Virgin Atlantic Rewards Booking with Child

[tassie6]

Hey All,

Might be a trap that could only be fixed by calling, detailed below.

Was booking an intra-european Virgin Atlantic reward seat on KLM metal in euro- business (9000pts + ~€29) per person for 2 adults and 1x child (>2yrs, in seat).

Checked and triple checked seats available before transferring Amex points across and went through the process on the website and …. Error, seats not available after hitting the final payment button. Tried again on website and in app and still no go, I’m thinking I’ve lost all these points I have no other use for in VS, as needed this specific flight grrrr.

Rang up via the US toll free number (free on Skype) and got a very helpful agent who could see the seats and went through the booking and it was all sorted easily.

He said he had to charge the child at adult taxes then refund the balance back to what a child would be charged, I think this could have been why it was failing online? But didn’t ask if it was and why he had to do it that way

Anyway, if anyone runs into that issue with a child on the booking give them a ring!

 

[tassie6]

Well this didn’t work like advertised.

Online check in the day before didn’t work, but didn’t read a lot into it as first time on KLM and on a rewards ticket.

Went to check in at VCE and the KLM agent said there was a problem with the child’s ticket, you need to call Virgin Atlantic as the issuer.

Note I had checked a few times that the booking looked all good in both VS and KLM MMBs.

Lucky we were there about 2.5hrs ahead of departure as this got me very nervous, after a 25min call with VS his ticket was fixed up.

Turns out when the agent originally asked their own department to refund some of the taxes on the Child ticket, the refunds team closed the child ticket and refunded them all. Helpful agent and only about 1min to get hold of them initially, paid $26USD and ticket was fixed up, check in agent could see straight away.

Maybe I could have paid more attention to the refund amount or called after online check in didn’t work, but the ticket still looked all good to me.

All ended ok but not what you want when checking in and dealing with multiple airlines you are not familiar with. Happy I didn’t have a similar problem and try to deal with a QF call centre and the associated hold time.

Funnily enough an American couple behind us who had been at the same accommodation had an issue with their ticket from VS. They had a connecting flight through AMS and their ticket didn’t have their first leg on from VCE on it. Anyway not 100% on the details but I gave them the Virgin Atlantic phone number I had just gotten off (they also made it on the flight)