This summer travel season seems more out of whack than usual and I was wondering if you have noticed the same? To give you an idea, I will share a few of my recent travel hiccups starting with the airlines:
The Story of How Virgin America and I Kissed and Made Up
I am a working mom with a small business. I booked two flights to Boston on Virgin America. The flight was scheduled to leave at 8:25AM. Virgin America cancelled the flight. Because the early morning flight was cancelled, client meetings were missed. When I called Virgin America to request a refund they initially denied my request. After speaking to a customer service manager named Silau, I was granted a full refund. Virgin America also sent me this apologetic email:
Thank you for choosing Virgin America.
Ross Bonanno, our Vice President for Airports and Guest Services asked us to send this email on his behalf.
We would like to apologize for your experience with the cancellation made to your flight and the resulting inconvenience. We also wanted to provide you with some context for the scheduling issues you experienced.
The aircraft you were scheduled to fly on required a number of scheduled maintenance procedures. Virgin America has the youngest fleet in the nation and although the maintenance checks were related to routine requirements, it was unclear whether they could be completed in time to operate the flight. We made the decision to cancel that evening so that guests did not arrive at the airport in the morning and to find the flight cancelled or face a major delay.
Given the busy summer travel season and the fact that there are not many open seats on other carriers at this time of year, our teams did our best to re-accommodate cancelled flight guests on other airlines and within our existing schedule. As you know, if we were unable to re-book or if you requested it, we have provided full refunds for the original flight purchase as well.
Per your request, our Finance Dept has been notified to refund $ back to your original form of payment.
This process can take up to 7 - 14 business days.
Your continued support is very important to us. We look forward to restoring your confidence in our service on another flight soon.
Ultimately, Virgin America did give me a full refund and saved me as a customer. I have already booked a future flight with Virgin America and it will be my first flight on their airline. Wish me luck. I have my fingers crossed.
The good: Full refund, polite email with apology, manager Silau solved my problem
The Bad: Had to call 3 times to solve, waited 14 days for full refund
