Family Pooling Dramas

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davidge

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Dear Velocity,

Thank you for being involved with this forum. It is a demonstration of the commitment of Virgin and Velocity to delivering outstanding customer service. Outstanding customer service is the main reason I fly with Virgin, and as a Platinum member, I feel appreciated. I have now had my first negative experience with Virgin and Velocity. As a long-time reader of AFF I have now joined so I can share this experience with you.

Earlier this year I set up Family Pooling for my parents. They currently have a joint Status Credit balance of 720, enough to earn a single Gold membership. Given they fly together, I would have expected they would now have a Gold membership, primarily for lounge access. Unfortunately, this does not appear to have worked. On further investigation it turns out the Family Pooling did not work and the flights they have taken since then have been credited individually to them. I set Family Pooling up for a second time, though this didn't work as the Status Credit transfer can't be backdated.

Dad and I both spoke to the Velocity team today, and I am not impressed by their response. We were told that it is not possible to rectify this situation, despite this being an apparent administrative failure on the part of Velocity to pool Status Credits. The consultant we spoke with said that they cannot process the transfer as it is not in the Terms and Conditions, however I believe this is very poor form on Velocity's perspective, and it certainly clashes with all of the interactions I have had with Virgin and Velocity in the past. My parents and I are loyal Virgin customers, and in reality we will probably remain so even in spite of this incident. I believe it is ridiculous that this situation couldn't be solved in my parents' favour, given they had every expectation of earning a Gold membership with Velocity by now.

Sorry for the long post. I hope there is something that can be done, as there are now 3 loyal Virgin fliers that have been let down by Velocity.

With thanks, David GE
 
There is an e-mail confirmation that is sent to both accounts upon establishment of the family pool. Do you have that e-mail handy? If so it would be good ammo to use when lodging a complaint, as it proves the error was on their end.

Understandable if the system failed before that stage and you didn't get a confirmation e-mail, as there's no way you were to know to expect that.

Hopefully Virgin help with this. I've found their customer support to always lack common sense and the ability to apply solutions based on logic - especially when it comes to status.
 
Dear Velocity,

Thank you for being involved with this forum. It is a demonstration of the commitment of Virgin and Velocity to delivering outstanding customer service. Outstanding customer service is the main reason I fly with Virgin, and as a Platinum member, I feel appreciated. I have now had my first negative experience with Virgin and Velocity. As a long-time reader of AFF I have now joined so I can share this experience with you.

Earlier this year I set up Family Pooling for my parents. They currently have a joint Status Credit balance of 720, enough to earn a single Gold membership. Given they fly together, I would have expected they would now have a Gold membership, primarily for lounge access. Unfortunately, this does not appear to have worked. On further investigation it turns out the Family Pooling did not work and the flights they have taken since then have been credited individually to them. I set Family Pooling up for a second time, though this didn't work as the Status Credit transfer can't be backdated.

Dad and I both spoke to the Velocity team today, and I am not impressed by their response. We were told that it is not possible to rectify this situation, despite this being an apparent administrative failure on the part of Velocity to pool Status Credits. The consultant we spoke with said that they cannot process the transfer as it is not in the Terms and Conditions, however I believe this is very poor form on Velocity's perspective, and it certainly clashes with all of the interactions I have had with Virgin and Velocity in the past. My parents and I are loyal Virgin customers, and in reality we will probably remain so even in spite of this incident. I believe it is ridiculous that this situation couldn't be solved in my parents' favour, given they had every expectation of earning a Gold membership with Velocity by now.

Sorry for the long post. I hope there is something that can be done, as there are now 3 loyal Virgin fliers that have been let down by Velocity.

With thanks, David GE

You might want to pm the virgin rep directly. I have not seen them being active here for a long time.
 
There is an e-mail confirmation that is sent to both accounts upon establishment of the family pool. Do you have that e-mail handy? If so it would be good ammo to use when lodging a complaint, as it proves the error was on their end.
.

This ......
If the email wasn't received then it will be very difficult to prove that the pooling was set up correctly.

In retrospect I also think it would have been much easier to rectify the error if you or your parents were looking at the accounts as the first flights were crediting to make sure that they were crediting correctly.
I always watch my flights crediting very carefully after doing anything to alter pooling and suggest that anyone reading the OP's plight does the same.

I hope you get a good resolution from this for your parents.
 
I hope there is something that can be done,

I'm with the others here. Dispassionately reading your parents' plight, I can see two paths. First being that VA's notorious computer has failed again (however I can't recall reading about others experiencing a similar problem) and the second being that you genuinely believe you set up the pooling, but for whatever reason, you didn't complete the process and hence not really VAs fault. If you have the confirmation emails, then that puts the question to bed. If you don't, it remains unclear!

If it's the second case (no email confirmation), to move forward and assuming your parents have 360 SCs each, is it possible to ensure family pooling is now active and then do a few flights to gain 70SCs each? I'm assuming that for gold membership to be important to them, they are planning on taking quite a few flights in the future, so can they do a few before their review date?

PMing VFF directly is a good option (do so through a moderator as you don't have the required number of posts up yet) as he/she was on line a few days ago and did not respond to this question. Good luck with the outcome.
 
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If you have irrefutable proof that they(virgin) have failed to deliver on a promised benefit or feature of their service offering, you may have recourse through consumer protection legislation in your state . Often the very mention of this process is enough to motivate a business to fulfil its obligations. Best of luck.
 
Thanks everyone for your helpful replies. How do I send a PM through a moderator?
 
Thanks everyone for your helpful replies. How do I send a PM through a moderator?

Click on the black triangle next to "blog this post" (bottom left of your post above) and that will alert a mod that you need assistance.
 
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Hi everyone,

I have been in touch with the Velocity reps, who have said there is very limited flexibility with the policy of family pooling date. We have not yet fully resolved this issue, though I have suggested that given mum has a status credit balance of 460 it would surely be reasonable for Velocity to use their discretionary ability to grant a Gold status, particularly in light of the problems we have experienced. I am awaiting their reply.

I do hope that this happens, as it would seem to be a good outcome for both us and Velocity. In reality mum is going to reach a Gold status eventually, however it will certainly keep some loyal Virgin customers on-side, and demonstrate Velocity's ability to act in good faith.

Thank you everyone for your advice so far.

David.
 
I have suggested that given mum has a status credit balance of 460 it would surely be reasonable for Velocity to use their discretionary ability to grant a Gold status,
I didn't realise your mum had more SCs than you dad and with that knowledge, I'd be flabbergasted if VFF denied the request. Good luck with the outcome!
 
Hi everyone,

Thank you for your helpful advice! We ended up having a good result from this. Velocity has granted a one-time exception for upgrade to Gold.

It is nice to see logic eventually prevail!

David.
 
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