Angry with VH

[EllieJ]

Hi ,
I am really disgruntled with VH.
We have loyally booked flydrives with them for the past 12 years , always early to secure seats as we overlap half term.
We booked our seats for May 09 back in March , and since then they have been appling the VAA discount to any new bookings .

If I enter our booking details now as if it were a new booking we would save approx £1500 !!!!!!

That is for 8 passengers.

I have sent 'customer relations' an email , but just get a high demand notice ,
i've tried ringing - but get the Indian call centre .

Just wondering if anyone else has had the same problem , and had any success complaining ..

I am thinking of cancelling completely & booking direct with VA for a far cheaper deal , even taking into account our lost deposits.

It seems ridiculous .

 

[nibbo]

We booked a few years ago about 14 months in advance with VH believing that we'd get the best rate by booking early. A couple of months later I was looking at the prices again (I know we shouldn't but we can't help it!) and they were now offering free child places. I emailed VH to explain my disappointment that we had booked early to get best prices etc etc and they replied saying that as a gesture of goodwill they will give us the free child places.
At the end of the day, you were happy with the prices when you booked and if the prices went up then you wouldn't expect them to be contacting you to get extra money from you so why should you expect them to refund money when prices go down. It's very annoying I know but don't give up hope, they might do something as a goodwill gesture.

Hope it works out ok for you.

Nick

 

[UKDEB]

Try amending your booking online. Add some tickets, maybe. People have been reporting that making an amendment, no matter how small, triggers a VAA refund of hundreds of pounds.

 

[Claire L]

Try amending your booking online. Add some tickets, maybe. People have been reporting that making an amendment, no matter how small, triggers a VAA refund of hundreds of pounds.

I tried an online change by adding tickets and the price remained the same no extra discounts, even emailed them, after speaking twice to the call centre, and got told each time it was only for new bookings and as I booked before they could not add the amendment charge.

Claire

 

[wayneg]

Many many people have been changing bookings and cancelling and re-booking. I tried adding tickets to our Xmas hol but made no difference. Our dates were sold out so I couldn't get a price to cancel and re-book.
I once bought Miles and Money seats to LAX to find a few months later full price was cheaper than Miles and money, unfortunately thats how travel companies/Airline work.
If you save money I would cancel and start again as I don't think you stand a chance of getting anything from them but good luck.

 

[EllieJ]

I thought that would probably be the case - I got nowhere when I emailed them .
Still annoyed - may still cancel and book direct with VA - only downside with that is the paying up front !

Thanks
Sam

 

[fulles]

We had the same problem. I checked the price of our holiday 2 weeks after we booked it and the price had reduced by £500 due to the VA sale. I called VH and they said all they could do was cancel the orginal holiday and rebook at the new price. However we would lose all our deposit (£360). I did this as we were £140 better off but we had to pay out the £360 deposit again.

It is annoying but as has been said you wouldn't expect them to ask you for extra money if the price went up.

In the end we were happy with the original price and now we have saved another £140.

 

[Claireybear]

Hi,

We were in the same situation but we had just booked on 25th August and they started applying the VAA discount on 27th! After 4 phone calls to Virgin I fianlly got someone sympathetic to apply it to our holiday and saved £656!!!
So glad I persevered as was about to give up!! It is so annoying though that they do this!
Good luck,
Claire.

 

[nibbo]

I tried adding the park tickets online not so long ago and in the final price they has added an extra £50 flight supplement each and charged us the £300 supplement for ASM that they inadvertently forgot to charge us when we booked.... an extra £500 they were trying to charge us so I phoned them and ordered the tickets and the extra costs weren't added. I guess it's swings and roundabouts, sometimes you'll save, sometime you'll lose and other times it will stay the same.

 

[Snowy-girls]

I do understand where you are coming from,although i have'nt been on the receiving end of what has been going on.
It is true as in you would'nt want them ringing you and asking for extra if the price of your holiday goes up.I know i would'nt especially as my holiday has gone up by approx £1,550 since i booked it back in Dec 2007.
Good luck if they do decide to do anything for you.x.