Virgin Australia ‘Platinum’ customer slams airline on TikTok

[stm1sydney]

Illogical? OK. AFL weekend, hotels in BNE were full. I think backpackers had some rooms. I guessed taxi was $100 each way. I checked taxi app and it's $50-$60 each way.

Who cares about a few hundred bucks in the scheme of things. It's petty cash, particularly for frequent flyers. That's the price of the occasional snafu when one is flying constantly.

 

[Milefest]

Who cares about a few hundred bucks in the scheme of things. It's petty cash, particularly for frequent flyers. That's the price of the occasional snafu when one is flying constantly.

Just want to chime in and say not all frequent flyers have a lot of money. When I started frequent flying I was fresh out of uni with a low salary, work covered me to a limited extent but an incident where I was hundreds of dollars out of pocket would really hurt my budget.

 

[Danger]

Who cares about a few hundred bucks in the scheme of things. It's petty cash, particularly for frequent flyers. That's the price of the occasional snafu when one is flying constantly.

No, it's not "petty cash". What Milefest said.

 

[Vic]

Illogical? OK. AFL weekend, hotels in BNE were full. I think backpackers had some rooms. I guessed taxi was $100 each way. I checked taxi app and it's $50-$60 each way.

You think I should be happy to pay $450 for hotel and get $200 back from VA? Who would be happy with that deal? Kind of negates the $360 I paid for the airfares in the first place.

By the way it took a long time for VA to start organising things that night.

Anyway it's over now. I'll have to try and get back from travel insurance for the lost hotel night in SYD and another lost night in Pattaya.

You had choices that didn't require staying at a hotel.
I said nothing about you paying for a hotel, happy or otherwise. So yes, it is illogical to claim I've said you "should be happy to pay $450"
The taxi info you gave was wrong, and now it's backflipped away.
I bet VA would've given you taxi vouchers to get home - so NO COST to you.
So yes, Illogical and Inconsistent, and argumentative it seems.

As for getting back the money, maybe you should've checked out the VA compensation policy. That's what I did when they cancel a flight recently and re-booked 5 hours later. All that was required was to check the reason for the delay, and claim back later. Did not even have to wait for Virgin to start organising things. The policy is also clear that a hotel is NOT provided in your home city.

Virgin Australia considers the following matters to be within its control:

• Crew shortages;
• Unscheduled aircraft maintenance or other engineering issues;
• Malfunction of Virgin Australia IT infrastructure (other than malicious attacks);
• An aircraft has been overbooked;
• You are denied boarding (either voluntarily or involuntarily) for reasons other than your conduct on your day of travel;
• You miss your connecting Virgin Australia flight because we delayed or cancelled a flight for one of the above reasons; or
• We decide to stop operating services on a specific route for commercial reasons.

Guest Compensation Policy - customer service | Virgin Australia

The lord helps those who help themselves, instead of sitting around waiting for VA to organise them a hotel.

 

[Vic]

Just want to chime in and say not all frequent flyers have a lot of money. When I started frequent flying I was fresh out of uni with a low salary, work covered me to a limited extent but an incident where I was hundreds of dollars out of pocket would really hurt my budget.

No, it's not "petty cash". What Milefest said.

It is $120, two taxis each way. NOT hundreds of dollars!!!!!! And, of course, Uber was likely cheaper.
If I could not carry $120 for a month or so waiting for compensation from VA, then I should not be travelling international.

Otherwise, exercise another choice and sleep on the airport floor.

 

[JohnK]

Who cares about a few hundred bucks in the scheme of things. It's petty cash, particularly for frequent flyers. That's the price of the occasional snafu when one is flying constantly.

You are kidding right? Petty cash? LoL. I have pretty much nothing as most of my money has gone on my house and continues to go on my house.

I try to save on everything. Airfares. Hotels. Food. Transport. Everything.

I had 4 nights in Pattaya hotel at $70/night with breakfast and another 6 nights in another Pattaya hotel that cost $85 in total with trip.com $50 off, BP $50 voucher etc. I have booked the same hotel for 4 nights in December but this time it's $63/night including breakfast.

My biggest cost was 5 games of golf and ~400 baht or $17/day on beer. I eat ham/cheese sandwiches and 14 baht noodle cups for dinner. The rest of my money goes to my wife/daughter so they don't have same constraints as me with food and shopping.

Just because we don't have money, doesn't mean we can't holiday. Saving for 4 week Christmas trip starts tomorrow.

 

[Quickstatus]

Who cares about a few hundred bucks in the scheme of things.

I have a surgeon friend. He really hates spending money. He still has a very old top loaded washer and other stuff he rescued from the kerbside.
But he has millions in the bank.

 

[JohnK]

It is $120, two taxis each way. NOT hundreds of dollars!!!!!! And, of course, Uber was likely cheaper.
If I could not carry $120 for a month or so waiting for compensation from VA, then I should not be travelling international.

Otherwise, exercise another choice and sleep on the airport floor.

Absolute rubbish.

We do sleep on airport floors with 12 hour overnight transits where I've intentionally booked the transit. If an airline stuffs up they need to pay. This is a very simple concept. No airline staff parties. No airline bonuses. No stupid staff perks. Run the airline properly and don't inconvenience customers.

 

[stm1sydney]

You are kidding right? Petty cash? LoL. I have pretty much nothing as most of my money has gone on my house and continues to go on my house.

I try to save on everything. Airfares. Hotels. Food. Transport. Everything.

I had 4 nights in Pattaya hotel at $70/night with breakfast and another 6 nights in another Pattaya hotel that cost $85 in total with trip.com $50 off, BP $50 voucher etc. I have booked the same hotel for 4 nights in December but this time it's $63/night including breakfast.

My biggest cost was 5 games of golf and ~400 baht or $17/day on beer. I eat ham/cheese sandwiches and 14 baht noodle cups for dinner. The rest of my money goes to my wife/daughter so they don't have same constraints as me with food and shopping.

Just because we don't have money, doesn't mean we can't holiday. Saving for 4 week Christmas trip starts tomorrow.

When I had no money, I went bush camping in tents with my family for holidays. Cost next to nothing but still had a great time. I dream of constant international travel including frequent rounds of golf, nice hotel stays and $17/day on beer.

 

[Quickstatus]

I went bush camping in tents with my family for holidays.

Surgeon friend did similar precovid when he went to visit a hospital in the US for 3 days to watch a new way of doing an operation. He hired a car- slept in it and showered in the hospital operating theatre change rooms. He regaled about how he didn't have to buy a hotel room.
And yes travels in Y

 

[Vic]

Absolute rubbish.

We do sleep on airport floors with 12 hour overnight transits where I've intentionally booked the transit. If an airline stuffs up they need to pay. This is a very simple concept. No airline staff parties. No airline bonuses. No stupid staff perks. Run the airline properly and don't inconvenience customers.

And the airline would've have paid for you to get a taxi to your home, assuming the disruption was within the airline's control as per the policy

Once again: your position is illogical. You had multiple choices you've reject the choice that cost you nothing, you've rejected the choice of a hotel that you did not have anyway, and now you reject your last remaining no cost choice to sleep on the floor of the airport.

If you cannot afford the risks of travel, the uncertainty, then you cannot afford travel.

clearly you're just here to have an argument. time for you to jog on...

 

[JohnK]

When I had no money, I went bush camping in tents with my family for holidays. Cost next to nothing but still had a great time. I dream of constant international travel including frequent rounds of golf, nice hotel stays and $17/day on beer.

But some people don't understand the sacrifices that some make to achieve those goals.

No alcohol. My last beer was Sunday night, 16 April at 9:30pm. My next beer will be Monday morning, 25 December in Qantas SYD F lounge.

No restaurants. Eating out is a waste of money. $40 for a 200g piece of steak? No way. I can get 3kg-5kg of budget rump for that amount. Cook myself much better.

No designer clothes.

No luxuries.

Pay 2-3 star hotels slowly months in advance. Use afterpay. Use hotel vouchers. Use OTA promotions.

I have used points for outbound flights. Will try to use points for inbound flights or cheap one-way return via Bali.

Christmas trip almost done. Now to save some golf money and start planning June 2024 school holiday trip to Thailand and now getting way off topic.

 

[anyonebutqantas]

Sounds like you need to read the VA conditions of carriage. I’d start with section 12 which is most relevant to the news article.

Conditions of Carriage | Virgin Australia

These Conditions set out the basis on which we provide our services to you and, among other things, seek to make you aware of the unpredictable nature of air travel and the rights you have as a consumer. We recommend you read these Conditions carefully.

www.virginaustralia.com

My favourite is that VA can substitute the travel for another means if required. That means that if VA was fully booked from MEL-SYD and gave you a greyhounds ticket then technically they’re in the right although you also have the rights to ask for a refund. Section 12.5 says they’re also not eligible for any loss so I’m sorry to the person in the news article but by buying a VA ticket he’s agreed that he can’t claim his loss from them.

News flash is that the grass on the QF/JQ side is no greener and go overseas and things can get worse with ULCCs.

Limitation of liability / exclusion clauses often feature in contracts but that doesn't mean a court would enforce them. Given the imbalance in bargaining power in a consumer context those sorts of clauses would be vulnerable to being struck out and not enforced if tested in court.

 

[louisek]

This was in high rotation for a while in my feed as I watch lots of aviation streams obviously and others have shared cut downs of it.

If you can’t be bothered watching;

- Basically he (Mr Plat VFF) had a flight (Syd/Mel)
- Was cancelled, moved to another one. which was also cancelled
- Had to push Virgin for accom as they stranded him overnight, they gave him one ‘in middle of nowhere’
- Sent him and other passengers there, hotel had no idea what they were talking about, hadn’t heard from Virgin, they had to pay out of pocket for rack rate room costs, food etc
- Subsequently has posted viral clip to force Virgin to apologise and shame them for customer service

Virgin have responded because it’s now in mainstream media, blaming the booking tool they used for booking hotels failing…

Typical '3rd World' level of service, do the big companies care any more about customer satisfaction?

 

[louisek]

This was in high rotation for a while in my feed as I watch lots of aviation streams obviously and others have shared cut downs of it.

If you can’t be bothered watching;

- Basically he (Mr Plat VFF) had a flight (Syd/Mel)
- Was cancelled, moved to another one. which was also cancelled
- Had to push Virgin for accom as they stranded him overnight, they gave him one ‘in middle of nowhere’
- Sent him and other passengers there, hotel had no idea what they were talking about, hadn’t heard from Virgin, they had to pay out of pocket for rack rate room costs, food etc
- Subsequently has posted viral clip to force Virgin to apologise and shame them for customer service

Virgin have responded because it’s now in mainstream media, blaming the booking tool they used for booking hotels failing…

Why is the "little businessman" for forced to comply with regulations, but big business can simply shrug and walk away?

 

[dxwell]

I have a surgeon friend. He really hates spending money. He still has a very old top loaded washer and other stuff he rescued from the kerbside.
But he has millions in the bank.

I’m not as bad as Mr Surgeon, but this is a good way to have a lot of $$