Questions and Answers

A few months ago I managed to snag a round-trip business class fare on Virgin Atlantic SJC-LAX-LHR-LAX-SJC. My original routing is attached and with the exception of the SJC-LAX segments, the metal is Virgin Atlantic and the ticket stock is also Virgin Atlantic (not Delta) BUT the transaction was processed by Priceline so they have control of the ticket (for now).

Fast forward a few months and (understandably) Virgin Atlantic has a schedule change on the return flight (LHR-LAX) that results in a misconnect to SJC. I’ve made several attempts to reschedule with Priceline but they only offer Delta segments via ATL, DTW or MSP for the long-haul international portion of the itinerary and repeatedly assert that Virgin Atlantic will not give them waiver codes to be rebooked on another Virgin Atlantic flight (my preferred would be still LHR-LAX as they have an earlier option).

Additionally, this was a mistake fare I think (as it was only $1800 total) so Virgin is disinclined to work this out with me, they even offered a full refund on an otherwise unrefundable fare.

Virgin Atlantic will not deal with me directly because this was booked with Priceline but is there any duty of care that Atlantic has to handle this issue or am I really stuck with a Delta return if that is all they continue to offer? Any suggestions as to how I might handle this other than continued calls to Priceline hoping for a different option?

Ouch, that’s a pretty crappy situation, sorry to hear. Personally this is one of the reasons I generally try to avoid online travel agencies — it’s just another company which can blame problems on someone else.

Have you tried getting Virgin Atlantic and Priceline on a three way call, or otherwise Tweeting either/both? Social media is pretty powerful nowadays in terms of getting stuff like that solved.