Virgin Atlantic Reviews 511

We were due to travel with Virgin for a flight and hotel booking in a couple of weeks. Sadly, my Mum recently passed. We asked Virgin if we could transfer our holiday to a later date. We were told this was not possible without great expense and to claim through our insurance. Thanks Virgin ☹️

I appreciate this is what we have insurance for but I would have expected more compassion and understanding around the death of a parent and the ability to transfer the holiday.

The Virgin rep asked if we wanted to rebook (after telling us we had to claim on insurance for our cancelled break). No thanks! Need to wait for the insurance claim.

No staff, no communication and the worst bag drop experience you can imagine. I've been flying Virgin for thirty years and this is an unbelievable decline in standards. Flying out of the US on Virgin has never been great but this is the pits.

BEWARE - VA Holidays have NO PERSON to speak to After Sales!
Worst after-sales experience sadly. Spent the best part of £15K on a 5* Upper Class Holiday - All booked with Virgin Directly. Read Below... And by the way i was told today there was no 'Human Being' I could talk to - Fill out the feedback form and wait to hear! Done that so many times, still waiting .. No Refund for being downgraded for an Upper Class ticket I'd paid for and no Compensation as was promised by the ground staff!

1) There was a delay on the flight from Miami to JFK.
(2) I was then told to go to Fort Lauderdale and catch the flight from there to JFK. WE arrived on time and checked in for our flight to JFK
(3) The flight to JFK was then delayed by nearly 4 hours as they needed the crew from that flight to operate another flight which in turn meant we missed our connection on the 11:59 flight from JFK to LHR
(4) We were then going to be put on the morning flight from JFK to LHR and waited all night at JFK with no hotel
(5) The morning flight only had ONE Upper Class seat and I was downgraded to ECONOMY.
(6) I was told the we would receive compensation in the way of another ticket of the same class AND the difference of the amount in the fare from Economy to Business Class.
Offered a measly £381 for the wrong class on the internal flight? Helllloooo... Get the flight right.. I was downgraded on my International Flight and separated from my Wife. Ruined the Birthday Treat!

If you think they can’t be worse than BA, think again!

For a small update on my account, I had to jump through so many hoops. Phone calls, emails and complaint forms which didn’t even function properly as it turned out complaints submitted via their website were treated as pre-travel support requests and I got copy and paste replies advising their team couldn’t help as they were ‘predominantly a post-travel support team’. Wow how dedicated! I don’t give a toss. Just forward it to the correct team and let’s get it resolved once and for all. Oh did I mention their live chat? Their star employee called Chris was so rude and useless that before properly understanding my request, they gave me a ‘we’ve done all we can on our side’. The whole thing left me totally speechless. I’ve concluded Virgin’s customer service are there to waste your time and make everything more difficult for you!

Surprised to see so many negative reviews for virgin, but i guess you assume the best until something goes wrong then write a bad review. No issues with virgin from my experience over many years.

I was unable to obtain a boarding pass on 4 or 5 April 24 for a flight from Johannesburg to London as the web page was down. I could only get a boarding pass for the Cape Town to Johannesburg leg of my flight. When we landed in Johannesburg it was raining and the pilot made an announcement that there were no buses to collect us and take us to the terminal building. I eventually got onto the second bus. The driver was in no hurry to take us to the terminal and waited for the Airlink air hostess to finnish what she was doing on the plane and going up and down the stairs before she boarded the bus. Only then we set off. I got to the Virgin check in counter one minute late, as did a fellow passenger. We were told we were too late and we were denied boarding. I especially only took hand luggage as I was concerned that I had no boarding pass. I was then offered a flight on 17 April. I had to be at work in London on Monday 8 April, so that was not an option. The flights were over booked as it was the week of Easter Monday and the school holidays I was told. I had to buy a Lufthansa flight and fly on 6 April. I am unable to claim a refund from GOTOGATE, the booking agent, or Bright Insurance. Possibly Virgin Atlantic will refund me for this flight. I would not recommend anyone connecting at OR Tambo airport in Johannesburg.

I missed my virgin atlantic flight out with my wife and six month old baby due to a friend's poor health condition. I provided medical reports as per the airline's request and in the end they get back to me saying they won't cover the return flight because I missed my flight out. Now my wife and baby will have to travel back alone and I have to purchase a separate ticket, which is in excess of £800. Extremely disappointed with virgin atlantic as they claim to br service driven and pro-customer.

Tried to charge me over £1000 to change an internal 45 min flight in the US with Delta to an earlier one. Delta did it for free with no fuss whatsoever.. Shame on you Virgin Atlantic!!!! Disgraceful..

I was defrauded. All I asked virgin Atlantic to do was sent an email to say the booking reference number is not for that e ticket number. They refused. Winnie or whatever your name is, your customer services is awfull at best. Avoid this airline. More needs to be done to protect consumers. They could not give a damm. Rudeness is unbelievable

I had an absolutely awful experience with Virgin Atlantic's Customer Service. After rebooking my flight, I received the wrong booking confirmation. Despite multiple calls and emails, and promises each time that I would receive the correct invoice, months later, I still haven't received it. This has left me unable to file my insurance claim. Completely unprofessional and unacceptable service.

Thanks to the pilots and staff for delivering us safely.

Following booking there was lots of misinformation primarily to do with seating.

Food was also just under good but entertainment was quite disappointing

Travelled premium Economy with Virgin and I have to say that I am very very disappointed that they are not child friendly at all. I travelled with my 5year old daughter to and fro from Nigeria and the food was inedible and she did not eat any of the meals because the food was absolutely disgusting. I made the effort of requesting a kids meal on the return flight back to the UK and the food that was served to her at 10:40am I would never conscionably have it served to any of my dogs nor the the food that was served before we landed at Heathrow. A small packet of cereal and a carton of meal would have sufficed for a child of 5. But oh no! Starved my poor child child on a to and fro journey after paying exorbitant prices for air fares

My daughter booked separate outgoing flight to LA and incoming flight from Atlanta to Heathrow instead of a 'return'. This meant the price was crazy expensive but my daughter went ahead due to necessity. When she told me that she didn't see/know how to book a return trip when going and coming back from two different routes I decided to call Virgin customer services to ask if this trip could be changed from two separate flights to a 'return'. I spoke with a lovely patient agent called Jade M who changed and remolded the trip. Luckily for my daughter had booked Economy Delight flights instead of Economy and by doing this Jade was able to change the booking. I was on the phone for nearly an hour but she saved my daughter a whopping £1,900!!! Thank you Jade for explaining everything and making sure we understood all the changes and waited on the phone for all confirmations to come through via email. Your manager, Tim, should be proud to have you on his team. My daughters flights & trip went really well and she said Virgin was an excellent airline to fly the distance from London to LA.

I have recently moved from BA to Virgin for my long haul business travel. So far so good. However today virgin left my luggage at Heathrow. No reason just plain ordinary bad baggage handling. I now have no clothes in NY for work tomorrow. Thanks Virgin. According to ground staff this is a regular occurance. I wish I’d known.

Worst company it take ages to return your refund even you booked your 100% refund flight.

Very disappointed with Virgin Atlantic
I have flights booked to Orlando in November this year - included in my Disney holiday.
Firstly I made a typo on my booking, a very obvious typo, and Virgin charged me £20 to change.
I also wanted to move from EconomyClassic to Economy Delight - I rang at 10 am and was told it would be £400 for outgoing and incoming- I said I would go and think about it. I decided to buy the upgrades and rang back at 1pm and then I was told the price had gone up to £514!
I took the £514 begrudgingly and then went to reserve our seats and found that would be £63 out and £73 in.
It seem that VA are doing some kind of dynamic pricing as I know people that paid £28 last week.
I hate dynamic pricing and may well choose not to use VA next time.

We had to change some flights, they handled really well. They did answer phone quickly on most occasions, it was a bit complicated, they were v helpful, everything happened as they promised. The staff were great for check in and the flight too, overall a good experience.

I contacted Virgin Atlantic after their partner company failed to provide the service that was promised, as I needed assistance to travel from Heathrow to San Francisco at the end of October 2023. It's only now that my 'complaint' has been dealt with, and not satisfactorily as far as I'm concerned.

I proffered a solution to the airline, which would have been most apt given the problems I'd experienced flying long haul, but this was ignored by Virgin. In fact, the 'goodwill gesture' offered was a joke and inappropriate given my medical diagnosis!

I was offered a 'bog standard' compensation and I have felt far from being a valued customer/passenger.

I have accepted this compensation in terms of 'points' on an account I then had to open in order to take advantage of this. I doubt whether I will ever be in a position to do so.

It feels like Virgin has completely disregarded the circumstances I endured and failed to offer the customer service they profess to excel at. More a case of 'lip service' as opposed to 'customer service'

I shall never be able to fly with them again, nor would I want to. Apalling service.

My wife and I booked 'economy delight' return flights from Manchester to Orlando with Virgin Atlantic on Friday 15th March. Our vacation was intended to commence on 10th May, returning to the UK on 25th May. The basic cost was £1452 plus two reserved seats as recommended on the website costing £137 each, total cost £1726.

On Sunday 7th April, due to a medical reason, we had to cancel the flights. Virgin's policy is that a full refund is only available within one day of booking. However, the cost of cancellation was astonishing.

The reserved seat costs of £274 could not be reclaimed and the penalty on flight costs was £250 each plus administration costs of £30 each. Total cost of cancellation was £834 ie 48%of the total cost paid. A lot of money to edit the Virgin website to show the seats being available again!

We have flown with Virgin Atlantic to the USA about fifteen times, believing it to be the best airline. However, we never expected to be fleeced over flight cancellation, especially when there were still thirty three days left to re-allocate the seats.

We will never use Virgin again.

From looking at TrustPilot, it seems Virgin don't review this site, which isn't surprising. They really don't seem to care about customer service or experience.

I have had several issues over the last twelve months and find Virgin completely impossible to contact by telephone. Every route just sends you back to an online form, which they ignore. The only way to speak to a person is to try and book a new flight, or upgrade, at which point they tell you they can't help.

Honestly, if another airline covers your route, fly with somebody else. Such a shame, as Virgin used to be all about customer experience