Velocity Hotels (Expedia)

[Ausbt]

Ok well, I'm about mid-way through my VA/Expedia 9x point UK trip and the points are starting to flow! Some nice accruals coming in. Here's an odd one though: I booked just the one solitary Saturday night at a B&B in the Lakes District, I guess lucky to not have an enforced two-day booking. Maybe I missed this in the fine print: they take cash-only. They emailed me a day after the cancellation option ran out to advise. Well, I guess a little inconvenient but "thanks for letting me know". I wrote a jaunty email back to them saying "glad to be informed".

The response was rather pointed and clearly extremely dismissive of aggregator sites. I can read between those lines pretty clearly: You, sunshine, have allowed a filthy aggregator to clip our ticket. It's only out of respect to Basil we may let you stay here, and perhaps we can find you a nice draughty billet suited to your insolence.

I'd respond, but I'm looking forward to saying it directly to their faces. Upon departure

 

[Isochronous]

Ok well, I'm about mid-way through my VA/Expedia 9x point UK trip and the points are starting to flow! Some nice accruals coming in. Here's an odd one though: I booked just the one solitary Saturday night at a B&B in the Lakes District, I guess lucky to not have an enforced two-day booking. Maybe I missed this in the fine print: they take cash-only. They emailed me a day after the cancellation option ran out to advise. Well, I guess a little inconvenient but "thanks for letting me know". I wrote a jaunty email back to them saying "glad to be informed".

The response was rather pointed and clearly extremely dismissive of aggregator sites. I can read between those lines pretty clearly: You, sunshine, have allowed a filthy aggregator to clip our ticket. It's only out of respect to Basil we may let you stay here, and perhaps we can find you a nice draughty billet suited to your insolence.

I'd respond, but I'm looking forward to saying it directly to their faces. Upon departure

If they don't like being on OTAs they shouldn't let their property be listed on them.

I found in a lot of smaller UK towns that the small hotel / B&Bs don't even take bookings on their own website so you have no choice but to go through booking.com or one of the others.

 

[Ausbt]

Expedia: when it goes wrong. So, the hotel has no record of my 5 day booking made via Virgin Hotels via Expedia. I called Expedia and their automated system confirmed the booking. I spoke to an operator and after a bit they said "we will transfer you to". Surprisingly they referred me to Virgin Holidays who said "wtf?" (basically).

Anyway, I didn't want to be out on the street tonight so booked some accom direct. But I'm staring at those 8,700 Velocity points that would have been earned on this booking and hoping for a bit of compo, we will see. I guess with third-party aggregators it can go wrong sometimes. I can't recall it ever happening before and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say I've made 400+ bookings with Agoda, Booking.com, Expedia & Wotif over the past 10 years.

 

[Nathant123]

My trip to the US and then back to Israel commences in a week and a bit. I really hope I don't run into the same dramas! Should collect a little over ~50k points which is nice considering its money I needed to spend regardless.

 

[Ausbt]

I really hope I don't run into the same dramas!

It might be worth emailing / re-confirming with the properties directly. Certainly neither Expedia or Virgin have responded to me in any way yet. I had alternative accom options, however imagine if there were absolutely none - could be a real problem.

 

[Bagpuss]

Had my first hotel booking on Saturday and can confirm that they had my details and today all the points correctly credited to my account.

 

[Nathant123]

Well surprise surprise. Dramas as expected. My Israeli bookings went through no dramas though no points posted yet though it has only been around 6 days since checkout. Arrive to my biggest point earning hotel, the Hilton and they’ve cancelled my booking because the credit card I had used to book expired in July. My mistake I suppose but didn’t seem to be an issue at the other hotels that were all pay on arrival as I could pick whichever card to pay with. All in all I’ve lost ~20k points and I know there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it because I had to rebook on the spot. The Hilton did tell me that nothing is charged to the card until checkin so I don’t know why they canceled it. I do feel bad for the bloke I abused at the desk though I did earn free brekky for all mornings and 1000 Hilton Honors points which are worth sweet FA.

 

[Ausbt]

Wthe Hilton and they’ve cancelled my booking because the credit card I had used to book expired in July.

Ouch. I've noticed that booking.com won't accept a credit card for a forward booking if that card expires prior. That's a good safeguard that clearly is lacking from the Expedia tie-up. Which reminds me - our corporate policy is with Egencia (that's Expedia's corp arm). I had this same thing happen to me a few years ago - I used our corp Amex to make the booking and it expired prior, so Egencia just cancelled the booking. Wonderful.

 

[adamkps]

I used my Velocity Amex to make some bookings in November. The expiry date is end Sept 19. So, after reading on here the problems some have experienced, I rang Expedia and they couldn't (or wouldn't) amend the expiry date and said that the only way was to cancel the reservations I have and rebook, losing the 9x promotion. She told me that when the expiry date arrived my bookings would cancel. How stupid. So I rang each hotel and told them the situation and they have protected each res. It'll be interesting to see if I still get the extra points. So, BEWARE!

 

[Ausbt]

the only way was to cancel the reservations I have and rebook, losing the 9x promotion

I was told exactly the same thing when I wanted to amend a booking to add an additional day. Now interestingly this was the same booking that ended up failing (the hotel never received the res despite Expedia asserting it was valid), which makes me wonder did the agent take some action to stuff it up. Moot point now I guess. Anyway, a month after travel I've received about 20K points of the 40K I was supposed to earn under this promotion. Reconciling the points is very difficult - the credited amounts seem to bear no relation to the originally quoted points totals that were supposed to be earnt.

I guess with 750 Virgin staff about to be made redundant, I'm not going to be pushing this too hard right now, there are bigger problems and I feel for those people. But my take on 'Virgin Hotels' is that it is a half-baked scheme with no direct management from Velocity or Virgin. In fact I wrote to Karl Schuster and told him as much.

 

[Ausbt]

Ok update on this one, the Velocity team wrote back to me and resolved my issue entirely. I responded with a rather large thank you and also took the time to express my appreciation particularly given recent media. As per my last post, when people are losing their jobs issues surrounding correct allocation of points are rather trite and appear selfish.

 

[Nathant123]

Perhaps I should write to them regarding the loss of ~20k points over a cancelled booking though I doubt there's much they can do considering I had no option but to rebook at the counter. Mind you its now been nearly 2 weeks since I checked out of my Israeli accomodation and still no points posted..

 

[Saab34]

Book a hotel with Virgin Australia
between 11 November 2019 and
2 December 2019 and earn
6 Points per $1 spent for travel
until 2 December 2020~.

 

[Saab34]

Here is a good one. Only got till Monday!

Double Points on offer for Black Friday , and combine this 4 day Expedia code HOTEL10DISCOUNT to double dip. First time I have got a promo code to work on the Virgin Expedia portal.

17/18% off once you value the points.

 

[Kandy]

Hey guys

I completed a booking in October, and still have not had the points landed. It has been past their 8 weeks period. On the expedia.virgin site it takes me to a call centre who cannot help. No option to email. Velocity retro claim do not have a section for expedia.
Has anyone had this happen and have ideas on how to sort this out? An email address would be amazing as I am a part of the generation that hates phone calls
I'm SG if that helps

Thanks!

PS- has anyone found agoda still better for points wise in some cases?

 

[Ausbt]

I am a part of the generation that hates phone calls

Thank you for your honesty, but...

If you take the time to read through how people on this site get problems resolved, you'll soon learn that generally every single possible option is engaged. Chat line, email, twitter, phone etc etc etc. And again, and again. I spent 9 months chasing 800 points from one airline (no, it wasn't worth it, but the principle was).

Moving onto your issue it does seem indeed that Retro claims has changed - I cannot see an option for Virgin Hotels either. The contact options at https://expedia.virginaustralia.com/service/ are also sub-standard, however I think calling 61 2 8098 9235 is your best option. I don't think Virgin will be able to help much with this typically slapdash half-butted 'partnership' of which Virgin are so fond. I've almost completely moved over to Booking.com really, but I did enjoy the 9x promotion from mid-last year.

Hope that's woke or whatevs

 

[Kandy]

Chat line, email, twitter, phone etc etc etc. And again, and again. I spent 9 months chasing 800 points from one airline (no, it wasn't worth it, but the principle was).

Moving onto your issue it does seem indeed that Retro claims has changed - I cannot see an option for Virgin Hotels either. The contact options at https://expedia.virginaustralia.com/service/ are also sub-standard, however I think calling 61 2 8098 9235 is your best option.

thanks,
That’s the number I rang last night and they were absolutely useless, put me through to the same department. They asked me to call velocity, so I’ll try that on my day off I suppose.

 

[Ausbt]

thanks,
That’s the number I rang last night and they were absolutely useless, put me through to the same department. They asked me to call velocity, so I’ll try that on my day off I suppose.

And that's the ridiculous bit - flicking you from one to another. I actually had a 7 day book not pass onto a property. I turned up, no booking despite having the confirmation and being able to re-confirm online at Expedia while I was standing in front of Reception! Calls to either Virgin or Expedia were completely useless - the latter simply told the hotel "let him in, the booking is confirmed". Luckily for me, we have a corporate account at that hotel, so yeah they were going to honor it don't worry, but if not...

Also I loved it when I called Virgin to complain and they said "You know we are an airline, right?". Nahh, didn't realise. Only been a platinum for 8 years, what you lot 'ave some planes too?

 

[Mattg]

9 points per $1 is on again until 18 February.

 

[Inlander]

I used the Expedia to books several hotels in USA last November . I got the points in my Velocity account just last week. The fine print does warn you 6-8 weeks delay.