Well - tried it once, won't bother again

[jackthomas]

This is why we can't have nice things

Made my day.

 

[RAM]

Originally Posted by Plutonus


This is why we can't have nice things

Made my day.

And I won't tell you again!

 

[DC3]

... I have since had our in-house travel manager contact her Virgin people and pass on a letter expressing my concerns about the service I received. I hope this will eventually be responded to - but anecdotal evidence would suggest that a canned response will be the best I will receive assuming I receive anything at all ....

It's good that feedback has been provided to VA.

I haven't flown them for nearly 12 months, after maintaining Platinum on SC earn last year (and having been status-matched the year prior). My flights have all been on QF lately.

 

[SuzieQ68]

I just love friendly banter... for what it is worth I have been a VA fan for a long time now and have never experienced bad service in J or Y. (of course that is not to say that it doesn't happen) I was in row 3 today and I observed the service in J and as far as I could tell the CSM did a great job ( 5 / 8 ) and he definitely appeared to be polite, efficient and approached everyone by their name.

Agree with Bolthead, my own experiences with VA (and there have been many over a number of years) have been excellent and I continue to be a huge 'VA fan'. Disappointing for chocolate radiation man though - he gave VA a shot and they didn't live up to his expectation. That is something that VA should probably look into. Although everyone has good and bad days, you only get one chance to make a first impression and, in this case, it doesn't appear that it was a positive one. I do hope that VA respond to his concerns, and I actually do hope that he might consider giving them another chance at some stage in the future. Thanks for sharing though, always good to keep up with what others are experiencing.

 

[Kolo]

In my experience VA now match QF with their dom offerings in both J and Y. References to VA as an LCC are now way off the mark. I have always found the J CSM to be friendly and proficient. There will always be the occasional poor experience with both airlines. But for me the difference is that VA staff appear to like their job and have a much happier disposition than the QF staff. I have not looked back moving to VA after the Joyce grounding.

 

[mrpooky]

In my experience VA now match QF with their dom offerings in both J and Y. References to VA as an LCC are now way off the mark. I have always found the J CSM to be friendly and proficient. There will always be the occasional poor experience with both airlines. But for me the difference is that VA staff appear to like their job and have a much happier disposition than the QF staff. I have not looked back moving to VA after the Joyce grounding.

Just to offer another alternative point of view, mine is the complete opposite of Kolo's.

I can't afford to fly J, but I fly Y coast-to-coast about once a week at my own expense. A couple of months ago I thought I'd give VA another try on coast-to-coast, as they had a sale at a time when QF didn't, so I booked 4x flights between BNE and PER. I don't plan to book any more.

I found the ground staff seemed rushed and a bit incompetent, and the cabin crew were uncaring and disinterested. It had been about a year since my previous VA coast-to-coast flight, and I saw that they still don't seem to quite have the hang of serving food without charging for it, and in a reasonable amount of time. Once it did arrive the food was worse than that provided by QF. In contrast, the QF ground crew seem calm and competent almost all the time (although they still do fail at PB sometimes), and the cabin crew are almost always polite and friendly; a stark contrast to my experiences with VA. Finally, I found the seats less comfortable than QF, and the IFE hardware of lower quality: the VA screens seem to suffer from the screen door effect much worse than QF's.

The two things that I found better about VA over QF were the price -- they were considerably cheaper on those flights than QF, but in general seem to be about $25 cheaper than QF on that route -- and that they had cider as well as beer and wine, although in one case the FA didn't seem to realize this fact and had to confirm with another crew member that it was available.

I'm happy to pay the $25 extra for QF, even without the cider.

mrpooky.

 

[JohnK]

In my experience VA now match QF with their dom offerings in both J and Y. References to VA as an LCC are now way off the mark.

Our experiences are not the same.

The professionalism of the Qantas FA's is there at all times. I'd happily the $15 extra to fly Qantas to be treated like a human being and not like someone who is spoiling the social gethering.

 

[Plutonus]

All these different opinions have inspired me to book QF on my next trip! Then I can weigh in with a contemporary experience.