Cheeky Boy? But still some worrying trends.

[wilsonben]

Dear All,

I write this with some reservations as up to this point my experience with Virgin has been great. I have always been a Qantas flyer and for business travel thought they provided an excellent service. However, as has been mentioned on this forum and others this has started to slip. Hence my recent move to Virgin (September 2010). Since then i have been like an apple fanboy just gushing about the fantastic service that Virgin has to offer coupled with cheap flights and the new planes being rolled out i was in a heady mix of the fantastic and beautiful.

The king is dead long live the king as they say.

However, just recently a few things started to worry me about Virgin. We all wax lyrical when we talk of the fabulous lounge angels and velocity team and it came with much surprise when my wife returned from her Melbourne trip and mentioned she had been treated rudely at the Melbourne Virgin Lounge. Shocked i immediately jumped at the defense of the lounge angels. "Rookie mistake darling" i said. The wife had mistaken my ease of walking into the lounge and tried to do the same and was immediately rebuffed. She responded with "I usually travel with my husband". I quickly educated her in the intricacies of the purchasing a pass or having a gold membership to access the lounge as I shook my head at her mistake.

Just last weekend I was treated rudely at the Melbourne Lounge (Again with the Melbourne Lounge!) when advised that my account had no details attached to it (Virgin had issued two memberships to me for some reason recently), I had to contact velocity as the lounge angel (demon) was unwilling to help. This was corrected and lounge entry ensued.

Now it has been mentioned previously on here that when close to gold a call to velocity may result in an early upgrade. As I am 14 credits from gold I though I might try my luck and as I am heading to Melbourne next week and will qualify for gold then, I thought I might be in with a shot. I rang up to try my luck and was quickly rebuffed. No chance of an upgrade this will only happen once the credits have been processed, i was advised.

Now I realize to the letter of the law they are right. Just a little disappointed to be quickly dismissed and coupled with my treatment and my wife’s at the Melbourne Lounge it has left me with a sour taste in my mouth regarding Virgin.

As all managers at work travel quite a bit for work reasons I had in my excitement for all things Virgin started to convince the CEO & COO that a move to Virgin across the company would be good. However, now maybe a move back to Qantas is on the cards (Hopefully Qantas sorts out the current problems soon).

On the whole Virgin has been great just hope that my recent experience isn’t a new trend. The rudeness at the lounge was unacceptable and a letter of complain will be sent on shortly. Question is I suppose, was I being a bit cheeky and asking too much for an early upgrade? I didn’t think so at the time because you never know your luck.

Cheers,
Ben

 

[Justinf]

I don't think you were being cheeky. Your right to ask away. But it's also DJ's right to say no.
I guess there comes a time when the airline needs to stop being a free for all and enforce some rules but maybe I am slightly bitter at having attained gold status the hard way, self funded and not comped like every Tom, dick and harriette seems to have had lately.

 

[medhead]

On balance I think it was a bit cheeky. But I can also see a possible explanation, Virgin are changing to state the obvious. Whereas before they could probably bend the rules, as the frequent status passenger was probably rare, I think this has to stop as they move to a mainstream business/status/FF traveler model. They have all these status match QFF fliers who will try to take advantage and i think they have to draw a firm line in the sand that says benefits must be earned post match. So I guess you've got caught up in that with the early upgrade rejection.

 

[Justchecking]

I have no comment about your experience with the staff, as it's your experience and if they appeared rude to you then that's how it was. My only reservation in reading your post is that you sound a bit like someone who's dating the love of their life then has their first tiff. It's really disheartening because you were on a high and now things are oh so low....or are they? Maybe it's just that reality has kicked in.

All companies are made up of thousands of people, all moving parts, all unpredictable. You are bound to come across the odd rude staff (maybe they are having a bad moment, maybe they are always rude, but every company's got them).

So you didn't get your way with an upgrade and even you have to admit, they were under no obligation to do so. Sure it would have been super duper nice to get it but are they really a bad company just because they didn't upgrade you 14pts shy of Gold?

Now before I sound like a Virgin fanboy I have to ask you to apply the same reasoning to QF. Do they really offer an appalling service and that's why you left? Or did Virgin just seem like the better option at the time? have the majority of your experiences with QF been positive or negative? And apply the same to Virgin. Was it a mistake to choose Virgin or is the honeymoon just over?

 

[Deleted member 29185]

Firstly, welcome to the forum Ben!

I think your experiences can be summarised by the one simple statement......appreciate unwritten benefits when offered, but don't expect them.

Although it would have been nice to receive gold marginally early, remember DJ are under no requirement to do so, but also, they've been under enormous extra pressure to process even compliant status upgrades or matches recently. I'm not surprised they rejected your request really as many people were waiting for compliant processing (search some of the threads here.......).

The card issue you had seems to have been a glitch that's now resolved but on the face of it you would have appeared to have been "loungeless" at the time to the desk staff. Finally, from what I can gather from your post, your wife is not a lounge member but attempted to gain access without a purchased pass? If so, I have to say the lounge angel was just protecting the value of the lounge membership or status. I have personnally witnessed people trying to storm past the counter as if they owned the place and the angels do have to be reasonably gruff to prohibit entry until a pass is duly purchased.

Hopefully, they're your negative experiences done with now and only positive ones to come!!

 

[samiam]

... I am slightly bitter at having attained gold status the hard way, self funded and not comped like every Tom, dick and harriette seems to have had lately.

Not this dick....

umm....

 

[straitman]

wilsonben,

The only other point that I can offer is that had you been just short of your status and asked Qantas for an early upgrade bthe answer would have most certainly been NO also.

 

[Jama]

wilsonben,

The only other point that I can offer is that had you been just short of your status and asked Qantas for an early upgrade bthe answer would have most certainly been NO also.

And have you ever seen Qantas offer a status match ? Not that I wouldn't be worried about an engine falling off if it did. :shock: Sorry. That's below the belt.

Virgin have been more than generous and now have to cope with the extra status load. Adding everyone who is almost there would have a massive additional impact. We have all been almost there though, so understand those last frustrating SC hurdles.

As far as Melbourne lounge goes, personally I have never had anything but exceptional service from staff.