First, my apologies for a rant, but need to get this off my chest. I hope you understand.
Currently on the Gold Coast and had booked our 2 grandsons (age 13 & 15) on a flight from MEL today for a few days of school holidays with us. Due to other circumstances their mother had to book her flight separately, but she was on the same flight, same row, as the boys.
My mistake was that I booked the boys as adults, but when placing their names on the booking, entered their prefix as Mstr, not Mr. As a result their mother could not do online checkin as it appeared they were travelling alone as minors, and she had to visit the airport Service Desk.
Mum arrived early and had to wait in a lengthy queue, and despite trying to get help from multiple staff, finally got told the flight had closed. The complicating issue with this is that we received repeated messages from Virgin that the 0920 flight was delayed, and that the eta for Gold Coast arrival was about 1 pm, instead of 1125. So she did not feel the need to push a bit harder to get help as these were the messages she was receiving from Virgin. When she got to the desk, just told the flight had closed! Then just before 9am, the message changed to a departure by about 0930!
After all this, there were no other flights available due to the Grand Final crowd returning north and school holidays. They are now booked for travel the next day.
I appreciate the issues that airlines have to deal with, however all the messages from Virgin were that the flight was going to be delayed, hence the lack of urgency. It was very misleading information. I have also learnt never to always call my grandkids Mister rather than Master, lesson learned!
Thank you all.
Currently on the Gold Coast and had booked our 2 grandsons (age 13 & 15) on a flight from MEL today for a few days of school holidays with us. Due to other circumstances their mother had to book her flight separately, but she was on the same flight, same row, as the boys.
My mistake was that I booked the boys as adults, but when placing their names on the booking, entered their prefix as Mstr, not Mr. As a result their mother could not do online checkin as it appeared they were travelling alone as minors, and she had to visit the airport Service Desk.
Mum arrived early and had to wait in a lengthy queue, and despite trying to get help from multiple staff, finally got told the flight had closed. The complicating issue with this is that we received repeated messages from Virgin that the 0920 flight was delayed, and that the eta for Gold Coast arrival was about 1 pm, instead of 1125. So she did not feel the need to push a bit harder to get help as these were the messages she was receiving from Virgin. When she got to the desk, just told the flight had closed! Then just before 9am, the message changed to a departure by about 0930!
After all this, there were no other flights available due to the Grand Final crowd returning north and school holidays. They are now booked for travel the next day.
I appreciate the issues that airlines have to deal with, however all the messages from Virgin were that the flight was going to be delayed, hence the lack of urgency. It was very misleading information. I have also learnt never to always call my grandkids Mister rather than Master, lesson learned!
Thank you all.
