VIRGIN holiday nightmare

Hi people had a bad experience with what was supposed to be the best in the industry VIRGIN. Airport check-in at gatwick no problem, flight over staff brilliant tv boken wires ripped out, had to have dvd with limited choice, food well!!! At Orlando airport rep was on mute not alot of help. then if a rep turned up at our resort they were late, our info and advice was wrong or none at all.they gave us the wrong date for our 2day miami dolphin swim tour.which meant we were left waiting at 7am at downtown disney for our bus to arrive, when it had already left the day before. Complained through our travel agents and 28 days later Virgin say they aint doing anything about there cock-ups,no compensation,or even just the cost of the miami trip that they messed up refunded. this was for us a holiday of a lifetime at a cost of nine and a half thousand pound.Can anyone please help with what to do next, any advice will be much appreciated.

VIRGIN holiday nightmare

If they gave you something in writing about the dolphin tour, and then they got the dates wrong, then they have to refund you. No question. If you misunderstood them, or the agent told you the wrong date, then that will be trickier.

I will say, you will have to pressure your travel agent to assist you more and you will need to write to ABTA and Virgin again. And I suggest you use better punctuation and grammar than you did above if you want your letter taken seriously. If you paid for the tour or the whole package by credit card, I would ask for a charge back for at least the dolphin swim tour. If you didn%26#39;t, then always do so in future.

VIRGIN holiday nightmare

Hi there

I am sorry about the bad axperience you have had - i would write to a higher source if no joy go straight to the top.

Get name of person preferably someone in head office in a very senior position- send the letter record delivery and mark it private and confidential (that way it will go direct to the person)

Tell them what you want ie refund of trip - be very nice and straight to the point, give them a time limit and tell them will take further action if not resolved, if that does not work send to Richard Branson enclosing all copies of letters - also cc the travel agent and get them to chase for you.

Usually works for me.

Chris

hi we booked virgin and we were sent to the wrong hotel, we were offered 拢140 we have refused,the way we look at it is we paid for A and we got B it%26#39;s all in the hands of the solicitor

josie

ps on their letter with the offer they stated that they have a policy of no refunds,the拢140 was a gesture of goodwill

good luck

My advice would be to write to the Sun and Daily Mail newspapers Virgin like all major players hate bad publicity and someones butt will be kicked and your problay get a free holiday if it was as bad as you say ,of course you will need to prove it.

Yes, write to the travel pages of the major newpapers they have something like Readers%26#39; Rants etc.

Thanks amanx, Let me start at the beginning,booked my holiday in march 08,16 days in orlando 22nd dec to 7th jan,all park passes,disney dining plan,and two excursions. one for the space centre the other for a two day miami dolphin tour.All was well ! Then in oct 08 travel agent rang me to say there had been a change in date%26#39;s.I was now going a day later then first planed.I was not happy with this as it now meant i would be leaving on new years eve,but as this was the only date that they had we had to take it or not go at all.Travel agent then phoned through and booked for that date.We were told that we would have to book our tour-bus pick up times when we got to our hotel. At our welcome meeting we got our virgin rep to book our tour bus for our two trip%26#39;s. Which she done and wrote the meeting place and time%26#39;s on our e-ticket.I still have the e-ticket with the time and date on it.Virgin are saying that my tour agent are to blame as they were told about the change of date in oct, which yes they did which is why i had to change the date.But it was the wrong date. My tour operator blame virgin as they sent the ticket%26#39;s with the wrong date on them

Im sorry perhaps its me, but I am confused by your complaint...are you complaining just about the dolphin trip or about the dolphin trip and the change in dates of your holiday.

From what i understand about your dolphin trip, if the virgin rep wrote a date and a time on your e-ticket that was wrong, then virgin holidays should pay you back no question about it.

You wont get any money back for there being no tvs on your flight, if you read the small print in the brochure, it states that the inflight entertainment does not form part of your package. As for reps being unhelpful you will just get a standard ';we will pass your comments on to the appropriate department'; thats what you always get.

As for giving you two months notice to change the departure date of your holiday by one day, unfortunately it does happen and it is in the small print that it can happen without any financial penalty.

I would definately take up the issue with the dolphin trip with them again. It wont have anything to do with the agent as it was the rep that wrote it down wrong for you...but that is about all you will be able to claim.