Not Happy with Virgin

Hi all

(moan alert!)

New to this forum (registered) but have been reading many topics to bare with me. Love the site!

I am due to travel with family on VS027 this Sunday (5th June) on one of Virgin's 747-400's. All (were) sitting together.

Having logging into Manage Your Booking a week ago, there was a notification saying that our return flight detail had changed. Comparing the new flight time to the old flight time, there was no difference what so ever.

Becuase of this I emailed Virgin to see what was happening as I didn't want to agree to any changes if the information on the screen wasn't correct.

A week later they replied, saying that they have looked at our booking and can see that indeed there is a change apparently (not a flight time change) but an aircraft type change? (Hoping this was the new Airbus A330 but looking at the detail we're still on a 747 ). The person replying to me also let me know that it looked like we had also lost two places that we had reserved on the plane (why??). So now only 3 seats together and two of our party with unallocated seats suddenly.

We therefore quickly went to reserve two new seats and there were none available.

I've therefore telephoned the call centre to be advised by quite an abrubt woman that all the pre bookable seats have been reserved but there are two quite nearby but we're now split up and not sitting together?!

Pretty annoyed about this as two of the family are not frequent flyers and now have to sit apart from the rest of the family without a proper explantion why we have been bumped out of our seats and not reallocated any new ones.

We have been given reassurance that when the online check in opens, more pre bookable seats become available but there's still no certainty we will be able to sit together now.

Three days before we fly out and we've only just been told of this, so not really happy with Virgin at the moment.

Sorry to have a moan. I always fly Virgin and always recommend them to people, but this isn't how we've been treated before so I'm sure it's just a one off (hopefully).

Can any one perhaps explain why this might of happened or why, suddenly, all the prebookable seats have been taken (there were loads only a few weeks ago and the whole aircraft looked empty). Or even explain what the sudden change might be that they needed to bump us out of our seats without prebooking us anymore together.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Suppose it would be a bit churlish to spout the old it's a request not a booking thing as you no doubt are already aware. Perhaps if you do OLCI more seats might pop up, do it the moment it opens. Otherwise you need to be up front in the queue on the day. Have you got kiddies? They seldom split families on the day. Have they merged flights?

welcome

You did not 'reserve' any seats you only requested them. VS like other airlines will try and honour requests but sometimes it is not possible.

VS initially only allow 60% of seats to be requested and when this limit is reached it it not possible for anyone to change an existing reqest or make a new one. The remaining seats will be opened up at OLCI. This is what you need to do to try and get your party back together again.

Looks like requests were changed due to an aircraft change from the 747 to the airbus. They have different layouts and it is simply not possible to keep people in the'same' seats.

Airlines reserve the right to switch aircraft if it is operationally required. When it happens it can be annoying but there is nothing you can do about it.

[Nottingham Nick]

Welcome to the site.

As EGG (edit - and Tonty, after I started typing ) have already pointed out, and you will read hundreds of times in various threads here. Virgin don't do seat reservations, they do seat requests and these are always subject to change.

The 'manage my booking' section of the Virgin website and the seat maps are a bit of a mess at the moment - this thread, explains a lot of the background.

One of the issues, is that the whole site and the reservation system it supports, are both well past their use by date, and are not really fit for purpose any more. They have been patched up numerous times and again you can read comments about the system in lots of different threads here.

Having said that, the staff - who are (in the vast majority of cases) Virgin's best asset, usually manage to make the best of a bad job when there are problems and, if you don't get sorted at OLCI, get to the airport early and see what they can do for you.

Nick

[honey lamb]

Welcome to V-Flyer.

You do not say which cabin you are flying in but if it is PE there are a couple of threads on this very issue. In this thread people are describing the very situation you are describing and in this thread is an email explaining what has happened.

It is not much comfort for you but all I can advise is that you check the seat map in Manage My Booking some time before OLCI opens (and if possible keeping checking) as the seat map may be open then and then do OLCI as soon as possible to secure the seats.

As Nick says the IT platform behind the whole VS reservation system is hanging on by a thread. I think we all know that when we select a seat on any airline's system it is a 'request' and no more. For me though (and I suspect everyone!) it is only ever with VS that these requests have a habit of falling apart, often with no explanation and reap havoc - especially for families or infrequent travellers. I've never had an issue with seat requests on any other airline whether Emirates, Virgin America, Continental, Malaysian...and the list goes on.

Thanks
James

Hi all,

Thanks for the replies which I've read with interest. It's good to get other peoples thoughts on the situation especially from people that know VA very well.

Apologies for thinking it was a seat reservation. I only thought this as I've flown loads of times and this is the only time I've ever been changed, or bumped off without being given a new seat what so ever.

But hey ho, life goes on. We've finished throwning our dollies out the pram now and just looking foward to the holiday.

However the VA website still says we're on a B747 not Airbus. I'm hoping for the new Airbus as a bit of an aviation geek myself.

Thanks again.

Hi there
Some years ago my family and I were late checking in and our seats were all over the plane. Virgin really did their best and after quite a few phone calls we all got seats together. Get to check in early, and relax