Help needed – Virgin flight moved by a day

[backs999]

Hey,

In all my years flying it’s a first for me today.

We were booked, using points, as a family of 4 RUH to LHR departing 23/02.

We had a time change many months ago with the departure pushing back by a few hours so not much of a problem.

I went to check in today and noticed that checkin was still 18 hours away and it seems the flight on the 23/02 has been cancelled and we have been rebooked into the one on the 24/02.

After speaking with Virgin (chat) they said it had been changed on the 29th Nov. I must admit I hadn’t noticed and neither had my Awardwallet. They also mentioned on chat it was an operational change and not a cancellation.

When I spoke to them they offered a change of origin to Dubai as I was originating here on a different ticket but it came with a downgrade to premium and 177k points each or to keep the existing flight as they have no other flights available.

Does anybody know my rights here? If I read the EU legislation correctly I am due either a refund, a re-routing option or the change.

They said there were no other re-routing option even though I had presumed Saudia could have been an option (due to being in SkyTeam).

I’ve obviously had to book a nights hotel for the extra night I am here as well

I will take the flight change option tomorrow now as well as this is the only option given by Virgin

Any advice would be welcome!

Thank you,
Al

[JDB]

@backs999 – at this stage, there’s probably little you can realistically do, although Virgin should be rerouting you on aflight tomorrow (23rd) if that’s what you want and that should be with any airline directly or with a connection – it doesn’t need to be SkyTeam.

Virgin should be liable for your hotel and food costs until your eventual departure, but that may depend on whether they actually did notify you of the cancellation in November and what alternative flight(s) they proposed at that time. I hope you get this sorted out and please let us know the outcome.

[backs999]

Went with SkyTeam as had hoped it would be easier as part of the same alliance.

AwardWallet informed me a few hours ago to go board my flight so pretty sure nothing landed in my inbox as it’s nornally pretty good in picking changes out.

While I couldnt get them to change it we are in a hotel tonight and I made the most of the inconvenience and headed out to Six Flags to ride Falcons Flight which I have to admit is pretty dam good.

I’ll take it up with Virgin when I get back as feel they haven’t really given 2 hoots on the situation.

Will report back

JDB wrote:

@backs999 – at this stage, there’s probably little you can realistically do, although Virgin should be rerouting you on aflight tomorrow (23rd) if that’s what you want and that should be with any airline directly or with a connection – it doesn’t need to be SkyTeam.

Virgin should be liable for your hotel and food costs until your eventual departure, but that may depend on whether they actually did notify you of the cancellation in November and what alternative flight(s) they proposed at that time. I hope you get this sorted out and please let us know the outcome.

[AJA]

I am not sure whether compensation is due if they did indeed inform you of the change back in November.

But it is up to Virgin to prove to you that they informed you of the flight date change last year. I would ask for evidence thry did that although it is possible any email may have gone into your spam folder.

Also as @JDB says you were entitled to be rerouted at the earliest opportunity:

Article 8 Right to reimbursement or re-routing
1(b) re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity

Note that it is your choice of when you fly subject to availability of seats.

Did you ask to fly on another flight on 23 Feb or did you just accept the reroute as offered? If you did ask then potentially Virgin failed the all reasonable measures test. There were at least two other flights (Saudia and BA) that operated earlier today so they should have offered to put you on those flights subject to them having seats available.

Also confused by your statement about the change of departure to fly from Dubai. You should not need to pay anything to be rerouted. Was this all done on chat yesterday?

[AndrewT]

So why has this thread become sticky, appearing above the very long standing ‘Forum search not working’?

[backs999]

Morning,

I’ve just landed at Heathrow and thought the chat had been deleted but can see it’s sticky.

Anyway, I went through chat so they will have a log of what was discussed.

We were originating on a different ticket in Dubai on Saudia but not linked so had try to discuss cutting out the flying to Riyadh to then fly back to Dubai to then get back home.

The flight had been changed once before which I had seen as the time had been pushed back by a few hours. The change of date I never saw and I did not accept the change of date as I never knew about it until I went to check in

I’ll raise with them and see what they have to say also.