David Freedman, a fellow passenger, writes: Thanks for setting this up. Reading it again makes me angry all over again!
We were so disheartened by the way we had been treated and - in particular - by the complete lack of proper information and any credible plan to get us home that, once the Friday morning flight had been cancelled, we decided to do what you ended up doing and look into booking something separately ourselves.
Because there were 4 of us (my wife and I and our two children), it was not straightforward finding 4 seats near each other but our travel agent in the UK found us a BA flight out of Philadelphia at 9.55 pm on Friday evening (he also found us a couple of other flights from JFK and Newark - but not until Saturday morning). I called Virgin Customer Services and spoke to someone at the call centre in Mumbai. He assured me (several times) that Virgin would reimburse us for our BA flights.
We had to take a 2 hour taxi ride to Philadelphia but that worked out fine and BA were just great to us (really kind and understanding). We got home on Saturday late morning. I then emailed Virgin Customer Services to find out about how to claim our refund (for the taxi, the BA tickets and a host of other expenses) but just got the standard automated response email saying that they would get back in touch within the next 21 days. Seems par for the course with them and fits with the standard of customer service we all received last week. I also asked about what compensation they were proposing to give us for the way we had been treated.
My kids (9 and 11) were fantastic - I couldn't believe how well they dealt with the whole thing - but not having anything to eat or drink from 4.45 am to 6 pm on Thursday (apart from some chocolate we had with us and a part bottle of water we happened to have left) - with 3 hours on a stiflingly hot bus with no loo on the way to the Ramada Inn - was outrageous. They were both really frustrated at giving up the best part of 2 days of their precious half-term and one of them was worried because she was supposed to be revising for an exam straight after half-term and she was worried she wouldn't be able to.
Frankly, I'm not holding my breath about the compensation - we'll see what happens - but I will fight tooth and nail for the reimbursement. Like you, I also phoned my travel insurer when we got back and I think we would be covered for the additional costs if Virgin don't pay up - but I don't want to have to claim on the insurance - I think Virgin should pay.
Because there were 4 of us (my wife and I and our two children), it was not straightforward finding 4 seats near each other but our travel agent in the UK found us a BA flight out of Philadelphia at 9.55 pm on Friday evening (he also found us a couple of other flights from JFK and Newark - but not until Saturday morning). I called Virgin Customer Services and spoke to someone at the call centre in Mumbai. He assured me (several times) that Virgin would reimburse us for our BA flights.
We had to take a 2 hour taxi ride to Philadelphia but that worked out fine and BA were just great to us (really kind and understanding). We got home on Saturday late morning. I then emailed Virgin Customer Services to find out about how to claim our refund (for the taxi, the BA tickets and a host of other expenses) but just got the standard automated response email saying that they would get back in touch within the next 21 days. Seems par for the course with them and fits with the standard of customer service we all received last week. I also asked about what compensation they were proposing to give us for the way we had been treated.
My kids (9 and 11) were fantastic - I couldn't believe how well they dealt with the whole thing - but not having anything to eat or drink from 4.45 am to 6 pm on Thursday (apart from some chocolate we had with us and a part bottle of water we happened to have left) - with 3 hours on a stiflingly hot bus with no loo on the way to the Ramada Inn - was outrageous. They were both really frustrated at giving up the best part of 2 days of their precious half-term and one of them was worried because she was supposed to be revising for an exam straight after half-term and she was worried she wouldn't be able to.
Frankly, I'm not holding my breath about the compensation - we'll see what happens - but I will fight tooth and nail for the reimbursement. Like you, I also phoned my travel insurer when we got back and I think we would be covered for the additional costs if Virgin don't pay up - but I don't want to have to claim on the insurance - I think Virgin should pay.
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