just had the dreaded e-mail cancelling our flights to YVR

It is completely invidious that any airline can muck people around like this, especially when the same airline would charge high fees if the customer made *the same* change themselves. I know that some people here will say "the T&Cs allow it", but I wonder whether the T&Cs would be judged lawful in a Court? ...

y) that is an extremely good and relevant point.

One rule for them, one for us v( However there will be a tiny little clause somewhere that allows the airlines' to make these kinda changes for operational reasons. It'll be lawful.

VS really is the airline to avoid if you have any sort of plans.

I must confess I am not quite sure what you mean by this statement?? As in book with VS and leave everything to the mysteries of the force? Or book with VS (and any airline to be honest) and be ready to be as flexible as possible in your approach?

but I wonder whether the T&Cs would be judged lawful in a Court? ...

Unfortunately so...... n( n(

To be fair they have to draw the line somewhere, think about all the people that may very well be changing holiday/work flight plans by a day here and there as zero hour approaches. It would definitely cause havoc in the good old revenue department ii)

The charges reduce this problem

Back to the OPs scenario, a bit of a bummer that schedules have been changed, but I guess stuff happens.. At least they notified you of their inability to meet the obligations of the contract and gracefully bowed out, allowing you to make alternative arrangements

Now a fun little question.. do people think that in situations such as this the airline should be offering some sort of compensation? Even if it is a small gesture such as a few quid's worth duty free vouchers to spend on board, or maybe even a couple of comp ECO - PE upgrade vouchers to use with VS.... see what I did there ):

I know they have given you a fair amount of notice, but it's still a bit of a drag, hope y'all make new arrangements in short order 8D

VS really is the airline to avoid if you have any sort of plans.

I must confess I am not quite sure what you mean by this statement?? As in book with VS and leave everything to the mysteries of the force? Or book with VS (and any airline to be honest) and be ready to be as flexible as possible in your approach?

This has happened at least twice before from memory, and I mean that VS seems to be the only UK airline which seems to think that messing its customers about by changing schedules by DAYS in some cases is perfectly acceptable.

Many of these customers will have booked in good faith expecting their booking to be honoured, and therefore made train bookings, hotel stays etc etc, all of which will have to be changed.

I know that if I had to cut my holiday short by a day or incur several hundred £'s to change bookings, I wouldn't be rushing back to VS.

VS seems to be the only UK airline which seems to think that messing its customers about by changing schedules by DAYS in some cases is perfectly acceptable.

Many of these customers will have booked in good faith expecting their booking to be honoured, and therefore made train bookings, hotel stays etc etc, all of which will have to be changed.

I know that if I had to cut my holiday short by a day or incur several hundred £'s to change bookings, I wouldn't be rushing back to VS.

To be fair to VS, it has far fewer flights than, say, BA. So if BA has to cancel or alter a flight there's a good chance there'll be another one the same day they can put you on. Not the case with VS.

Secondly, no-one should be several hundred £s out of pocket because VS changed their flight. Travel insurance will cover losses incurred if hotels, trains, connecting flights etc can't be changed and refunded.

Changes to schedules are a risk you take when booking way upfront. If, god forbid, 9/11 happened again next month do you seriously expect airlines to still operate their full published schedules in March, when passenger numbers have dropped through the floor?

All airlines run at very tight margins and have to make the very best use of their fleet, adapting schedules according to demand. Unfortunately that sometimes means cancelling or moving flights. By buying a ticket you agree to accept that chance and if you don't like it you're entitled to a full refund.

To be fair to VS, it has far fewer flights than, say, BA. So if BA has to cancel or alter a flight there's a good chance there'll be another one the same day they can put you on. Not the case

Secondly, no-one should be several hundred £s out of pocket because VS changed their flight. Travel insurance will cover losses incurred if hotels, trains, connecting flights etc can't be changed and refunded.

Changes to schedules are a risk you take when booking way upfront. If, god forbid, 9/11 happened again next month do you seriously expect airlines to still operate their full published schedules in March, when passenger numbers have dropped through the floor?

All airlines run at very tight margins and have to make the very best use of their fleet, adapting schedules according to demand. Unfortunately that sometimes means cancelling or moving flights. By buying a ticket you agree to accept that chance and if you don't like it you're entitled to a full refund.

To be fair airlines go have to have flexibility. However theses schedule changes must be planned and known about for several weeks and yet they still sell flights right up to the day before they announce the changes. Last year I booked flights to fly on a Saturday only to be emailed with a change to Sunday two days after. Surely the reservations ( this was a telephone booking) should have been aware of these upcoming changes and advised us of possible changes.

This has happened at least twice before from memory, and I mean that VS seems to be the only UK airline which seems to think that messing its customers about by changing schedules by DAYS in some cases is perfectly acceptable.

Many of these customers will have booked in good faith expecting their booking to be honoured, and therefore made train bookings, hotel stays etc etc, all of which will have to be changed.

Ahhh thanks for clearing that up for me. It is a shame that this happens at all, but I doubt VS is on their own with this issue. Schedules change, and whilst a pain to reorganise I am sure on occasion it cannot be avoided.

I hope this new alliance with delta will allow VS to offer some routing options stateside to any cancelled flights.. least they can do is try to get you there the day originally planned.

As someone said earlier it is one rule for them, one for us.... Unless of course anyone fancies a pop at getting them to agree to our own set of Conditions of Carriage upon accepting our money I think the resounding answer from VS would be to jog on 8D

As someone said earlier it is one rule for them, one for us.... Unless of course anyone fancies a pop at getting them to agree to our own set of Conditions of Carriage upon accepting our money I think the resounding answer from VS would be to jog on 8D

Naturally What I was getting at, though, is that there is legislation to protect you from being in a contract whose benefits or responsibilities are unreasonably distributed between the parties. Just because you have agreed to the terms doesn't mean they'll stand up in a court.

I am sure this is all academic but as I said earlier it does strike me as fundamentally unfair that people get mucked about in ways that would cost them money were they to make the exact same changes themselves.

Just settling down to a nice quiet evening before the family arrives for Christmas tomorrow morning and checked my in box and there they were the flights booked to Vancouver 16-30 June 13 have both been cancelled and brought forward a day on both.

Hi, Also booked on the same flight to YVR. Having read this thread, I checked on MMB to see that we are booked a day earlier. I have not had an e mail informing me of this change
yet. While this is not a major issue, it means we will be staying for an extra night somewhere, are we expected to pay for another nights hotel and another days car hire? ?|

Happy Christmas everyone

Hi, Also booked on the same flight to YVR. Having read this thread, I checked on MMB to see that we are booked a day earlier. I have not had an e mail informing me of this change
yet. While this is not a major issue, it means we will be staying for an extra night somewhere, are we expected to pay for another nights hotel and another days car hire? ?|

Happy Christmas everyone

yes you are expected to pay for your extra nights hotel etc yourself.

Did you book direct with VS or a travel agent? It is the company you booked with who are responsible for notifying passengers of any changes.

Did you book direct with VS or a travel agent? It is the company you booked with who are responsible for notifying passengers of any changes.

We booked a tour with Virgin Holidays, it is a 13 day tour so I am not sure what happens about the extra day. Hopefully they will email me to let me know what to do, if not I shall be on the phone after Christmas n(

I mean that VS seems to be the only UK airline which seems to think that messing its customers about by changing schedules by DAYS in some cases is perfectly acceptable.

Simply not true. For example my monarch flight to rome in three weeks time just recently changed from a Monday to a Sunday departure. It's certainly happened in my personal experience with other UK carriers.

It happens to every airline occasionally and I believe to single out VS is unfair.

I mean that VS seems to be the only UK airline which seems to think that messing its customers about by changing schedules by DAYS in some cases is perfectly acceptable.

Simply not true. For example my monarch flight to rome in three weeks time just recently changed from a Monday to a Sunday departure. It's certainly happened in my personal experience with other UK carriers.

It happens to every airline occasionally and I believe to single out VS is unfair.

I'm not sure too many people would consider Monarch to be in the same bracket as VS.

I can't remember the last time I saw BA changing schedules in this way? Their Flyertalk page would melt down if they did!

It is completely invidious that any airline can muck people around like this, especially when the same airline would charge high fees if the customer made *the same* change themselves. I know that some people here will say "the T&Cs allow it", but I wonder whether the T&Cs would be judged lawful in a Court? ...

I know this doesn't address the specific issue, but when talking about t&c isn't it part of the issue that most here are buying discounted fares with conditions? Don't classes J, W and Y allow the customer to effectively make changes as when they wish?

I'm not sure too many people would consider Monarch to be in the same bracket as VS.

I fly both airlines and I have to say apart from Monarch being mainly short haul the main differences for me are that on Monarch you can choose your seat from day 1 you can order your meal therefore you get to eat what you want, the cabin crew are always profession friendly and a credit o the airline, i know that they do occasionally have to move their schedules but their customer services are always extremely helpful. I have never had a problem getting reward flights. I know if you are not AU that many features on Monarch have to be paid for but you also pay in the same way with the major long haul operators its just factored into the ticket price

I'm not sure too many people would consider Monarch to be in the same bracket as VS.

But no-one gets it right 100% of the time..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012 ... complaints

I'm not sure too many people would consider Monarch to be in the same bracket as VS.

One is an scheduled almost exclusively long haul airline and the other is an scheduled almost exclusively short haul airline with charter long haul operations.

My point is that it is not a exclusive VS issue. It happens to every airline whether they are in the same bracket or not. xx(

Great forum, really good reading, time to post I guess! I have also had an email this week saying our flight vs034 on 12 apr from anu- lgw has been cancelled and we have now been booked on 034 the next day, any clues as to why this would be? Thankfully our hotel can give us a room for the extra night but I can't understand why the flight would be cancelled, we have been on this the last 3 years and its always full! Flight number on outward has also changed from 033 - 083 ?

When VS did this to me for our annual Vegas trip last November, the attitude when I expressed moderate displeasure in the fact that it is now a shedload of rearranging for me and others and that you really couldn't give a flying toss, was "Did you want us to cancel it then?".

I wonder if they are making major re-shuffles to their flight times to squeeze in the internal flights at better times for them? Our Miami return next June now sits on the ground in Miami for 5 hours, (arr 16:05, dep 21:00) which I would have thought would reduce their utilisation somewhat - maybe MIA parking fees are lower than LHR!

And has been mentioned, our return St Lucia flight in October now has a flight number of VS88 on Sundays instead of VS32 on the Friday... wierd.