“Virgin holidays and virgin atlantic both went above and beyond to help me provide the best holiday experience for my son. I will certainly be booking with them again”
“We are really disappointed with the Customer Service we've received from Virgin in regard to complaints from our recent holiday to Orlando.
We booked all aspects of our holiday through Virgin including flights, villa accommodation, park tickets and car. Our holiday party consisted of two OAP's, two adults and two young children (age 2 and 4). This was a big holiday for us, and we had been saving for nearly 3 years to be able to go.
In summary, our complaints were:
Alamo Car Hire (preferred supplier of Virgin) tried to tell us we'd booked a vehicle too small for our needs and tried to push a larger vehicle upon us with additional charges that we didn't need. It was only after we insisted we see the vehicle that we'd booked that she conceded it might be large enough, and it was.
As it was late by the time we'd cleared customs and been delayed by the attempted up-sell of the hire car, it was dark when we left with the hire car. In the morning we saw several dents and scrapes on the vehicle and were worried as a walk-around hadn't been carried out by Alamo. We had to contact Alamo to complain.
The kitchen was under-equipped. It was a self-catering holiday but we were limited with what we could cook.
Both my 2 year old daughter and elderly mother-in-law slipped in the showers. No bath mats were provided. This was hazardous and Virgin have tried to absolve themselves of any responsibility by saying the villa owners are under no obligation to provide basic safety devices. My daughter was in tears every time we showered her afterwards, and there were no baths in the property.
Virgin's response was
'All of the homes are privately owned and as such their furnishings, facilities and décor can vary. There is no obligation on homeowners to provide bath mats and I’m sorry that your mother in law slipped whilst using it and you found the kitchen facilities lacking.'
When they could've both been seriously injured I find this response inadequate.
One of the showers was missing a shower screen which meant it couldn't be used. A note was left saying it would be replaced but it wasn't.
The air conditioning wasn't working correctly upon our arrival (although once reported an engineer was sent out and it was fixed).
Virgin's Customer Service response was very much along the lines that the issues aren't their problem as they use third party providers.
However, they are the providers of the holiday and we booked through them. Although each of our issues on their own may not be terribly significant, when culminated together they negatively affected what should have been an amazing holiday.
In terms of any form of compensation, all we have been offered is £50 from Alamo for the issues with the car hire (which we have yet to receive) and absolutely nothing from Virgin themselves.
When you spend over £7500 on a holiday and it isn't up to standard you expect a bit more than nothing from your holiday provider.
We are so disappointed with Virgin . The Customer Service throughout the initial holiday booking was excellent, but the after-holiday Customer Service has left a very bitter taste in our mouths and definitely changed our overall perception of Virgin Holidays.”
“Worst company ever! Staff are rude and contradict each other! They cancelled a flight on a holiday that cost £4000+ and expected us to pay an extra £200 for a connecting flight and couldn't even provide us with an explanation! STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY OR PAY THE PRICE!!!”
“Worst company ever! Staff are rude and contradict each other! They cancelled a flight on a holiday that cost £4000+ and expected us to pay an extra £200 for a connecting flight and couldn't even provide us with an explanation! STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY OR PAY THE PRICE!!!”
“Virgin are lucky to get one star, in a nutshell we booked 14 nights in Barbados after six days we got a phone call to say that the hotel will be closing and did Virgin not tell you,"er no".
Virgin knew about this three months prior to our travel. not happy, ongoing!!!!!!”
“Just come back from two weeks in st Lucia booked with virgin. Had excellent service throughout from the moment we booked, flight service, holiday hotel and virgin reps were excellent. Thank you we really did unleash our mojo!”
“raveled with Virgin Holidays for a christmas break to Mauritous and as a treat we booked business class for our return trip.
The first part of the return leg to Dubai was with Emerates and well worth the money but the second part with Qantas was an absolute joke and like economy with extra leg room.
Firstly there were not enough staff to cover the flight which was full, secondly it took over an hour for them to even offer any form of refreashment,thirdly my lay flat seat didn't work for the whole flight and when we came in to land at Heathrow we were asked to move to a seat that somebody had been sick in, which we refused and staff travelling on an upgrade were made to sit in them so we could have there seat.
After complaining on the flight about the service and getting no joy i decided to contact Virgin on our return to complain only to be told by them it was nothing to do with them as it was qantas that i flew with.
After explaining that we booked all of our holiday with virgin holidays as a package and it was there resposibility and not the suppliers responcibility they kept passing the buck to them who as we thought wiped there hands of all of it.
We have now been offered £250 as good will and have turned it down as the flight upgrade alone cost us £2500 and we feel totally let down and fobbed off and will now take the case up with our solicitor.
Please don't book with Virgin holidays they really ar'nt what they seem.”
“I have just returned from the "Southern explorer" tour. 14 of the 15 days of the holiday were exceptionally well organised and I would recommend it to anybody unless like me you have mobility issues as there is a fair amount of walking involved
The only day that disappointed was day1 .
We were supposed to be met at JFK by a transfer vehicle and transported to our Manhatten hotel . We landed around 1500 hrs. When we went to arrivals and looked for somebody brandishing a board with our information on , there was nothing .
We waited for NINETY minutes , we even made up a card with our names , virgin and ATI on it to attract attention .
At 1630 hrs we decided to phone the help line number we had in our documents , every time we called we were given the usual " press one, press two " routine . To speak to a person we had to press four , but every time we pressed four the line went dead
Eventually we decided to take a taxi which cost us $85 plus a $15 dollar tip .
We complained to the ATI rep at the hotel who handled the situation very well and the next day refunded our $100 .
The company who were supposed to meet us alleged that they had 3 drivers waiting at the terminal. THIS IS UNTRUE . An excellent tour was almost ruined but thanks to the professionalism of the ATI staff the rest of our tour was faultless”
“Hotel didn't meet expectations from Virgin's description plus there were building works taking place at the time of our stay & although we had received a letter advising of this the actual level was much worse then advised. Extremely duspoointing & the Virgin customer services I feel have made quite light of our dissatisfaction! Be careful if you are planning to book with them”
“Booked a holiday = they left it late to finalise with the tour operator, then tried to charge me extra (30 days before departure) for the higher prices they would incur.
Booked flights well in advance = they deleted the booking. Only looked on the off-chance the night before to notice this. Managed to put it right, after some stress.
Booked flight meal for wife (Gluten free) = didn't happen on outbound journey
Booked everything in my name = tour ended up booked in wife's name. Not a problem, except for the first hotel where we thought we had no reservation in place for 20 minutes.
Was a honeymoon so expected excellent, fault-free service = didn't happen
Advice to others: book it all on expedia or something. It will be cheaper, better organised and you'll know where you stand. Virgin Holidays are worth going out of business, I'm afraid.”
“Booked four nights in Dubai starting from Tues - flew Mon pm and arrived in Atlantis Palm Tues 9am.. Already realised check in at 3pm so had rang Virgin who quoted £150+ for early check in - then emailed Atlantis Palm who said they would try to accomodate. Be aware no facility to retrieve luggage and change in comfort - be prepared to open your case in the lobby of this prestigious hotel, root through clothes then get changed in a toilet miles away!! All this in one of Dubai's top hotels!! We were given room at 1 o'clock only to find it was a King room and there were 3 of us - after 2 hrs of sorting hurray we got our room at 3!! The actual check in time ... I had misread itenary as just assumed 4 nights meant we left sat at 3.00 in afternoon. We actually flew at 3.00 on sat morn.. Have emailed Virgin to dispute why it's classes as 4 nights when we left hotel at 23.30 fri evening. I have never paid for a nights stay and not slept in bed.. This meant the holiday cost £4,500 for 3 nites.. We were never offered to check out fri lunch.. Virgins terse response is I should have read itenary and yes I take a portion of blame but it's rather misleading saying 4 nites but they do not want to keep going over old ground or protract.. Their customer service is poor and their advice was I have changed into swimwear in the toilet, well they may do that in luxury hotels but as I advised couldn't see Richard Branson carrying his trunks across the lobby of that hotel.. Poor disappointing response from Virgin -- be wary and check their itenary.. Paid a high price and all I wanted was for them to acknowledge they could point out the last day is booked as and charged as extra night just so you have a room till departure that day - give people the option - Virgin have just put this all back on paying customer and it has left a bad taste.. I work in a customer facing role and would never had bounced all the blame back as Virgin have done..”
“We have not even been on holiday yet and I am afraid that the service is awful
I cant even get in contact to see why we haven't had an email with tickets .
It is always engaged. We leave in 5 days
I would not book with this company again.”
“We have booked a holiday to the Shangri La Rasa Ria in Borneo as recommended by Virgin holidays, it has an orangutan rehabilitation centre on the resort - only reason why we have booked this resort. By chance I found out that the centre will be closing a day before we go, therefore our dream holiday to see orangutans has been shattered, Virgin's response is that it is not their problem, it's the resort who have closed it, if we want to change dates or cancel there will be a charge to us. They did say that we could go on one of their excursions to see the orangutans which involves a 45 minute plane journey each way, at our cost!!! We have two young children the reason why we booked that resort is that we wouldn't have to travel to see them, Virgin are failing to understand that If we had just wanted to go to a beach resort we would have gone to Spain, not paying them over £4000 and travelling 13 hours to Borneo! Absolutely appalled by their Customer Service department!”
“I had booked a cruise + hotel holiday via Virgin Cruise, as the first one I did, it was great. This time, it wasn't. Before we embark on our Caribbean cruise, we had stayed in Orlando for 4 nights. On our final night, we wanted to leave the some luggages at the hotel, so that when we finish the cruise we can collect it.
On our return and collection we notice 1 bag was missing. I've reported to the hotel, who told me that they will get it resolve ASAP.
To cut a long story short, this never happened, and the person who was in charge of storage didn't want to compensate the lost. I had to raise it with the GM inorder to get the cost of my item back, but they still have not provided me with a compensation.
This is where I reported to Virgin Holiday, who advise since I've already resolve the issue with them then its finalise, I told them I never resolved the issue, I only resolve the cost of the lost item, I need them to chase for the compensation.
Another very stupid response from Virgin Holiday, saying that if I wanted Virgin to act then I should report this with them when I'm back and not with the hotel. I told her, if I had not reported this, how would they have a log that it went missing and acted so promptly after I escalated with the GM.
Still Virgin Holiday refuse to help me contact the hotel for compensation, saying that since I agree with the compensation the hotel would consider the case close.
I told them no case is close, is only if you are willing to act on your clients behalf or not.
I contacted the hotel directly, and they had agree to give me a form of compensation.
I forward the email of compensation back to Virgin Holiday, since then nothing back from their wonderful team.
Total useless. I had told them I'll never use their shoddy service again.”
“NEVER TRAVEL WITH VIRGIN HOLIDAYS TO ANTIGUA...ESPECIALLY THE JOLLY BEACH RESORT!!! THIS RESORT HAS GONE BANKRUPT AND IS IN RECEIVERSHIP....NOT MENTIONED IN BROCHURE!!! THE STAFF AND MANAGEMENT ARE RUDE AND LAZY..THE ROOMS ARE A JOKE..PRISON CELLS ARE NICER!! THE FOOD IS VILE..IF THERES ANY LEFT ,AND THE DRINKS ARE WATERED DOWN..OH AND YOU CANT GET WATER YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR IT!! ALL INCLUSIVE MY A***. VIRGINS CUSTOMER COMLAINT DEPARTMENT IS FULL OF RUDE IGNORANT CHAVS,WHO IGNORE YOUR COMPLAINTS AND INSULT YOU..EVEN THE MANAGING DIRECTORS STAFF IGNORE YOU.”
“We have recently returned from a 10 day holiday at The Maritim Hotel in Mauritus.
I had read trip advisor before \I left and was a little concerned about the hotel after reading some comments, however I needn't have worried!
From the omen we got off the plane we were greeted by A Virgin rep who showed us to the car waiting to transfer us to our hotel The driver was ec=xcellent and gave us so much information about the island. On arrival at Maritim we were treated like royalty, we were shown to reception and greted with cool flannels and cold drinks to refresh us. Our room wasn't ready ( which we expected) as we arrived early in the morning but were shown to a departure olunge where we were able to shower and change for the beach. All inclusive started from that moment. The food was excellent with 5 restaurants to choose from.
Our room was lovely with a free standing roll top bath as well as separate shower, a huge bed, welcoming basket of fruit, and patio that led right onto lush gardens.
Room service was excellent, with option of fresh towels twice a day.
The staff at Maritim made it their priority to treat guests, they were all so friendly and helpful.
I was unlucky to stand on a sea urchin and needed hospital treatment but the reception called the Doctor who visited me in my room then took me to the hospital for treatment. On hearing of this the Virgin rep made contact and was so considerate and caring to assist me and ensure my recovery.
It was my husbands birthday whilst we were there and he received a bottle of champagne and birthday cake courtesy of Virgin who also credited our hotel account with 4600 rupees which enabled me to have 3 Spa treatments at the most relaxing Spa facility.
This was the most perfect, stress free, relaxing holiday and on a beautiful island with beautiful people. Talking to other holiday makers I am sure that we had a far better experience having gone with Virgin.
I have had a difficult year and this was the perfect antidote, my dream would be to take my two children and their partners back for a family holiday sometime.”
