More updates

Hi all,

I've had a few more emails from passengers and I have to say that this is unfolding nicely. Thanks to everyone who has been in touch.

Relating to the question I posted earlier I received this reply from Emma Doyle. She said this...
"Myself, Michelle Payne, Claire Watson and Cassie all heard her say this, in fact she said it directly to us. She promised us a letter would arrive the next morning, however a few hours later we had a letter confirming only a free future flight. By this point Susan had disappeared so we could not question it. Susan also promised to be at the airport when our flight boarded, again she wasn't so we were given no other chance to talk to her. I have emailed out my complaint letter to her but don't really expect to hear from her ... I still feel so strongly about the way we were treated."

I also had a very interesting email from Gary Bembridge, who mentioned that there was actually some Upper Class customers with us at the hotel. Thanks for letting us know about that - seems that Virgin actually treated everyone the same!

Gary also mentioned that he has sent an email complaint to Virgin but received the standard "out of office" type message saying the email arrived and has followed it up with a letter which has a a series of questions. He's asked me to add two things to the blog (taken directly from his email) - see below:

1) Upper Class were not looked after any differently (which is unusual for an airline). I (and a lady I met) were flying Upper Class, and we were not looked after or sorted out any differently and were on the same bus, hotel etc. We eventually started to get really pushy and demand to be looked after and (as your blog points out) found out by calling Virgin in the UK that there were (in the booking agent words) "lots of availability out of JFK on Friday". We got on the VS4 at 6.30pm on Friday. BUT only through ignoring what the reps were telling us. We came across 2 other people who had been in Upper Class and were now also on the VS4 flight (people who lived in New York) and they told us that as they lived locally they refused to get on the busses and had gone to the ticket desk (contrary to the advice of the Virgin people downstairs) and were rebooked to the VS4 which was the next available flight (They say another NYC couple also got on the last flight on Thursday). This will sound terrible and am sure will annoy some people, but I was extra annoyed that they had not sorted out Upper Class passengers as I fly Virgin Upper Class long haul at least once a month (last year 15 times) so when things go wrong be nice if they made an effort and having been caught up in similar issues with BA and Continental they did.

2) I have added a posting to my blog with the questions I sent to Virgin: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MyTravelReviewswithGaryBembridge/~3/93741689/virgin-atlantic-nightmare-on-vs18.html

Thanks Gary - Your questions on your blog are really good, if it's ok with you I think they should go up here too.

Charlie