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“Terrible Customer Service following holiday complaints”

written by SHerring123 on 11/07/2017

We are really disappointed with the Customer Service we've received from Virgin in regard to complaints from our recent holiday to Orlando.

We booked all aspects of our holiday through Virgin including flights, villa accommodation, park tickets and car. Our holiday party consisted of two OAP's, two adults and two young children (age 2 and 4). This was a big holiday for us, and we had been saving for nearly 3 years to be able to go.

In summary, our complaints were:

Alamo Car Hire (preferred supplier of Virgin) tried to tell us we'd booked a vehicle too small for our needs and tried to push a larger vehicle upon us with additional charges that we didn't need. It was only after we insisted we see the vehicle that we'd booked that she conceded it might be large enough, and it was.

As it was late by the time we'd cleared customs and been delayed by the attempted up-sell of the hire car, it was dark when we left with the hire car. In the morning we saw several dents and scrapes on the vehicle and were worried as a walk-around hadn't been carried out by Alamo. We had to contact Alamo to complain.

The kitchen was under-equipped. It was a self-catering holiday but we were limited with what we could cook.

Both my 2 year old daughter and elderly mother-in-law slipped in the showers. No bath mats were provided. This was hazardous and Virgin have tried to absolve themselves of any responsibility by saying the villa owners are under no obligation to provide basic safety devices. My daughter was in tears every time we showered her afterwards, and there were no baths in the property.

Virgin's response was

'All of the homes are privately owned and as such their furnishings, facilities and décor can vary. There is no obligation on homeowners to provide bath mats and I’m sorry that your mother in law slipped whilst using it and you found the kitchen facilities lacking.'

When they could've both been seriously injured I find this response inadequate.

One of the showers was missing a shower screen which meant it couldn't be used. A note was left saying it would be replaced but it wasn't.

The air conditioning wasn't working correctly upon our arrival (although once reported an engineer was sent out and it was fixed).

Virgin's Customer Service response was very much along the lines that the issues aren't their problem as they use third party providers.

However, they are the providers of the holiday and we booked through them. Although each of our issues on their own may not be terribly significant, when culminated together they negatively affected what should have been an amazing holiday.

In terms of any form of compensation, all we have been offered is £50 from Alamo for the issues with the car hire (which we have yet to receive) and absolutely nothing from Virgin themselves.

When you spend over £7500 on a holiday and it isn't up to standard you expect a bit more than nothing from your holiday provider.

We are so disappointed with Virgin . The Customer Service throughout the initial holiday booking was excellent, but the after-holiday Customer Service has left a very bitter taste in our mouths and definitely changed our overall perception of Virgin Holidays.