Janice Dittman expected a full refund when she canceled her Virgin Atlantic flight from San Francisco to London. Instead, the carrier credited her for the taxes and offered no apologies for pocketing the rest of her money.
When Beth Langston faints at the airport and is taken to the hospital, her nonrefundable trip to London is the first casualty. Is her refund DOA?
Kathleen and Eugene Bianucci paid $5,770 for a pair of round-trip tickets between San Francisco and Dublin this year on Virgin Atlantic Airways. A few days before their trip, Kathleen, a fitness instructor from San Bruno, Calif., broke her leg and had to be hospitalized for a week. Her doctor grounded her for six months, and when she told the airline about the accident, a representative promised her a full refund.
Question: I am having a problem with Virgin Atlantic Airways over a refund for two tickets I purchased last year. My husband and I planned to travel to England in August, but he had a serious stroke and his doctor advised him not to travel for at least six months.
When Sylvia Dawson tried to book airline tickets from New York to London for a group traveling next month, she was taken aback by the fare.
“We were told by Virgin Atlantic that there would be a fuel surcharge of $98 per person,” she says.
Dawson isn’t a novice who would be shocked by news like that. She’s a travel agent who specializes in tours to England, and books a lot of flights over the pond. The reservation was for a group of 20 clients headed to the U.K. on a tour.
“We know that the price of oil has skyrocketed,” she says. “But this group has been booked with Virgin since the beginning of the year. It seems that the increase is somewhat over the top.”
Worse, her group couldn’t pull out of the trip without incurring heavy penalties. The airline had them over a barrel, figuratively speaking. Either they would pay 14 percent more for the price of their tickets or lose their vacations.
Fuel surcharges are a peculiar thing. On domestic flights, the price of fuel must be included in the base fare quoted to passengers. But international flights aren’t regulated the same way, and an airline can quote a low base fare but then add a “fuel surcharge” later.
Is Virgin Atlantic out of line?
