A Virgin flyer has been forced to pay for a new ticket on the spot after the airline lost all records of their booking. The reservation mysteriously disappeared after the first flight on the ticket had already been flown without incident.
This member was flying from Canberra to Hobart, with a short layover in Melbourne. Check-in was completed online, with links to the boarding passes sent by SMS to the member’s phone. Everything seemed fine until our member arrived in Melbourne. There, they discovered that the second boarding pass for their connecting flight to Hobart had inexplicably disappeared.
Upon enquiry, the Melbourne lounge staff said that Virgin had no record of the booking ever existing – despite the fact that our member had just flown to Melbourne on the same ticket! The only option presented was to pay for a new ticket, which our member reluctantly agreed to do.
It is still unclear why the booking disappeared, although an IT failure from Virgin Australia seems the most likely reason.
Following the incident, Virgin Australia promised to provide a travel credit for the additional money paid. But our member is not satisfied with the response. They believe they should be entitled to a refund – not a voucher for future travel. They also worry that this could happen in the future to somebody without the means to pay for a new flight on the spot.
To reduce the risk of this happening to you, our members suggest always carrying a physical copy of tickets and boarding passes. While there is no guarantee that would have prevented this situation, it would have at least provided evidence of the original booking.
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