sitting on the beach here in St Lucia (going home tomorrow ) I said to Mrs S 'Well, at least we should have a cheque for a couple of grand waiting for us when we get home as they must have settled the claim by now' - I am looking at anything to off-set the cost of this holiday !

Lucky I wasn't holding my breath.

Received an email from Virgin saying they could only find one of my emails (I had to send 2 as the attachments were too large to be sent as 1 email so I split it between food and accommodation).

A couple of things occurred to me:-

1) What happened to the end of July, a date by which we were 'assured' all claims would be settled?

2) How can they lose an email which was sent a matter of seconds later?

If they are only just getting around to looking at my claim (sent on 17th May but logged on 2nd June) that means that some people have a much longer wait for compensation.

Nearly 3 months and no reimbursment - not good.

We spoke to Virgin the other day - they 'never received' our original letter sent at the end of April, so we re-sent our claim via email on 6th June. We've been told that they're looking at claims received on 3rd June (I think) and so we should have ours sorted out by the end of August, 4 months after returning home...

I finally flew home from SFO on the 28/04/10 on BA after being delayed 9 days.

I submitted my claim on the 10/05/10 and 8 weeks later I received a phone call from a lady at BA offering me just over £1000, this took care of all of my food and accommodation costs, they also paid £100 towards the hire of a car for the 9 days and £25 for phone calls.

Overall I'm very impressed bearing in mind they had many claims to assess. To top it off they transferred it directly to my bank that day!

Finally received an email from Virgin 'settling' our volcanic ash claim this morning, the small matter of 18 weeks after submitting our claim. n(

However I'm still somewhat peeved... we've only been re-imbursed for £458 of our £587 claim.
!
Virgin have underpaid us by £25 for 1 night of our hotel accommodation because it "exceeds the daily limit" - this was the night before our flight home where we went to the airport hotel so we could be there very early (5am) to standby to try to get on a flight. The hotel cost £95 and they've paid us £70 ish.

Also, they've only paid £75 (5 days at £15 per day)- of £170 in telephony claimed. We claimed 2 calls per day as advised at the time of claiming, so not sure where the £15 per day limit has landed from?!

I must say I'm peeved with this, it's taken miles too long for the claim to be settled, and now they've scrimped on £25 accommodation, and done us our of telephone costs (many of which were to the Virgin call centre!!).

Virgin have said we can't claim the £458 if we want to dispute the offer, so we're going to be out of pocket for a longer indefinite amount of time if we dispute it!

Any thoughts? Tempted to just accept the £458 to get the matter over with.

Mine took quite a while too, but it did come through in the end.

> Sent claim 28th April and got immediate automated acknowledgement.
> Got confirmation that claim was approved on 7th June that they would pay.
> I then got a mail on 29th July from Travelex who were handling the payments. In that they referred to a mail they claimed they had sent on 8th July (but I never received) - saying please enrol on Travelex's website.
> Finally got an email on 9th August saying payment would go in on 11th August. Just 3.5 months later :w

The funny part was that they obviously went through in fine detail as the only thing they cut back on was a $4 tip on a meal bill. Apart from that, they paid the full $989.

Hello

I'm in the same position here. I submitted my claim on June the 8th and have not heard a word since! I assume from what I have read here and elsewhere that I should have heard something by now?

Also anyone know the best way to get a letter of flight cancellation out of Virgin? I have tried all kinds with no luck, doesn't seem like much to ask for really?

Thanks

Keith

[Pete]

Virgin have underpaid us by £25 for 1 night of our hotel accommodation because it "exceeds the daily limit" - this was the night before our flight home where we went to the airport hotel so we could be there very early (5am) to standby to try to get on a flight. The hotel cost £95 and they've paid us £70 ish.

Also, they've only paid £75 (5 days at £15 per day)- of £170 in telephony claimed. We claimed 2 calls per day as advised at the time of claiming, so not sure where the £15 per day limit has landed from?!

Virgin have said we can't claim the £458 if we want to dispute the offer, so we're going to be out of pocket for a longer indefinite amount of time if we dispute it!

Any thoughts? Tempted to just accept the £458 to get the matter over with.

I'd accept the £458. The hotel limits were reasonably well publicised, and I suspect the telephone limits - whilst not as well publicised - agree with some EU guidelines somewhere that Virgin are following. Let's not lose sight of the fact that it's an EU quango that are forcing airlines to be unwilling insurers, whilst the insurers (who take your money for this sort of thing) are hiding behind 'act of God' clauses. I understand it's frustrating to be out of pocket, but then I also understand Virgin don't want to be out of pocket any more than they absolutely have to.

Pete

Hi Pete - yes we accepted the £458 for reasons you've mentioned above. To be honest my original post was a bit of a 'let off steam' effort because I was miffed enough at waiting 4 months in the first place!!

James