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ed_fly wrote:

Hi, been looking into a holiday to Dubai, family of four. Including a 10 & 6 year old. Room with two queen beds will be fine for us, sofa beds not so much. Been looking at the zabeel saray and Westin mina Seyahi. I’m not worried too much about the location of zabeel as the plan will mainly be a fly and flop. And a perhaps a visit to aquaventure. I think the westin has the advantage of the on site water park. Wondering if anyone has any recent experience of either? Other suggestions welcome, the madinat properties are currently out of our price range. Many thanks in advance.

Westin mina seyahi is great. Stayed there twice. Great kids club, water park, pools etc as well as plenty of food options. Marina within walking distance… JBR a short cab ride away too so entertainment and restaurants very close by

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SamG wrote:

tions only a refund even though this goes against their published rebooking policy. They said this again again yesterday on chat when I eventually got through after 90 mins. What I asked, and didn’t get an answer, is

I was hoping as a last resort my travel insurance may cover me as there is a section on travel disruption on my nationwide travel insurance :

Travel disruption
Unexpected additional travel and accommodation costs to allow continuation of the trip if pre-paid travel plans are disrupted

The only thing i’m not sure about is if they would cover it, as
A) Virgin should be the ones to rebook me
B) if the flight is covered as it was booked on points
C) If Tel aviv is covered due to what is going on in the region (even though there is not any FCO advice to NOT travel to the majority of Israel currently)

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Thanks to all the help so far.

Tracey wrote:

Whereas Virgin should be rebooking you onto ElAl, they can only do so if ElAl gives them seats to do so. 7 April is preciously near to Passover, so I suspect that ElAl can extract such a premium for those flights that it is unwilling to release any. You could try keeping watch as ElAl have a habit of adding more flights and bigger planes if they can see the demand for that week, but I wouldn’t be holding my breath.

Whereas you say you have a BA flight on 7 April, BA haven’t actually started flying to TLV again yet. With the cease fire currently not in operation, I’d be looking at a backup for that one too. BA to Larnaca and Israir or Cyprus Airways on to TLV would be my bet.

Whenever I have spoken to reps from Virgin eiter on chat or phone, they have told me that there are no rebooking options only a refund even though this goes against their published rebooking policy. They said this again again yesterday on chat when I eventually got through after 90 mins. What I asked, and didn’t get an answer, is that if there are cash seats available for purchase, why can’t Virgin rebook as their policy states to rebook in lowest booking class available (and has a whole table) – in the 2024 archive – https://flywith.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/partner-hub/vsbulletins/vsbulletins_archive.html

I am willing to be flexible and fly not necessarily on the 10th, but after passover begins when there is defintely cash seats for purchase, but still no luck.

With regards to the BA flight I booked for the outbound, when I wasn’t getting anywhere with Virgin, I booked an avios seat on a BA flight. Due to their policy for Tel Aviv, they offered free changes to El Al (even with flights that were listed as currerntly operating) which I jumped on straight away as I know they are going to fly come rain or shine, whereas I wasn’t convinced BA would actually restart (I think the flight I booked was the first day of restarting the route).

NorthernLass wrote:

I’ve phoned Virgin 3 times over the last 4 months and always got through to the Swansea office in a few minutes at the start of the day.

Were there no rebooking options in your account?

VS is obliged to re-route you, at least to London (and probably to Toronto (and back) if it was all on one booking; I’m surprised they’ve been fobbing you off like this. Also, their rebooking policy doesn’t supersede the law.

It’s very late in the day now so you do need to get some sort of back up plan in place if you want to do this trip. Not really sure why you let this go on so long?

If you have records of your conversations with Virgin and documented their refusal to re-route you, you *might* have a successful claim against them at CEDR to reclaim the cost of new flights, but again I think questions might be asked about why you didn’t take this step sooner.

I think there are a couple of Tel Aviv threads on here from when VS started cancelling these flights which might be helpful.

You don’t know how long a reply from the CEO might take, so I would call again asap, present them with some acceptable (to you) options, and make a careful record of their response.

Nope, no rebooking options on my account, just says cancelled, get in touch etc for rebooking which is what i’ve tried to do. All 3 tickets were seperate one way bookings, but that shouldn’t make a difference with regards to my rights for a rebooked flight. They’ve always taken the line my only option is a refund which I know is not the case, due to both israeli and canada air travel protections (I don’t think UK261 applies to 3rd country to 3rd country).

The reason I have left it so long as I have a young family and my own business which takes up a lot of my time. I don’t have hours to waste on the phone on hold which is my experiences. And even when I have been able to get through, i’ve not had any acceptable responses – I have kept a record.

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SO I spoke to them 3 hours prior to check in closing when it was clear that my wife was not fit to travel. I was told my only options were to move to date when there was availability when purchasing using avios or buy a new cash ticket which was £2,000+ and non direct!

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SamG wrote:

Oh dear. I don’t think you’re going to get anywhere with BA on this. A lesson for the future is you shouldn’t ever let a ticket no show, BA could have cancelled your reservation and left the ticket there whilst it was dealt with. But often it’s knowing what to ask for as front line call centre operators aren’t the most proactive.

get on the phone to Amex/AXA and see what they say about leveraging the postponing benefit. From what @JDB says this could potentially cover you for a new ticket booked on the Amex

It’s frustrating because I tried to remedy it prior to check in closing! Will call Amex insurance this afternoon. Thanks

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Update: So I spoke to a very helpful man the evening that my flight departed, once I saw the first response to this thread. The man told me the process for the medical postponement and documentations needed and gave me the email address. He called me back after a few minutes who told me that unfortunately as the flight had already departed, my wife and infant were listed as a no-show and would not be able to rebooked via the medical postponement route. He told me that the only other thing I could do is write to the complains team, but I doubt i’ll get anything out of that.

Found this deeply frustrating as I was never told this was an option to me when I first called British Airways when it was clear that she would not be able to travel that day. I was told my only options were to move to date when there was availability in avios cabins or buy a new cash ticket (which I now know was incorrect) I am now left with an ill wife and an unhappy infant.

We would like to postpone the trip for when she is well enough to travel alone – If it was just her, she may be able to ‘suck it up’ and travel with the fever, dizziness, soreness in infected area etc, but with travelling long-haul with a 5 month old we are not wanting to book anything until she has completed the course of medication as she is still feeling quite rough.

Cash prices to rebook are scarily high… Really hoping there’s another way to get rebooked with BA but it is looking unlikely at this stage.

Waiting a call back from GP to get a note sorted for Airline or insurers…

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Got 50k bonus applied to my account just now. Last one was in May and was 75k

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Thanks. Have taken a look at the Israeli compensation scheme too.

How do I find out the reason for delay?

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Anna wrote:

It will depend on the reason for the delay.

How would I find this out?

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We ate recently at Daroco in Paris which was on the Amex list. Italian food. As two who only wat vegetarian food, it Was delicious and plenty of options. Had 3 courses plus 2 alcoholic drinks each came to €150.

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TGLoyalty wrote:

You’re expecting more than 20k for a couple early phone calls? How was the spa to know you didn’t have any kids so they were calling the wrong room?

Didn’t the knickers really affect your stay at all? Yes a housekeeping miss but not like they were in your bed.

I think 20k is very generous

Well the spa is part of the hotel, and there were no kids on my booking.. not exactly rocket science.

When you are staying in a high end property, you don’t expect someone else’s underwear left in your room nor two early wake up calls that were not requested. If I wanted to be bothered at the weekend I would have stayed at home…

In any case, after stating to the reception when they offered me 20,000 points that the room cost was 60,000 points, is there anything better than can be done, reception emailed me to say they have refunded the night in full in bonvoy points which I was not expecting, but was thankful for.

Aside from the two issues, it was an enjoyable stay.

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Currently at the Langley for a couple of days of TLC with the other half. We had a really enjoyable trip here after our engagement in October 2021 and decided to return!

Booked the room on points and received an upgrade to a deluxe room in the brew house from a basic room in the main house.

Dinner was great last night and not planning to move from the spa until later today.

However stay has been disappointing for such a pricey place because
A) believe it or not, some ladies underwear was left in the room on top of some wooden beams. Clearly the people in the room before us had some fun! We couldn’t quite believe it and neither could the staff at front desk, who apologised but didn’t actually offer anything else’s
B) We were both woken up at 7.05am by two phone calls from the spa who were responding to an enquiry (not from us!) which was about kids swimming hours – not what you want when you’re away for a restful break from the real world. And the fact we were not travelling with kids on this trip!

Mentioned it on the way to breakfast and front desk said they’d look into it. On the way out of breakfast, they apologised and offered 20,000 bonvoy points. I said it wasn’t really good enough as the room cost was 60,000 per night and our f&b bill and spa treatments etc will be £600+

Thoughts?

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Ba allowance.

Also enjoy the flight – legroom felt so much more than British airways!

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I was told they only award points in January after the previous calendar years spend… so you’ll probably only get yours next year.

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So I’ve held off complaining to creation as I was hoping they would have started refunding people points, vouchers and money by now!

What is the best way to go about complaining? Post or via email?

Have read through the last few pages the basis of my initial complaint should be:

1) please send over 300,000+ points that were due at time of closure
2) please send over free night voucher
3) please give pro-rata refund of card fee

Do I need to go into specifics as listed in the recent pages here or do I wait to be rejected like everyone else?

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Thanks for the help so far!

So I finally got hold of someone after days of 1+ hour calls and dropouts

I was basically told what I wanted to do was not possible. The only options I was given was to either:
A) cancel the new flight date (the one I want), hope the inventory drops back into the avios pool of seats, cancel the original inbound (and get a refund) and reattach to the 241
Or
B) cancel after flying the first leg for a future travel voucher and get half a 241, avios and taxes wrapped in a FTV but the other booking would be kept as a one way and therefore full price in avios

I didn’t want to risk option A as the flight is a peak date home from Dubai just before the schools go back – and I highly doubt the availability will drop back into the avios availability pool of seats

Supposedly they’d only allow a one way booking to get attached to an existing 241 if the new seat that had been booked wasn’t on sale when the outbound flight was booking… May have to put this one as a lesson learnt…

The most frustrating thing about this whole situation is that this all used to be possible to do online until the pandemic started and then BA decides to remove the change/cancel flight options in manage my booking.. or I would have changed the flights myself as soon as I got the seatspy alert!!

• This reply was modified 56 years, 2 months ago by .

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Try free now! Here’s my referral code which will get you £4 off your next ride. It also has a loyalty scheme and I seem to get weekly 30-40% off ride vouchers applied to my account

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Thanks! Eying up Santorini in June! Picked up the flights yesterday… now onto hotels!