LHR TO SFO 9th May cancelled?

Hi

Question on behalf of a friend who was meant to be flying to SFO on Monday for honeymoon but was phoned by VA last week and told flight cancelled!

She was in tears as accommodation booked separately and all Virgin would offer was a flight the following Thursday. No explanation given for cancellation either.

Anyone here know what the reason is as the VA site still shows VS19 flying!

Cheers

Paul

Hi Paul,

Are you sure this info is correct? As you say, VS website is still showing availability for LHR-SFO on the 9th and it's still possible to book it....?

Matt

It's the facts she gave me, so I guess so. Is there another SFO flight usually?

IATA also shows the flight operating on Monday, as does EF which shows a fairly full load in PE and UC.

Suggest she calls VS again, asks to speak to a superviser and explains the message and that it's her honeymoon.

I hope not a prank, poor thing.

I would certainly ask her to contact Virgin straight away and speak to a supervisor as Slinky suggests. EF shows:

J3 D3 R3 Z3 W0 S0 K0 Y9 B9 L9 M9 Q9 X9 N9 O9

Which shows PE full and UC getting there, so flight is operating....Good luck, hope it works out for them.

HF

[Darren Wheeler]

Expertflyer also shows VS20 operating on the return. Looks pretty full to me.

J1 D0 R0 Z0 W4 S1 K1 Y9 B9 L8 M4 Q3 X2 N0 O0

Definately tell her to phone Customer Services again, I really can't see how this can be the case. SFO is a daily flight and it's coming into peak season for this route. Even if it was cancelled for one day, i'm sure they could have rebooked her before the Thurs.

As Slinky says, it would a bit harsh if it turns out to be someones idea of a prank.

Let us know how she gets on.

Matt

Cheers everyone for your help! Will speak to her again tmrw!

[Darren Wheeler]

If by some chance it is true, both the LAX flights look wide open

VS7 - J9 D9 R9 Z9 W8 S8 K5 Y9 B9 L9 M9 Q9 X9 N9 O9

VS23 - J9 D9 R9 Z9 W6 S4 K4 Y9 B9 L9 M9 Q9 X9 N9 O9

So no obvious reason not to be transferred.

Tell your friend to check what it says in 'manage my bookings' and I would have thoght that VS would have emailed the 'cancellation' as well.

If its a prank (and lets hope it is) its a pretty nasty, spiteful and potentially expensive one.

Well the wedding was yesterday and it is true that Virgin cancelled the booking!

They instead offered as way of compensation a flight to Las Vegas on Sunday, a free night in a hotel there, limo pick up and free internal flight from Vegas to SFO on Monday.

All very strange considering no need to cancel it in the first place according to the load figures!

As you can imagine they are still not impressed with Virgin due to the extra stress, but at least the honeymoon plans don't have to change too drastically!

Thanks again everyone for your help and advice.

Paul

Well the wedding was yesterday and it is true that Virgin cancelled the booking!

They instead offered as way of compensation a flight to Las Vegas on Sunday, a free night in a hotel there, limo pick up and free internal flight from Vegas to SFO on Monday.

All very strange considering no need to cancel it in the first place according to the load figures!

As you can imagine they are still not impressed with Virgin due to the extra stress, but at least the honeymoon plans don't have to change too drastically!

Thanks again everyone for your help and advice.

Paul

Did VS give your friends a reason? They can't just cancel/amend a route without good reason, there is a contract they have to adhere to!

It would be very interesting to better understand. By the sounds of it, someone has made a mistake somewhere along the line as VS are clearly offering some incentive to fly into LAS rather than direct to SFO.

Luke

I'm sure for whatever reason it is (not that I have a clue what it could be, bit puzzling to me also), VS would not have taken the decision to do this lightly.

The price of a hotel, limo and internal flight won't be cheap by any means so I'm sure this was not their desired ultimatum either.

Either way, I hope your friends have a lovely honeymoon... and tell them to be careful in Vegas!

What I don't understand is why it's still bookable on the VS website?!

Sounds like it might have been a mistake and quite rightly VS have put in place a service recovery plan though what a shame it caused all that stress by cancelling the flight in the first instance but I am pleased the honeymoon plans are back on track!

Jon

[Darren Wheeler]

VS19 took of today at 13:12, so not sure where the 'cancelled' comes in.

Absolutely bizarre.

Maybe the customers were 'bumped off' the flight for some reason?

It's an odd tale ... did VS simply muck up, badly, was something else going on? For the honeymooners, they may well have a case for further compensation ...

It would be interesting to know what the final load was like for this flight. It certainly wasn't fully booked when the load checks above were done - AFTER VS had cancelled the tickets.

It sounds like an almighty mess up to me.

Harder yet to understand, assuming something did go wrong and the tix got cancelled for whatever reason, why the creative rebooking?

The only thing I can figure out is that with PE=0 it had to be oversold and with J/D/Z=3 probably not enough room for upgrades. Hence the preventive IDB and creative rerouting to Vegas. If they were in PE, that would make sense, and, well, the free night in Vegas and all that and still get you to SF on time wasn't too bad of a comp to begin with. More should be warranted anyway if you effectively were denied boarding on your original flight.