Tokyo: FCO says don't travel - but VS still flying

Not sure what to do really..
We've got 2 (G) UC seats booked for Narita on 31 March, coming back 10 days later.
The FCO website is advising not to travel.. so I assume our travel insurance wouldn't look on us kindly if we DID travel.
But VS are still flying the 900/901 to Tokyo, and so presumably if I phone up to cancel, I lose 25% of the miles.
Rebooking for later in the year not really an option, due to work/leave restrictions.

Would VS transfer us to another destination, provided G seats available?..

[Darren Wheeler]

The FCO are advising against all non-essential travel to Tokyo and North East Japan.

From the Virgin website

http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/pa ... hquake.jsp

The FO is not yet advising against all travel, just non essential travel to Tokyo and the NE so the thread title is not quite right. Not sure what the airline can do at the moment other than stop flights and suffer considerable financial penalty, nor do I think that does the Japanese any good if they do.

[Darren Wheeler]

I also suspect that the outbound are nearly empty but inbound is full as repatriation is in full swing.

[Neil]

Would VS transfer us to another destination, provided G seats available?..

G's are changeable for a fee, £90 per person IIRC (or free is you are Au), so that is an option. Of course VS *might*, given the circumstances, wave the change fee, certainly worth asking.

I called the UC reservation yesterday as my partner and I are in a similar situation (flying in May using the mileage) - the person I spoke with said for the next 7 days they'd give a full refund (including giving back the mileage) due to the circumstances and the airline would monitor the situation for the following period. She said we could change the dates for £25 each (I presume the fee for each sector?). The VS website says a slightly different thing (http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/cu ... uption.jsp) currently, though.

[Darren Wheeler]

The advice from VS has now changed.

Please follow the link in the second post for the latest.

Sorry, been a bit busy over the last few days...

Thanks you v-flyer for giving me the heads up that VS900 & 901 are going to be dropping into Nagoya on the way to and from NRT. Still nothing official but Status Updates here are shouting it at us!

Also, BA now basing all their crew in HKG for this, Lufthansa are using Seoul as a nearby point to recrew and refuel. LH are also offering anyone with a ticket going to Japan at any point in the future a FULL REFUND.
Get the hint VS!

Sorry, been a bit busy over the last few days...

Thanks you v-flyer for giving me the heads up that VS900 & 901 are going to be dropping into Nagoya on the way to and from NRT. Still nothing official but Status Updates here are shouting it at us!

Was interested to see this as we're booked on VS900 (reward flight) on April 11th and have been wondering what to do. Does anyone know what the significance of this stop-off is? Are VS perhaps preparing to terminate the flight at Nagoya if circumstances change?

[Scrooge]

Also, BA now basing all their crew in HKG for this, Lufthansa are using Seoul as a nearby point to recrew and refuel.

Actually, BA has changed their plans, from March 22nd they will also be offering the NRT service via Seoul.

This has obviously affected their loads hugely as VS are now starting to cancel a few services and put people on the flights the following day.
10th April VS900 and 11th April VS901 and the following Sunday too gone so far, can imagine a lot more of these will come .

And.. they've just updated their advice/info to permit full refunds on any flights up to next Thursday - 31 march.
Helpful to me... but yes, they'll be taking a financial hit on this too.

Now updated to allow refunds up to Sunday April 10th. Our flight is on Monday 11th, so still waiting to see what happens....