NotinMyworld
Newbie
- Joined
- May 3, 2012
- Posts
- 5
In the past year, in order to maintain the Platinum status I have with V, i did all my flying with VA or VA partners in order to maintain this status, apart from one flight to Singapore, two flights to NZ and two flights to Melbourne. This year my intention was to do it all with VA and accepted my downgrade from Qantas Gold to silver this year and probably bronze next year but as I would predominantly fly VA it would not matter. That was until my flight this past weekend to NZ (Auckland) flying on Friday 20 April on D54 and returning on Monday 24/3 on DJ51. Have never found VA’s ground staff at airports to be the best (except LA), but the check in at Sydney was DISMAL. We were flying Premium, they had a “welcome” person there who had my invitation but not of my partner. Then when we got to the check in, we were forced to weigh our carry on at the Preferred check in, and we were well within our limit, but once we were on board we certainly saw many people flying economy had huge bags that weighed far more than 7kgs. My question is why were they not weighed and a premium and Platinum member is?
As always the crew were superb but the aircraft was VERY disappointing! I thought all your aircraft had been upgraded with an upgraded meal service and these were still the old economy seats with a table in between, unlike the two flights we had taken earlier this year to Brisbane and the Gold Coast. We had to select our meal off the menu, which seems every time one flies has contracted some more. There was choice of either a sandwich or wrap as a meal? When flying one expects a standard of service from an airline and there seems to be great inconsistencies with your flights as the flight coming back was on a refreshed cabin but it did not have your updated seating in it. Again, same menu for breakfast and unless you eat banana bread for breakfast, you go unfed. I do not think this is a premium service at all.
What was most disturbing on this return flight was a passenger with his family boarded and handed the crew a box of Ferro Rocher chocolates. There was one other passenger in premium who was asked to move from row 2 to row 1 (in which we were seated) and at this time he said he had a mate in seat 8A and could he be moved to sit with him. This was accommodated, something I find unpalatable as I had paid full ecomomy fares as well as upgrade points to be seated here and someone who could have been (and probably was) on a cheap economy ticket gets the same service and was afforded the same onboard privileges as what I had paid for! Then as soon as the flight had the seatbelt sign turned off the crew moved the family that had given them the chocolates into row 2 and afforded them the same privileges as well. Now I understand from time to time airlines have to upgrade passengers in the airport if they are overbooked, but I do not agree that this happens when on board otherwise why should I be paying for this and other passengers do not?
I am certainly weighing up rather just returning to Qantas after this most unpleasant experience with Virgin Australia. I wrote to the Customer Service Manager in the CEO's office and a week after writing to him with no response, I wrote to JB himself and no response! Obviously VA does not value their Platinum members!
As always the crew were superb but the aircraft was VERY disappointing! I thought all your aircraft had been upgraded with an upgraded meal service and these were still the old economy seats with a table in between, unlike the two flights we had taken earlier this year to Brisbane and the Gold Coast. We had to select our meal off the menu, which seems every time one flies has contracted some more. There was choice of either a sandwich or wrap as a meal? When flying one expects a standard of service from an airline and there seems to be great inconsistencies with your flights as the flight coming back was on a refreshed cabin but it did not have your updated seating in it. Again, same menu for breakfast and unless you eat banana bread for breakfast, you go unfed. I do not think this is a premium service at all.
What was most disturbing on this return flight was a passenger with his family boarded and handed the crew a box of Ferro Rocher chocolates. There was one other passenger in premium who was asked to move from row 2 to row 1 (in which we were seated) and at this time he said he had a mate in seat 8A and could he be moved to sit with him. This was accommodated, something I find unpalatable as I had paid full ecomomy fares as well as upgrade points to be seated here and someone who could have been (and probably was) on a cheap economy ticket gets the same service and was afforded the same onboard privileges as what I had paid for! Then as soon as the flight had the seatbelt sign turned off the crew moved the family that had given them the chocolates into row 2 and afforded them the same privileges as well. Now I understand from time to time airlines have to upgrade passengers in the airport if they are overbooked, but I do not agree that this happens when on board otherwise why should I be paying for this and other passengers do not?
I am certainly weighing up rather just returning to Qantas after this most unpleasant experience with Virgin Australia. I wrote to the Customer Service Manager in the CEO's office and a week after writing to him with no response, I wrote to JB himself and no response! Obviously VA does not value their Platinum members!
. I am sure many passengers would not be aware of the difference, but we all know ignorance is not a defence, I am sure plenty of passengers rock up to a code share and get a rude shock, but at the end of the day its been advertised and sold as it was experienced in the service context. To answer your original question about being told when its a different airline, clearly the answer is on numerous occasions during the online booking process with DJ, now if its a TA, who knows.
