Great help from Virgin

[mulhjnr]

Well the planning if now in full swing although we have still have a year to go but just to let you know that the help and customer service from Virgin has been great.

Story is that we have made several changes to our booking
already (although we only booked a week ago !!) but the moral is to avoid the Indian call centre like the plague !!

1) Changed car from 7 seater van to Luxury (no fee as per brochure) even though the Virgin call centre tried to charge £ 340

2) Decided to stay at POR for 11 nights and try to stay on-site at Universal for the last 4 nights (booking DIY). Again Virgin call-centre tried to charge over £ 400 by cancelling the free child place and adding on other fees

3) Changed departure flight from 11.15 to 12.30 to avoid an overnight in Gatwick . Call centre wanted to charge £ 100 amendment fee.


After several frustrating phone calls I tried the main Florida brochure telephone and spoke to Nick. After explaining the situation to him, he transfered me to Gareth in the UK call centre and the good news is that everything has now been done.

Flights changed / hotel changed / car changed and the best news is that he gave us the brochure price for 11 nights at POR with no extra charges for the 4 last nights.

Instead of £ 840 charges we now get a £ 340 reduction - enough to hopefully pay for 4 nights at Royal Pacific or Hard Rock Hotel !!!!!!!

Can anyone guess how happy I am ???

Pat.

 

[jockey]

Great news!!!!

 

[Miffy2003]

That is good news
I have found Virgin to not always be as flexible as I might like!

 

[squitty]

Thats wonderful news....everytime we have rung VA lately we have got the Indian Call centre.

 

[Candy]

We had to pay an extra £100 booking fee in order to change our holiday with Virgin.OK we are changing the booking from sept this year to oct next year.but the holiday will cost us alot more.plus we loose £600 in discounts because the say they dont apply to the new booking.on top of this we booked through thomas cook who at the time of the first booking said they would price match the 10%discount i would get if i booked with Virgin direct.when i wanted to change my booking to oct 06 the manager at thomas cook said they couldnt give me the 10% discount any more because of all the extra work hes staff would have to do?at the moment i have only paid £100 low deposit the other £380 balance of the deposit is now due.i had a phone call today from thomas cook requesting the £380 but even though i changed this booking at the start of may i havent had comfirmation of my new booking.so i am not going to give thomas cook anymore money until i have convermation from virgin [when i rang virgin they said they have already sent a confirmation letter to thomas cook ]when i said this to the girl at thomas cook she was very of with me all she wanted to know was when i was going to pay the outstandig £380.i am so angry with thomas .i am in two minds to cancel the holiday.and make a new booking. and thomas cook can sue me for the deposit.

 

[Mumof2]

Hi - I made loads and loads of changes to my BA holiday which when booked last July started out as 2 weeks in the marriott suites, then became 17 nights staying in various on site hotels and in St Petes Beach, then changed to a villa for 17 nights and then finally I changed to 17 nights staying in a 2 bed villa in the Marriott Grande Vista. All booked direct with BA and not once did they charge me any amendment fees. They were fantastic!!!

Sounds like VA and TC could learn a lesson from them!!!

 

[disney13]

I HATE using companies that have Indian call centres. Absolutely NOTHING to do with being in India (or any other country for that matter!), it's just that these people never seem to know what they are doing.

I had an awful time when I had a 3 mobile phone and had to use their India call centre - but that's another story!

Andy

 

[mulhjnr]

squitty,

We telephoned the main Floriday number - 0870 220 2468 - and selected the option for making a new reservation (option 2 I think). As soon as the phone was answered I said that I was having difficulty with my booking as I did not think that the previous person spoke English as a first language. The person on the other end asked me to hold while he checked and he then came back on to tell me that I had been through to the main Indian call centre and that he would now transfer me to the UK centre.

Virgin could not have been more helpful - everything I asked for they did - and they were very understanding.

The Indian centre however just seemed to be following their script. I originally had a 7 seater booked but wanted to change to a Luxury car. Although the Virgin web-site still listed this at no extra charge, I was quoted £340 ! Once I asked to speak to a supervisor, lo and behold, the change was made.

I do understand that amendments to bookings may not be free of charge, but in my case the amendments were not major and were mostly listed as free-of -charge options on the web-site anyway.

If possible I would try to make sure that I always dealt with someone in the UK.

Candy - Virgin also said that they are having a lot of problems issuing invoices at the moment due to "recent system problems" and "the inevitable backlog" and not to be surprised if confirmation and amendment invoices took several weeks to arrive.

 

[LoopyLoo]

Wasn't aware that Virgin Holidays had a call centre based in India, I have had to call them several times over the last month and have never had a problem

 

[rosiejo]

I'm having ridiculous probelms with Virgin's Wedding Dept at the moment - I'm about to ask them to change my booking - for a second time - I hate to think what they'll try and charge us...