Velocity Gold - Downgraded from Buisiness Class - VA8 LAX to BNE - Compensation???

[Mike B]

Hi everyone,
I’ve joined this forum to see if any of my fellow travellers can offer any advice.
Just over two weeks ago (Friday 4th March), after a terrible connecting flight with Delta from Minneapolis, I checked in at LAX to board VA8 to BNE thoroughly looking forward to my Business Class seat so I could work for a few hours and then sleep the rest of the way (it had been a long week in the freezing cold of the northern Mid West).
On check in at LAX, I was informed that Delta had cancelled my flight and that there were no seats available in Business Class, the best that they could do was Premium Economy for the same flight or Business Class the next day.
Neither option was attractive to me as I had to fly to Melbourne on the Monday morning (with Virgin Blue) to present to our companies regional annual customer conference and had hoped to spend the flight working on my presentation and then sleeping to get ready for the week ahead.
My protests that a) I was a Velocity Gold member (3 years +), b) had a valid Business Class ticket and c) Delta booked my baggage all the way to BNE so would not have cancelled my ticket all fell on deaf ears, in fact, the whole check in experience was far from what I would have expected.
So, I opted to get the Premium Economy seat as it was essential that I made the flight that day so I would arrive in BNE on the Sunday morning, as it was made clear this was the only way I would get home.
Once seated (in the middle, not too happy about that), I then found that the PAX next to me had been upgraded from Economy due to the flight being overbooked – confirming my thoughts that my ticket had not been cancelled, just that I was the unlucky one who checked in last and had to sacrifice my seat.
I do have to say that during the flight, the FAs could not have treated me better. I was served dinner and breakfast in the Business Class bar and the head FA was constantly coming to check on me during the flight when I was seated – he even brought me a pair of pyjamas at the end of the flight to take home for my girlfriend as a souvenir!
Where my disappointment lies, and where I would like advise, is as follows:

• I was informed by the head FA (after a 20 minute interview after dinner about my experience) that I would be contacted by VA customer service the next week to sort out compensation - no contact has been made
  

• I made a separate formal complaint to VA on my return home (via the web site form – anyone know of another ways of complaining?) and have had no reply (apart from the automated response with ref number) after nearly two weeks

I am looking for and feel that I rightly deserve compensation for the mandatory downgrade from a ticket that actually cost close to $4500 for that leg, but I also feel that as a long standing Velocity Gold member I should be offered more to make me want to stay loyal to the airline group that I use by choice after such an experience.
Has anyone had any similar experiences, know where I stand with my rights, or have any advice they can give?
Does anyone know what I should be asking for in terms of compensation and what I am likely to receive?

All advice greatly welcomed!
Thanks

 

[Moopere]

Re: Velocity Gold - Downgraded from Buisiness Class - VA8 LAX to BNE - Compensation??

Can't offer any real world experience on this, compensation wise though, if it were me, I'd be starting at the dollar difference between PE and Business and working up from there.

I'd contact them by phone and use the reference number you got from the automated email reply to your complaint. If they fixed me up there and then fine, if not, I wouldn't chase them, just back-charge the card and wait, believe me, they _will_ contact you.

 

[Mike B]

Re: Velocity Gold - Downgraded from Buisiness Class - VA8 LAX to BNE - Compensation??

Thanks for the quick response and advise [FONT=&quot]Moopere - very good points.
My main problem is that VA don't have a number that I can find that will get me through to anyone but bookings.
Anyone know a number for VA Customer Service???
Cheers
[/FONT]

 

[LiamR]

Re: Velocity Gold - Downgraded from Buisiness Class - VA8 LAX to BNE - Compensation??

Thanks for the quick response and advise [FONT=&quot]Moopere - very good points.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]My main problem is that VA don't have a number that I can find that will get me through to anyone but bookings.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Anyone know a number for VA Customer Service???[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Cheers[/FONT]

13 82 87

Or +61 7 3333 6888

 

[Mal]

Re: Velocity Gold - Downgraded from Buisiness Class - VA8 LAX to BNE - Compensation??

Welcome.

There's something I'm still trying to understand. What were your issues with Delta? Was the flight delayed/cancelled or something similar?

Gut feeling is the following happened:
- You checked into Delta flight, it ended up being delayed.
- For some reason V Australia thought you wouldn't make it to the aircraft and re-assigned your seat.
- You actually made it (how close to departure did you arrive at the gate?), and the best seat they could offer was in Premium Economy.

I'm assuming the booking was through V Australia. If so, then there is compensation that should be paid.

 

[Will]

Re: Velocity Gold - Downgraded from Buisiness Class - VA8 LAX to BNE - Compensation??

Give them a reasonable time to respond, say 2 weeks, then contact your credit card company to discuss a chargeback.

 

[Reggie]

Re: Velocity Gold - Downgraded from Buisiness Class - VA8 LAX to BNE - Compensation??

I find the American Airlines cannot be trusted to mess up your onward bookings. I have had many experiences where AA have completely messed up my onward connections. One where I lost all my carefully preselected seat selections, another where Mrs Reggie's was trying to use the stupid AA self check Kiosk in LAS, and when it wouldn't work the AA attendant managed to delete/cancel the upgrade request then couldn't reinstate it:evil:

 

[JohnK]

Re: Velocity Gold - Downgraded from Buisiness Class - VA8 LAX to BNE - Compensation??

Welcome to AFF Mike B!

There's something I'm still trying to understand. What were your issues with Delta? Was the flight delayed/cancelled or something similar?

Still can't understand how an airline can give away seats on a flight where a person is checked in and has not been paged for missing a boarding call. And to happen to a status passenger makes it even worse. Similar thing happened to Bundy Bear on QF recently.

Call me a cynic but the way the crew has reacted to the situation would suggest to me that the business class seat was given to dead-heading crew.

Also Mike B was the person sitting next to you in aisle/window seat? I would find extremely rude to be downgraded from business class to a middle seat while the person op-upped was given the aisle/window seat.

Anyway I hope you get more compensation than the difference in airfare between business class and premium economy for the inconvenience suffered.

 

[Mike B]

Re: Velocity Gold - Downgraded from Buisiness Class - VA8 LAX to BNE - Compensation??

So, after a week in Fiji on a well earned holiday (flying...you guessed it Pacific Blue!) I called the number Liam suggested on Monday.
After being passed on to someone else (I was not a travel agent, so they would not deal with me), I got through to someone who would listen.
She couldn't find any info on my complaint (lodged 21 days earlier), but assured me that she was escalating this to senior management as they value me as a Gold Velocity member.

Earlier this morning I got a call from a customer support rep apologising about the delay and the inconvenience that had been caused.
I explained that as the ticket had been booked for work, I would prefer any compensation in a non monetary format as otherwise I would have to give it back to the company!
She said she would get back to me.

2 Hours later and she called again and offered me a voucher for AU$2200 which is the difference in the price of the business class ticket I had purchased and the PE seat I flew on.

I should probably have tried to bargain a bit, but at the end of the day, this will pay for a return trip to the UK later this year for a friends wedding, so I'm not going to push the point.
Hopefully I'll get an upgrade on that flight

I think the moral(s) of this story is:
- V Australia are a great airline (esp the service in the air), but their US checkin staff leave a lot to be desired (but that's normal for any airline in the US in my experience...)
- V Australia customer service has a very slow response time, but they get to you eventually
- Once V Australia customer support are on the case, they are very efficient

So, I'll give them another chance and see what happens on my next international flight with them.

Thanks to everyone for their comments and advice!!!

 

[awilcockson]

Re: Velocity Gold - Downgraded from Buisiness Class - VA8 LAX to BNE - Compensation??

I explained that as the ticket had been booked for work, I would prefer any compensation in a non monetary format as otherwise I would have to give it back to the company!

2 Hours later and she called again and offered me a voucher for AU$2200 which is the difference in the price of the business class ticket I had purchased and the PE seat I flew on.

I hope nobody from your work reads these forums, or you might be looking at handing over that voucher!

 

[Misha]

Re: Velocity Gold - Downgraded from Buisiness Class - VA8 LAX to BNE - Compensation??

I think the moral(s) of this story is:
- V Australia are a great airline (esp the service in the air), but their US checkin staff leave a lot to be desired (but that's normal for any airline in the US in my experience...)

I think that is very true. The VAustralia staff at LAX were absolutely shocking that I had to tell the CSM on my return flight when she came up to me asking for feedback. I said to her that whilst inflight crew were brilliant, to start the trip on that note inevitibly sours it for us pax.

The team at LAX were shouting at passengers (and hardly a stampede - must have been 10 of us at the checkin counters), arguing about our luggage entitlements (yes I did have a print out of what I was allowed) and sat there gossiping amongst eachother about other passengers and the way they looked (not a very good PR exercise IMHO). I am pretty laid back - but was openly flabberghasted (spelling?)

On a positive note, one gentleman by the name of Mark who was working the PE/Bus checkin desk was extremely accommodating. He asked us to come over to his desk after we were checked in (we were PE, but were "ordered" to go to another desk who then failed to board as as PE) and changed our tickets, printed proper boarding passes and generally improved the service.

On the other point about all US airline ground crew - I would have to disagree. The ground crew for VX are wonderful and have the sexy Virgin flair we hear so much about. Very pleasant, if somewhat overly-personable for some (no for me, I like the friendly "let be besties BFFs" approach).

Also +1 for work colleagues comments - don't mention to anyone at work about this site. Maybe even edit post to change wording

Misha