More timing & aircraft changes

Having seen TotallyLost's earlier post regarding VS46 I thought I'd check my VS023 on 13th April and VS042 on 22nd. They were all fine at around 11 am this morning but now .....

There are no changes to VS023 this time but VS042 has become VS020 on a 747. Seat selection is currently not available and there's no message on MMB to say the flight has changed.

If we have moved to the VS020 this brings our departure forward by 3 hrs 35 mins which cuts our plans for SFO down a bit as we don't arrive there until late on the 20th - fortunately it is the return journey so we don't have to worry about onward connections.

I've done a dummy booking and VS042 is still there. Time to go and discuss with hubby what we want to do ...

Edited to show that VS042 is still showing as bookable

This prompted me to check, my flight home from Chicago is cancelled, now asking us to accept the flight the next day. Balls!

It's definitely happened today as I looked at my booking this morning and it was fine.

I am so sorry for both of you. Lately so many people have had their plans and holidays disrupted . it takes away all the enjoyment of the anticipation.
Hope your trips work out ok.

Thanks hiljil - it does at least mean that with a power walk we'll hopefully get to try Revivals!

Thanks hiljil, fortunately we've managed to extend our cat-sitter and found another hotel for the extra night. I'd be devastated if they'd wanted us to leave a day earlier! Now to cross my fingers they don't mess us around again!

We are booked on VS042 on 31st March (currently unchanged) and VS041 on 14th April which has been moved to VS019 and from 15:35hrs to 11:50hrs.

We are currently scheduled to land on BA1389 from MAN at 11:05hrs. Clearly we are going to have to much a bunch of stuff around.

Quite irritating to say the least....

And BA want £60 each to change to the 1385 flight with a 06:45hrs departure!

The tickets were £58 each when I booked them!

Gaaaaa!

What the heck at VirginAtlantic playing about at with all these late reschedules. Obviously I realise its not last-minute for some folk who are booked well into the summer, but like ScoobySu our April return from SFO has now changed

I actually phoned VS last weekend when I saw 'rewards' appearing on the VS20 and wondered if I could be cheeky (especially relevant after all my recent fuss!!)and change to the earlier flight. However I was told there would be a charge. Then tonight I've just logged on and saw this post. Quickly checked my booking and now we are on the earlier flight anyway

In 'Manage Flights' both our outward and now return seat requests have disappeared as seat map is not available. Probably coz the aircraft is now a 747.

I have been travelling with VS since the early 90's and I have never experienced this before. I am convinced it is the Delta factor. We booked internal flights with them in 2008 travelling from Las Vegas over to Fort Myers - I think they changed our flights 15 times in the space of a few months

So much for planning

Sadly all airlines tinker with their schedules. With the SFO flights it sounds like they're consolidating the two daily services into one on certain dates. That happens all the time - LGW-MCO has been down to one a day for much of Jan & Feb.

Airlines know that outside the 14 day window, they can screw customers plans without any legal/official recourse against them.

Until another EU261 comes along to enforce otherwise that is what will remain.

I had a Twitter conversation last night with Virgin, who confirmed the VS42 has been cancelled on 22nd April. I've still not had an official confirmation or been asked to accept the change on MMB. As Hev60 says the seat maps are still currently unavailable. Now to research best seats in a 747 .....

And BA want £60 each to change to the 1385 flight with a 06:45hrs departure!

The tickets were £58 each when I booked them!

Gaaaaa!

Did you book this all through Virgin (or travel agent) as one ticket? If so they should be no charge and whoever you booked it through should sort out flight changes.

I had a Twitter conversation last night with Virgin, who confirmed the VS42 has been cancelled on 22nd April. I've still not had an official confirmation or been asked to accept the change on MMB. As Hev60 says the seat maps are still currently unavailable. Now to research best seats in a 747 .....

ScoobySu - After we got changed onto the VS7 flight LHR-LAX, I went into the seat map & it was quite full compared to the VS 23 which only had us + two others booked out The VS7 was a 340-600 but is now a 747, so the seats I requested are not applicable now

With the VS 42 & VS20 being amalgamated, then I think the seat map is again likely to be quite filled up when we finally can get into it, so don't bother with too much research

With so many people having flight time changes I hope that it doesn't become the norm and we start to expect / accept it - so actually getting the flight/plane /timing we booked becomes a cause for celebration !!!!!

Yes agree hiljil. As I said yesterday I have never experienced this with VS in over 20years of flying with them.

I am one of those weird people who does like to know where I'm sitting in advance and I do actually pay up for that choice if I have too. That was the advantage of flying UC with Virgin this time especially after the new seat system came into operation.

Certainly not celebrating at the moment - hate uncertainly

Yes agree hiljil. As I said yesterday I have never experienced this with VS in over 20years of flying with them.

I am one of those weird people who does like to know where I'm sitting in advance and I do actually pay up for that choice if I have too. That was the advantage of flying UC with Virgin this time especially after the new seat system came into operation.

Certainly not celebrating at the moment - hate uncertainly

Me too Hev60! Fortunately the change to VS23 will hopefully mean we'll sleep longer than 4am!

Mods - please forgive me if I am quoting incorrectly here - but here is an excerpt from Virgins FB page:

As part of our wider network review sometimes we take the decision to make changes to a flight's schedule, and sometimes this can include ad-hoc cancellations on certain days of the schedule. These usually occur on services where we have more than one flight a day to/from the destination and are able to rebook you on to one of the other flights that day. The changes to this flight have just been made and so are only just appearing on the system. What happens then is these bookings will be passed over to a team who will make contact with you (if we have contact details in the booking) to advise you of a change to your itinerary. The system isn't letting you select seats for the new flight at the moment as we need to remove the old flight out of the booking. I can do this now for you if you'd like? That will then allow you to select your seats for the new flight.

(This wasn't in answer to me but to somebody else in the same situation - but I have tweeted again to see if they can reset my booking)

ScoobySu

So I "chatted" with an online FC staff member and he cleared my old reservation and I can now access the seat map, but still get a server error when selecting a seat.

Will call the FC next.

So I "chatted" with an online FC staff member and he cleared my old reservation and I can now access the seat map, but still get a server error when selecting a seat.

Will call the FC next.

That's what I'm doing at this moment (online chat I mean)

She's gone off to try to sort it. Said "it is a bit of an IT problem" really that's new

Called FC. 14A & 14K selected.

Called FC. 14A & 14K selected.

Well done. Yes I've just got off the phone too - they were very helpful We went for 12&14K.

Called FC. 14A & 14K selected.

Well done. Yes I've just got off the phone too - they were very helpful We went for 12&14K.

Whichever of you is in 12K will be playing footsie with a stranger in 12A. Maybe your thing but personally I'd either go for 12A and 12K or further back on the K side....

Whichever of you is in 12K will be playing footsie with a stranger in 12A. Maybe your thing but personally I'd either go for 12A and 12K or further back on the K side....

OMG - just went in and changed to 14a & 14k (12A was already reserved out)

thanks for the tip.

Whichever of you is in 12K will be playing footsie with a stranger in 12A. Maybe your thing but personally I'd either go for 12A and 12K or further back on the K side....

OMG - just went in and changed to 14a & 14k (12A was already reserved out)

thanks for the tip.

No problem. I once spent a flight back from SFO regretting my choice of 12K and 14K for that reason.

I've had another Twitter chat and DM with the team tonight (once I'd got back from oop North). They reset my booking and had allocated 1A and 1K to us. As someone else had selected 12A and 14K I've gone for 16K and 17K. The seat map for row 20 onwards was pretty empty still but I thought the front cabin wouldn't be as crowded especially on the night flight.

Here's hoping that the FC upgrade of hamsters over the weekend doesn't change everything again!

Just checked my flights after reading this thread.
My flight to Chicago cancelled. And not actually been told yet!!!!
Offered next day. Which is useless to me.

So far it's costing me a minimum of £540 as I will miss my US domestic flight. all separate bookings do nothing I can do.

With other hotel / flight changes I might be required to make it could cost me double that so not very happy right now.
I have to wait until the morning to speak with a VA rep as they need to see what options I can have.

this may well be all legal but it's certainly a hell if a way to treat customers.