Confused and Frustrated with Virgin??? - All sorted!!!

[Sweet Pea UK]

Just feel I need to vent and seek opinions.

I booked several weeks ago for Orlando next August. I booked 4 nights at Portofino Bay and 15 nights at the Grand Floridian as well as passes to DC, 21 day Disney, Kennedy, Cirque and Universal. Upgraded the car and had platinun insurence so as you can imagine this came to quite a sum. I spoke to a fantastic lady who was extremely helpful and told me we would be getting 15% FV discount as the offer for anybody else was 10%. The discount worked out to be £1400 approx. We booked on this basis, paid the deposit and that was that.

My parents then subsequently booked to come out for our last week and then stay on a few days. In the course of planning our itineraries (as you do 14 months before going!!!) it was suggested that we all go up to St Augustine for the night to stay at the Marriot Sawgrass so Mum, Dad and DH can play golf. DD and I would enjoy some beach time. When discussing it with my DH we agreed it might be nice to add an extra night in Orlando so that we still had the same amount of time there. I priced extra nights up in the book which is £143 pp at the GF. I of course knew that the car hire and insurence would also go up. We were already flying on a Friday so I couldn't see why changing to a Saturday would make much difference as we were already paying the weekend supplement.

Anyway .... I telephoned Virgin and got through to the Indian Call Centre. I explained what I wanted and the lady came back (after 40 minutes of holding) to say that she had checked with her supervisor and my discount was wrong and they wanted another £400 from me (before we book the extra night) I explained that I had been given 15% and she said it was worked out wrong. I checked it myself and it worked out to exactly 15%. She then said that the cost of the extra night came up at £700?? I questioned this as it seems extortionate for an extra night and I was expecting to pay in the region of £300-£350. I told her not to go ahead.

I have now emailed my original customer services assistant's supervisor (she is on leave until 6th July and I can't wait that long) to see what is going on. I would have thought that if I had agreed to a price and paid a deposit and they had sent me an invoice that they couldn't change it.

Now I am really panicking about it. It is one thing paying extra for an extra night but another paying out £400 that you didn't think you had to pay.

I tried to book online last night to see what it worked out to and it did work out a lot cheaper than she had quoted me - the only difference was that it listed a fee of £450 for peak flying time??? Although it then deducted the weekend flying supplement? Does anybody know what this is?

SOrry for being so long winded but I just wondered if anybody had ever experienced anything similar and if so, what the outcome was. Also if anybody else booked an extra night somewhere perhaps they could tell me roughly what cost difference it made so I can see if £700 was right?

 

[higgy66]

You are obviously spending a LOT of money on this holiday so this is not acceptable.

I would try to speak to a UK customer advisor - I'm sure if you read back on the various Virgin threads somebody has posted a number how to do this.

I can see altering the return flight might cause some hassle as in effect you are cancelling part of the holiday and Virgin see this as a "new" booking. I tried to amend my flights by a day but they wouldn't let me keep my free child place so ended up staying as we were.

All I can say is Good Luck - keep trying and if all else fails wait until the 6th and speak to the original member of staff who obviously knew what she was doing.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

By making all these alterations, there is going to be a cost involved, more than the brochure price per night.
Also, it depends on how full your new return flight is as to what seat prices are now working out at.

 

[wayneg]

I agree with Obi, its not so straight forward adding to a booking.
Worth checking with another agent or waiting your original agent to get back off leave but the high quote could be correct unfortunately.

 

[UKDEB]

Whilst I agree that technically it isn't as simple as just adding a day, at the price you're forking out, someone at Virgin should (and will if you get the right person) be bending over backwards to accommodate your request at a cost that's reasonable and acceptable to you. My advice is to phone the Frequent Flyer number - you'll get someone in the UK and I've always found them very helpful. I'd suggest having a good idea of precisely what you want the outcome of the call to be before phoning, so you can guide them in the right direction. They'd be foolish to risk losing the entire booking and it probably wouldn't hurt to ask them to confirm to you the total cost of your booking including add-ons and how you'd need to go about cancelling it.

 

[Sweet Pea UK]

Whilst I agree that technically it isn't as simple as just adding a day, at the price you're forking out, someone at Virgin should (and will if you get the right person) be bending over backwards to accommodate your request at a cost that's reasonable and acceptable to you. My advice is to phone the Frequent Flyer number - you'll get someone in the UK and I've always found them very helpful. I'd suggest having a good idea of precisely what you want the outcome of the call to be before phoning, so you can guide them in the right direction. They'd be foolish to risk losing the entire booking and it probably wouldn't hurt to ask them to confirm to you the total cost of your booking including add-ons and how you'd need to go about cancelling it.

Thanks Debbie - my view exactly! I knew it was never going to just be the cost of the extra night - I knew there would be the car hire, insurance, and admin fee. When I tried to re-book online (with the extra night) just to see the difference it was £297 more than what I am paying at preset - therefore I cannot see how they can justify over £400 for moving our names from one day to the next. I appreciate it may not be that simple but even if it took somebody half an hour to do?? It's not like the flights are imminent - they are 14 months away!!!

Anyway ... I had an email back from the Supervisor saying to leave it with him and he will ask one of his team to contact me as soon as possible. I daren't leave my phone

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

I hope they've sorted something out for you

 

[Sweet Pea UK]

After waiting 3 days for somebody to call me I finally gave in and called them. I phoned the switchboard number and got through to the UK Centre and got somebody extremely helpful who assured me that the discount was correct and was able to add the extra night on for me at the Grand Floridian with the extra days car hire and insurence for £246 with the discount so I was more than happy. There was also no amendment fee to pay.

All has righted itself!!! good ole Virgin !!

 

[wayneg]

Glad you got it sorted as I said in previous post its always worth trying again with Virgin(and Disney) if you don't get what you want 1st time.

 

[natalielongstaff]

glad you got the right result

 

[stephensmum]

So glad you got a positive outcome. Happy planning.

 

[disney13]

Not a good advert for foreign call centres. Why do companies, and not just Virgin (before I get flamed ), use these? It just doesn't do their customer service reputation any good.

Glad you got it all sorted though,
Andy

 

[stephensmum]

Not a good advert for foreign call centres. Why do companies, and not just Virgin (before I get flamed ), use these? It just doesn't do their customer service reputation any good.

Glad you got it all sorted though,
Andy

I guess it's cheaper.