More often than not, posts on this blog are about things that go wrong with travel. This story started out that way. Last week I wrote a post about a client whose use of a nickname in booking a ticket with Virgin America led to an expensive “Catch 22” situation and a change fee.
In short, because he used Larry instead of Lazar, the airline refused to let him change the ticket without paying more than he paid for the flights in the first place.
While he paid the money – a $275 penalty – the incident didn’t leave him with a warm and fuzzy feeling about Virgin America, the airline in question.
In this case, however, a Virgin American executive read the post and they decided to do something about it. The day it appeared, I received an email from Jill Fletcher, Social Media and Communcations manager at Virgin America.
She said she had read the post, and wanted to reach out. “Our goal is to be an airline that people love and unfortunately in this case, we fell short of that goal. We could have made an exception in his case and would like to make this right. Can you please put me in touch with this customer so that we can refund the change fee he paid?”
After I gave them the client’s work email address, sure enough, Virgin America backed up their promise:
Within a day, they sent him an apologetic email from customer relations.
“We try to be more understanding and guest-centric than the rest and are sorry that our agents were such sticklers in your situation.
As an expression of our apology we have refunded $311, the additional fees you were accessed for the change, to your Master Card ending 5596. This refund will be processed within 7 business days and should reflect on your statenent within 2 billing cycles.
We also want you to know that we have forwarded this issue to our Call Center Management for internal follow-up so we might prevent this type of situation in the future. It is through guest feedback like yours that we are able to make improvements where our service may be falling short. Your support is extremely important to us. We want you to have full faith in Virgin America and hope that you will give us another chance.”
Needless to say the client was both surprised and happy. The fact that they took the time to respond to a Consumer Traveler post absolutely made him decide he will give them another chance in future. Plus, he has shared the story with his traveling friends.
In the end, besides being a nice story, the situation will probably end up getting Virgin America some extra business. Consumers have gotten so jaded with customer service that any effort to go the extra mile is really noticed.
Considering all the money airlines put into advertising, it’s a wonder more of them the don’t try going the extra mile for customer service more often. (It’s probably cheaper than most of their ads anyway.)
In any case, kudos this time to Virgin America for reading what’s being said about them, reaching out and doing something about it.
Janice Hough is a California-based travel agent a travel blogger and a part-time comedy writer. A frequent flier herself, she’s been doing battle with airlines, hotels, and other travel companies for over three decades. Besides writing for Travelers United, Janice has a humor blog at Leftcoastsportsbabe.com (Warning, the political and sports humor therein does not represent the views of anyone but herself.)
