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Earlier this year, I booked a Virgin Australia Business Class ticket from Melbourne to Sunshine Coast via Sydney. A few hours before I was due to depart, I received an email from Virgin Australia advising that my first flight from Melbourne to Sydney had been cancelled.
Virgin automatically rebooked me on a direct flight from Melbourne to Sunshine Coast, without offering me any alternatives. The new flight was in Economy Class.
I would have preferred to take a different flight to Sydney and complete the trip in Business Class, as booked. Unfortunately, no Business Class seats were available on any alternative flights. So, I flew in Economy on VA1031.
The email didn’t provide a reason for the cancellation of VA827. I later learned it was due to crew shortages.
The quest for compensation begins…
The email I received from Virgin Australia on the morning of the flight did not mention that I had been downgraded. None of the Virgin Australia staff I interacted with at the airport or on board seemed to be aware of this either. (That said, the cabin manager remembered me from a previous Darwin-Melbourne flight and provided excellent service.)
At no point did Virgin provide me with any information about whether I would receive a refund for the difference between the Business and Economy airfares. I assumed I would automatically receive a partial refund. But after hearing nothing for over a week I decided to look up Virgin Australia’s Guest Compensation Policy.
This is what it says in section 6 about involuntary cabin downgrades:
What happens if VA downgrades me from the cabin class I originally purchased?
In the rare event we downgrade you from the cabin class you originally purchased to a lower cabin class, you may request a refund of the difference between the fare class you paid for and the fare class you travelled in by contacting our Guest Contact Centre or your travel agent. The Fare difference will be calculated based on the price of the equivalent fare at the time you made your booking.
According to the above policy, a refund of the fare difference is something you “may request”. So, I called Virgin Australia and did just that.
The Guest Contact Centre advised that they could not calculate the refund amount owing, so put in a request with the “accounts team”. They told me that I would hear back within 21 days, in line with Virgin Australia’s compensation policy.
It took two months to receive a refund
More than six weeks passed after I submitted a refund request, without receiving any further correspondence from Virgin Australia. So, I called again. The agent informed me that Virgin still hadn’t processed my claim, but they promised to follow it up.
Six days after that phone call, I received a $310 refund to my credit card from Virgin Australia.
I did not receive an email, phone call or any other communication from Virgin Australia advising that this had been processed. Virgin also never explained how they calculated the refund amount. But it was roughly the difference between the cost of my Business Class ticket and an Economy Choice fare on the same flight.
So, I received a partial refund in the end. But it was not automatic, I had to follow up multiple times and the communication from Virgin Australia was non-existent. All in all, this was a disappointing experience.
I felt that the refund amount was at least reasonable. However, it doesn’t account for the added inconvenience of being involuntarily downgraded at short notice. In other jurisdictions, such as the European Union, airlines must pay significant additional compensation for this. But no such laws exist in Australia.
If airlines can simply refund the fare difference and owe nothing more, what’s to stop them from routinely overselling Business Class?
“Not consistent” with Virgin Australia’s processes
I later got in touch with Virgin Australia’s PR department to ask if my experience was in line with company policy. To my relief, Virgin told me that my experience was “not consistent with our current processes”.
The airline said that in the rare instance it has to downgrade somebody, it “will endeavour to proactively refund the difference in fares”. According to Virgin, it normally processes refunds to the guest’s original payment method within two weeks.
Virgin Australia confirmed that the refund amount for involuntary cabin downgrades is calculated as the difference between the Business fare originally paid and the lowest Economy Choice fare that was available on the same route at the time of booking.
Over the past year, numerous other AFF members have also been downgraded by Virgin Australia. They’ve shared their own experiences on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum:
