Virgin - Conflicting Upgrade price

[feline figaro]

Hi all ,

We were been looking at the Virgin Holidays site just making sure we had picked the best seats available for our upcoming holiday, when we noticed that it said to upgrade to PE would be extra £90 each for Outbound flight. We figured great so gave Virgin Holidays a call

No surprises though when calling them the person on the other end upped the price , first of all they said it would cost £125 each which still was a fab price, they then put us on hold for 10 minutes & came back with over £900 which included a Frequent Flyer discount

We ve tried calling Virgin holidays in the past & always come off the phone feeling frustrated as normally person on other end cant understand what we re saying & we end up going round in circles asking a pretty simple question

We then found an email link to ask why we were getting conflicting prices to then receive a response saying for an outbound PE upgrade with F.Flyer discount it would be £750. A third different price!!!!!!!!!!!!

We figured maybe the website says "FROM £90 to upgrade to PE" so checked again this morning. It does nt though, it says £90 to upgrade our outbound flight, £3000 + to upgrade to Upper Class & £350 to upgrade to PE for return flight.

If thats the case then why are nt they honouring pricing on their website?? It does nt say "Subject to availablity" or anything that would suggest the £90 price was a "from" price

Feeling very frustated with Virgin holidays right now

 

[orangetiggs]

When i had somethng on their website the other day i called and she told me not available and then i said it was she went away and then honoured it, maybe call back. Was it a uk person you spoke to?

 

[RobynPrincess]

is there a way to upgrade through the website? i would just do that if you can.

 

[loobzuk]

try and get a screen print first so that you can show them exactly what it said, they can't wriggle out of it then. You can just take a photo if you can't print it.

 

[feline figaro]

Just been on the phone to virgin yet again & am waiting for someone to get back to us.
We ve been struggling getting to speak to someone from their uk departments but have finally after several calls this morning gotten through to someone so fingers crossed they can help.
Unfortunatly when booking with virgin holidays it does nt give us the option to upgrade online. Think thats only when booking directly via virgin atlantic. We have to speak to someone to do this but so far its like banging our heads on a brick wall

As suggested we ve taken ascreen print of the pricing info

We ve made our full payment for holiday & it feels like now they know they ve got our money any queries are nt being taken note of.
I ve read threads in the past complaning about virgins after booking service & in all honesty we ve never had many problems with them but now i get what i ve read about in the past. We wanted to upgrade our car last week & that was a nightmare, just a simple request an upgrade took several calls.

I love Virgin as an airline but calling them is a different story. In the past when speaking to reps on the orlando team they ve been fabulous but its seems the people you speak to when making a booking & the ones you speak to once you ve made a booking are totally different

Oh well..................fingers crossed

 

[2Tiggies]

but its seems the people you speak to when making a booking & the ones you speak to once you ve made a booking are totally different

That is always the case. When they try and win you over and get you to book/purchase something (this is by no means only true with Virgin) you always speak to a delightful person who communicates in clear, perfect English. Once they have your money, who knows where your call may end up

I hope you get it - fingers crossed for you and please let us know

 

[feline figaro]

That is always the case. When they try and win you over and get you to book/purchase something (this is by no means only true with Virgin) you always speak to a delightful person who communicates in clear, perfect English. Once they have your money, who knows where your call may end up

I hope you get it - fingers crossed for you and please let us know

yep what you re saying is definatly true we kept trying to speak to someone but was getting no where.
I know they have got a Florida specialist team as we ve always spoken to them when making bookings to Orlando. We were told though when stating we had an "Existing Booking" & that we wanted to speak to the Florida specialists that there was NO such team Think we tried calling 5/6 times & each time could NOT get through to the uk We were told "we cant put you through to a uk line, its just a case if someone in our uk call centers picks up".

So we tried calling & instead of saying we had an Existing Booking said we d like to speak to someone in your Florida Team to make a NEW booking.
Surprise surprise we spoke to someone in the Florida team & in the UK straight away.
So by the looks of things you go through to a uk call centres when making bookings but else where once you have an existing booking. Infuriating as Virgins overseas calls centres let the company down terribly.

Well we ve had no luck in Virgin honouring the online pricing, they ve basically given us every excuse under the sun of why they cant match it even though its on their website.

They have our money now so they ve got us under a barrel, am just very unhappy as at first the person helping us said "i can see it says £90, so just have to try to change your booking". They then come back with a completly different tone & the excuses began

 

[Girlsontour]

Just a thought but are you on Facebook? I have had far more success with my queries on the Virgin Holiday page on Facebook than on the phone!!! I was having trouble booking the v-room (conflicting advice over the phone), posted the question on their page and within hours it was sorted...might be worth a try??

 

[2Tiggies]

It's not going to help you out of this situation, and perhaps not relevant, but I feel your frustration through my own experiences with various companies adopting this tactic (cost saving of course). I reached a stage a couple of years ago where I don't sign up to anything until I have an email confirming that all call centres are UK based. It's cut my options and no, I don't always get the cheapest deal, but sometimes you have to be willing to pay for your sanity

Did you have any joy with that screenshot? Have you threatened to hold them to this and take it further? Insist on speaking to a senior supervisor? You're the customer. You call the shots

I am just curious, was this on the VH website or the VA one? Although they are both Virgin companies, they operate somewhat independently, which is one of the reasons you can't upgrade a flight only online with VA when you have booked a package with VH. If it is on the VH website I would push for it. If it is on the VA site, I don't think you're going to get anywhere to be honest. Still, after all the time you have spent on it, it would be nice to have something to show for your time and effort.

 

[laalaa]

I would thoroughly recommend contacting them via their facebook or twitter page.

I booked a VH at the start of June. They called me 10days later to say they had made a problem with the booking & if I still wanted the holiday it would be an extra £340

Got nowhere with the store or emailing Customer Services.

Tweeted about it late one night & 12 hours later, the next morning it was sorted.