Virgin Atlantic

✅ Trip Verified | I booked a Virgin Atlantic flight for my parents, both senior citizens prioritizing the layover time and they changed the flight schedule several times. The flight originally had 4 hours layover at London Heathrow and changed to 14 hours. I paid a premium price for the tickets based on the relatively short layover. The policies are designed just to dupe people's money. For the sake of refund they offer flight credit valid for Year, for the same passengers and destination. When you take our money for booking then why not return money for the changes you made. Nobody in the right state of mind would want their parents to spend 14 hours at the airport considering their age. On rescheduling the tickets they are asking me to pay $3000 NZD (difference) with 11.5 hours layover at the London Airport. These policies are to scam people of their money. These policies would not want me to consider the airline again. There is no way that I can use that flight. I will have to make a fresh one way booking for them.

Not Verified | Flew with them to Delhi and back this month. Was a great flight with no to very short delays, spacious and comfortable seats, good entertainment selection which will keep you entertained for the whole flight (non-Hollywood selection was underwhelming however), average food (decent for a plane though), friendly cabin crew who were always coming around serving food/drink and happy to support with anything. Would definitely recommend anyone to fly with this airline.

✅ Trip Verified | I do not recommend Virgin Atlantic. This was an absolutely awful experience that ruined my vacation with my family and infant son. To start they put my infant son in danger by forgetting to book him on our flight that was changed so we ran around the whole airport and had to pay a bunch of money to jump in our flight last minute. After they lost all of our bags, so we were left with nothing we needed for us or our son. This left us all in stress and a lack of what to do, ruining the first several days of our vacation. We finally got the stroller and one bag shipped to us, but one bag was still missing. The bag with my clothes and my sons. I was promised it would be shipped to my next destination, but when it never arrived there, they said it was shipped yet again to the wrong address. Yet another mistake. Because of Virgin Atlantic, our vacation is ruined because we lack clothes and essentials, for our trip. I am very disappointed and do not recomend anyone to travel with this airline.

Not Verified | Virgin Atlantic decided to start a very aggressive campaign to promote their A350. Seeing as they finally chose a decent business class layout for one of their planes I booked a flight that is operated with it. Unfortunately this appears to be a trick that they use to get customers to book with them. They systematically advertise flights with the new A350 and a few months before each flight they change the aircraft to an inferior one (B787 / A330) and raise the price by thousands of dollars. Sadly, Virgin Atlantic will be the first airline that will be able to switch their customers support from human representatives to robots, since they're only allowed to follow a very strict script provided by the airline. Was told by a few representatives that they're getting non stop calls from angry customers (some with disabilities) about aircraft changes from the A350 to older ones and that the only option it to pay thousands of dollars in fare difference to switch to a flight on the A350. On multiple trips with the 787 and A330, I experienced stuck seats, ripped seat covers, broken armrests, non responding entertainment system and filthy windows and seats. Crew onboard obviously had no way to help with any of it aside from offering me more antibacterial wipes to clean my area. To add to these amazing Virgin Atlantic experiences, they food is the worst among the many airlines I flew with in the past. Would be better off with a cup of noodles. Virgin Atlantic has amazing crew and very good onboard service (had a nasty incident having to do with a disability of mine and the crew were fantastic), but unfortunately that is basically it.

Not Verified | London to Seattle. First flight with Virgin, and direct to LHR to SEA - lost my check-in luggage. Along with around 20 other passengers. Absolute rubbish of a company. From the moment of entering the terminal area for Virgin to arrival. Complete disorganisation at check-in, an hour plus delayed takeoff and arrival, zero updates on any changes, gates, delays, food items running low for a 9.5hrs journey, and a grand final of my lost luggage.

✅ Trip Verified | Booked a flight in December 2020 from Manchester to Barbados on Virgin flights via Kiwi Travel. I had everything prepared (paperwork, covid tests etc). At check in the Virgin staff advised me I couldn't board the flight because the last 4 digits of the payment card did not match my personal credit card. I advised that Virgin, as top of the food chain, must have set up a payment process with their 3rd party agent (KIWI) and therefore with anybody booking via this agent, the cards would never match as this was obviously a KIWI card. The staff appeared to ring a manager and proceed to tell me as the card numbers didn't match I was a security risk and couldn't board the flight. The Virgin staff then went on to say if I gave them more money I could board the flight (I asked how this would stop me from being a security risk and they had no answer). I had no alternative other than to pay the demand (£591.90). Immediately after I arrived at my destination I sent a formal complaint. There have been many emails in the past 15 months where Virgin have tried to deflect me back to KIWI when it is in fact Virgin who have taken my money. I have also put great effort into getting KIWI to reimburse me: Internet searches suggest KIWI are a scam and I am now having to go legal. This legal action may cost me more than I can recover, however I feel that Virgin are playing on this in order not to repay those who have been cheated by this system that they themselves have set up. As such, on ethical grounds, I am prepared to lose money.

Not Verified | Terrible flying experience overall. Would not recommend flying. Disjointed departure experience. Poor information regarding process - had to stand in 2 different lines for 30 minutes just for document verification. Flight delayed by 60 minutes. The real problem however started after arrival. Bags did not arrive. The generic baggage desk at New Delhi airport was singularly unhelpful. After 60 minutes, they registered a claim. We were told that next day we would be called by an agent. We were also provided with a WhatsApp number to call. No calls were received and the provided number was wrong. We contacted a number located from an internet search. In a string of email messages, had to submit the same documents over and over. Initially, they refused to deliver to home but agreed after considerable conversation. 3 days later, still no luggage - airline will not provide us with contact phone of the courier who will apparently deliver the bags. No compensation provided - we are expected to submit invoices which will take at least 16 days to adjudicate. It is understandable that some bags do inevitably get misplaced but this was an abysmal loss recovery process.

✅ Trip Verified | It is one of the worst flights ever. They have the meanest ground staff and their customer service is horrible, the wait time is 2 hours to get hold of someone in customer service. The food served on board is nasty and its the bare minimum. Never fly again with them!

✅ Trip Verified | Arrived at LHR to be greeted by Virgin ground staff, all the COVID checks were completed, such as documentation, proof of vaccinations and negative PCR tests as required at the time of flying. This was an early morning flight, and we arrived early, but the queues were already building, chaos in the lines, people fumbling for paperwork, 2 staff members running around the check-in area like headless chickens which is just a sight you don't want to see. You would think a large airline would be able to handle this amount of passengers. Check in desk finally reached, and our seats had been moved, we were travelling premium, and had pre-selected the seats only weeks ago, 2 seats next to each other. No we had been split up and separated in two single seats at opposite ends of the cabin, sat next to random people. Fair play to the check in agent and she was able to solve this quickly, with our original seats given back to us. boarding soon arrived and this was again a free for all, no boarding for upper class and premium passengers, people shoving and pushing each other, which given we are in the height of the pandemic I was irritated that social distancing went out the window and the airline allows such poor practice to be allowed! We eventually boarded, only by joining the lines and being allowed straight through ahead of some of the economy passengers. We were given a travel pack which contained sanitiser, face masks and wipes. Cabin crew came round with water or juice, no champagne as advised that they didn't have enough for premium passengers, only upper class will get it. Not great, but what can you do - we had juice instead. No snacks, no pretzels anymore - seems the airline removed this, and we were told it was an argument with the supplier? We asked about amenity kits and were told that premium passengers don't get them anymore, Doors eventually closed, we took off for the sun. Mealtime soon came round, menus were given to passengers, when the crew got to us, they only had a veggie option available to eat. They said they only had 8 chicken dishes loaded and they went to the first 8 passengers in premium so the rest of us have to have veggie choice. Neither of us had the main meal as it wasn't to our taste. Crew apologised to us and said upper and economy had the same issues as well. Could it get worse - 4 hours into the flight the IFR screens froze and despite resetting did not work in some of premium. No spare seats so could not move but was told that we could go and sit in economy if we wanted to - kind of defeats the purpose of the upgraded cabin, so we looked out the window and read for a while, but still not great. The snack wall was another disappointment, again thanks to upper class clearing it out and limited stocks we didn't get a look in to this. The crew were great, they expressed there frustrations that Virgin has cut back everything to the bare bones of which they said that they hate it as they cannot give the service they want. Overall really disappointed with the airline and how bad they have slipped.

Not Verified | Had to attempt to amend our booking due to a medical emergency. You cannot amend or cancel online, only fill a silly form that they say they'll respond to in 72 hours, more like never on hold to customer service for 2 hours and 20 minutes when we finally got through! We were a credit card number away from rebooking our flight only to get cut off/hung up on for no reason and then no contact, call back email or anything when they had our phone number, booking reference etc. We are currently an hour and half into our second call attempt and have another phone in line as a back up in case they hang up on us again. Wish us luck but I don't think we're amending this booking or getting a refund from what reviews I've also read.