DJ op up given but taken away

[greg-777]

Checked in online ask for a reprint at BNE lounge this afternoon 45 mins prior to flight.

Was seated in 3C as selected online, lounge advised you have been upgraded to business as the flight was full awarded 2D, I was stoked made my day.

Upon boarding for SYD, boarding pass beeped, given to a supervisor and advised another seat Chnaged now 4D, I asked why and all I receive received was a Shrug of the shoulders, I was very dark now.

Does this Happen?? Given an op up then taken away secs before boarding ??

I am a gold and have flown with virgin in just the past 2 weeks, 12 times domestically alone..

Never had one taken away one qantas

 

[lovestotravel]

I haven't heard of it before, no doubt others may have....

I'd be more upset at not being able to be moved back to row 3........

 

[Princess Fiona]

I haven't heard of it before, no doubt others may have....

I'd be more upset at not being able to be moved back to row 3........

+1 This is pretty clumsy and something VA should actively tighten up if they can. OT, I didn't post this before but a couple of weeks ago flying NTL-MEL a weird thing happened.
Flight fully boarded, VA dispatcher came onboard spoke with the CSM and said "Is it ok if I now move a few passengers from the back up front?"
Proceeded to head down to the back of the aircraft ( an E190) and brought about 6 passengers forward into rows 4-7.
I was in row 3.
? Maybe it was for aircraft trim but it was awkward and if I had been a VA status passenger seated in those rows I would have been a little bit annoyed at having a very late seat buddy.

 

[LiamR]

Sounds like a miss communication between the Lounge and the gate to me.

Lounge upgrade you for whatever reason, gate think it's a mistake and correct accordingly.

 

[JohnK]

I guess this does not happen very often and they would need a good reason to do it.

Or would they?

 

[samh004]

I haven't heard of it before, no doubt others may have....

I'd be more upset at not being able to be moved back to row 3........

I’d look upon that as a little sh¡tty too, at the very least I’d want to be back in my original seat, chosen for its virtues, not somewhere else. I guess you should be thankful you didn’t end up right down the back, but that’s poor form.

 

[greg-777]

I should clarify, I confirmed when she advised I had been upgraded that it wasn't the lounge but the ops centre in Brisbane on the basis economy was full. I wonder if a platinum in business had checked in late and pushed me back out of the cabin ?? Never hear of it myself either.

I am greatful an upgrade was granted they don't happen to me often but you can't take it away, it's poor form I think. Right though lucky I was down the back.

 

[markis10]

I haven't heard of it before, no doubt others may have....

I'd be more upset at not being able to be moved back to row 3........

Its been reported a number of times here and is a very shabby way of treating DJs better clients.

 

[Major]

This policy definitely needs changing. To have your original seat selection reallocated twice is not good enough

 

[anat0l]

Sounds like a miss communication between the Lounge and the gate to me.

Do you have her number? :mrgreen:

Lounge upgrade you for whatever reason, gate think it's a mistake and correct accordingly.

I wonder how, operationally (i.e. in the system), the gate thinks it's a mistake, unless somehow there are separate systems which aren't talking, and there is a subsequent conflict for the seat which the OP was upgraded to (which would be a real problem, since there may not be any J seats left, so what to do).

 

[VA FF]

I had one given a few months back in the Syd lounge and was called out before it had started boarding and they said a paying customer was going to get the op up seat they had given me, I ended up back in my original 3A though.

 

[ozmille]

Checked in online ask for a reprint at BNE lounge this afternoon 45 mins prior to flight.

Was seated in 3C as selected online, lounge advised you have been upgraded to business as the flight was full awarded 2D, I was stoked made my day.

Upon boarding for SYD, boarding pass beeped, given to a supervisor and advised another seat Chnaged now 4D, I asked why and all I receive received was a Shrug of the shoulders, I was very dark now.

Does this Happen?? Given an op up then taken away secs before boarding ??

I am a gold and have flown with virgin in just the past 2 weeks, 12 times domestically alone..

Never had one taken away one qantas

I wouldn't be too happy about that. Was the J cabin full?

 

[Justchecking]

I think what's happened here is that prior to check in being closed, they've looked and said oops! Not enough seats. Here we go Mr AFF sit up front and then we'll be ok. Check in closed and then someone looked at it and went, hang on a minute, there's a spare economy seat (someone failed to check in) he doesn't need to be there.

But I agree it doesn't look good and they should have just left him there, or they should have not issued the new boarding pass until all pax at gate boarding and they were 100% sure about where this pax was sitting. To be bumped out of row 3 and put into row 4 for no good reason isn't what most status pax would expect.

Left in original seat and none the wiser = happy camper
Op-upped = happy camper
Given false expectation = unhappy camper

From recent posts it seems like there is too much scope for adhoc decision making. On the one hand you do want people to be able to fix problems in the moment. But then you also need to make sure that consistency is there too. This appears to be a great example of two different people making decisions about one situation and creating a problem that wouldn't have otherwise existed.

 

[Justinf]

I guess the small consolation is that it was only a short-haul flight.
Imagine being op upped on a long haul and thinking you'd scored the lie-flat bed, only for it to be taken away? That would really annoy me.

 

[dfcatch]

I think it's great that VA seem to empower people to do things like opups.

The issue is that people should not be authorized to downgrade people unless they are senior managers who should be intelligent enough to look at a manifest, and see that an up-then-down as above is unacceptable. Period - no two ways about it!

 

[lovestotravel]

So was the J cabin full ?
Was row 3 full ?

 

[serfty]

Seriously, such needs to be followed up with DG. :-|

Greg, have you provided official feedback?

 

[oz_mark]

Have to agree that this is a pretty clumsy thing to do, and to me indicates that there are flaws in VA procedures/processes when dealing with these things. I'd be taking it up with the airline.

 

[lovestotravel]

DJ are still struggling with "process" I think

I have received back 2 phone calls about the same issue now which was resolved but they were calling to clarify

Yet nothing back about another issue which all seems too hard, which I have now raised 4 times

At least they are trying yes ?

 

[SteveJohnson]

So now we have a new catch-phrase, the 'op-down'?

Appreciate the feeling of joy turning to sadness when an unexpected upgrade is re-instated to economy, although part of me reckons that this falls into the 'suck it up, cough happens' category, which means some good things like op-ups are balanced by bad things like op-downs. But agree with everyone that this could have been handled a LOT better, and losing your original Row 3 was worst of all! Would have been nice if they gave you Row 3 and also bought you a full meal as a little 'sorry about that!' gesture.