What if you want to cancel your Virgin Holiday

Many of us have a holiday booked with Virgin Holidays for the next few months. With the uncertainty still around Covid-19, do normal rules apply? What if you want to cancel? Will you get a refund? Can you cancel? What are your options?

Can I cancel my Virgin Holiday?

Of course you can cancel your Virgin Holiday. Before you do though, make sure you are aware of the cost of cancelling your Virgin Holiday. There are many reasons why you should not cancel yourself and hold your nerve – wait for Virgin to cancel your holiday. Then you will be entitled to a full refund.

Virgin Holidays are still dragging their heels with holiday cancellations and taking a longer time than necessary to process refunds.

There are still reports of spending hours on hold on the phone only to be cut of before getting to speak to someone.

Virgin are also offering a voucher before cancelling the holiday.

DO NOT CANCEL YOUR VIRGIN HOLIDAY BEFORE YOU HAVE READ THIS.

If you have a holiday booked with Virgin Holidays or any package holiday that is not cancelled, but you don’t want to go, DO NOT cancel it yourself without reading the info below to find out why.

There is also a booked with LoveHolidays special guide here.

Why would you need to cancel your holiday?

• Cost of Covid tests. The UKs traffic light system, apart from subject to short notice changes, even GREEN Category countries require you to fork out hundreds of pounds in testing, on top of your budgeted spend.
• Safety. Even if International travel is allowed to resume, there are many places that we would not feel comfortable travelling to so soon. Las Vegas is one of those places. May 2021 and Vegas is healing but masks are still mandatory (in 40 degree June heat), limited buffets and no shows yet mean it is not somewhere we would want to go.
• Money. Finances have taken a big hit, even though we were prepared for a sudden drop in income, this is beyond preparation. Las Vegas spending money is not a priority.
• Time. When our working life gets back to normal, we will be busy working (and earning much needed money). A week off is the last thing we need.
• Family. There are family and friends that we have not seen now for so long, the first few months after lockdown will be spent spending time with them.
• Other reasons. My youngest son was booked for Vegas too for his 21st birthday with a friend, before joining the Army. He certainly would not be able to choose dates to rebook.

What are the Virgin holidays cancellation rules?

If Virgin cancel your holiday then you receive a full refund.

If you cancel your holiday then normal cancellation rules for Virgin holidays apply. The amount of refund is based on the number of days before travel that you cancel.

More than 84 days	Loss of deposit
57-84 days	30%
37-56 days	50%
22-36 days	70%
7-21 days	90%
Less than 7 days	100%

What flight or holiday changes mean you can cancel and get a full refund?

Keep your eye out for any of the situations which mean you can cancel for free. These are detailed in the How to get a refund for a cancelled flight post. Basically if any ‘significant change’ is made to your booking then you have the right to not accept the change and are due a full refund if you want.

Significant changes include:

• Any change to your flight time of 3 hours or more for flight only, 12 hours for package.
• Any change of Airport to a different City. So Manchester – Heathrow yes. Gatwick to Heathrow no.
• Significant change to your accommodation.

Have a look at the T&Cs to see what else is classed as a significant change. Virgins T&Cs are here.

So it’s worth holding on and see if any of these changes happen nearer to your departure date.

If you have a booking from Manchester to Las Vegas, or out of Gatwick, log in to Manage my booking. Many customers have had their flight auto moved to Heathrow. With cabin class downgrades and seat selection changes. No notifications have been received. There’s a special Booked from Manchester post here if you booked to fly from now pulled Manchester Airport.

Virgin holidays rebook with confidence email – beware

Virgin Holidays are emailing customers whose holidays are upcoming a ‘rebook with confidence’ letter, if you take this voucher you have no furture option to then get a refund. The email says;

Hello Tracy,   —   We hope you’re keeping safe and well at home. We’re contacting all our customers to let them know the current status of their booking, their choices at this time and the best ways to contact us.

We’re reaching out right now because, although your holiday has not been cancelled, our flexible policy does mean you are able to rebook your holiday for a later time with no change fee. If you’d like to take up this option, you can let us know by filling in this form, and we’ll call you back to get this changed for you.

It’s worth noting that if the situation changes and your existing holiday can no longer go ahead under our policy, you would then be eligible for a full refund and we will contact you again via email if this is the case.

Right now, our contact centre is only open to inbound calls from people who are due to travel in the next 72 hours, so we’re unable to help you right away. Rest assured, we will be in touch with you via email if there’s any information about your trip you need to know. Please be aware we’re working through an unprecedented number of rebooking requests. But we will get to you, we promise.

Many thanks for all your understanding and patience.

Should you take the voucher instead of cancelling your holiday?

This is not something to be done lightly, you need to do your homework. If you can rebook with Virgin Holidays at a decent price then yes, go for it. Bear in mind though –

• There is no cancellation option.
• The change fee that they have waived is £150 per person so that helps.
• You have to pay the price difference for the new booking.

We looked at the same Las Vegas Holiday for the same dates the next year and the price was over £2000 more. So we waited until Virgin cancelled and got our refund.

Same for 2022, Virgin Holiday prices are still way too high. The same 6 nights flying Virgin Premium Economy and a 1 bedroom fountain terrace suite at the Cosmpolitan is over £5,000.

We are still going to Vegas but have booked the Flights and hotel seperately using Avios. Same trip for under £3,000

Why don’t they just cancel the booking and give refunds?

The whole travel industry is collapsing, cashflow is non existent and all travel companies are trying to protect their businesses by keeping hold of the money they have, whilst having no income from new bookings for the foreseeable future.

They will leave the cancellation until the last possible minute. This is really unhelpful as you have to plan, you have parking, excursions etc booked but you just have to be patient.

What happens when Virgin cancel your holiday?

Virgin will cancel your holiday at the last possible moment, this could be as near as 2 weeks before your departure date, as we have experienced, twice.

When you finally receive confirmation of cancellation then you are entitled to a full refund. Leaglly this must be paid within 14 days. Of course this is still not happening. Although it is not taking 3 or 4 months, 60 days is not uncommon.

When you recieve the cancellation email, you will have to look really hard for the refund option. It is hidden. They email you a voucher for the full amount and the email is 95% about using the voucher. Do not be fooled, you can email back requesting a full refund.

Are our experiences with Virgin Holidays similar to yours?

We had a Las Vegas holiday booked with Virgin for June 2020. Virgin cancelled our holiday on 30th May 2020, only 2 weeks before departure. We got a full refund.

Virgin told us that refunds were expected to take 3 to 4 months, not the legally required 14 days. We had booked by credit card (for the Air miles of course) and after the 14 days were up we were able to contact our credit card provider and request a Section 75 refund. The refund was in our account in 4 days.

Please please please always pay for at least a small part of your holiday with a credit card. Have a read here about this FREE and valuable Section 75 protection. Virgin did eventually refund our card 4 MONTHS later, which was of course kept by Amex. Anyone paying by debit card or Direct Debit would have had to wait.

Have a read of our how to get a refund for a cancelled flight or holiday.

We rebooked Las Vegas for the end of June 2021. The deposit paid was £350. The balance of £3000 was due early April. When we contacted Virgin on the due date we were told that balances for Virgin Holidays were now due 6 weeks before departure not 12 weeks – we hadn’t been informed in any way so do check your ‘manage my booking’ if you are in a similar situation.

This left us even more in limbo though as the balance was due 15th May. Would we have to pay the balance and wait for it to be cancelled? What if it wasn’t cancelled? Would we still have to go even if we couldn’t?

We could only wait. Then…… we follow some fab Las Vegas Twitter accounts and Steve (Las Vegas UK) posted that Virgin had cancelled all direct flights to Las Vegas for June 2021. We got straight onto VirginAtlantics Twitter and got confirmation from them that the flights were indeed cancelled.

We then sent a WhatsApp to Virgin Holidays asking them to confirm that our deposit would be refunded and that the balance was not payable due to the flights being cancelled. Virgin Holidays (eventually) replied saying we would be informed in due course. Not very helpful, but 3 days later we got a message saying our holiday was cancelled.

Wherever you are going – keep an eye on the live flight information – try Skyscanner to check availability you will find out sooner if your flight (therefore your holiday) has been cancelled.

How do you contact Virgin Holidays?

Same as last year, be prepared for long waits on the phone and for WhatsApp and Text replies

• Phone 03444729646 (I’ve put no spaces on purpose so you can just click) This is the least efficient way, you will wait for ages.
• WhatsApp 02033223289 again the waits are long but at least you can do other things.
• Text – You have to do this through the contact us form on the website.
• In branch – probably best not doing this though, I really feel for the staff, let them get back to booking holidays not dealing with annoyed customers, it’s not their fault.

Will Virgin go bust?

Virgin Australia went into voluntary administration. There was a chance that Virgin Atlantic would follow, however Virgin pulled out all the stops and did what was necessary to survive through the last 2 years of the Pandemic.

Happily Virgin are in a much more stable position in 2022

Virgin Atlantic employs over 30,000 people worldwide. The airline and holiday experience is excellent. For all those wonderful staff to lose their livelihoods would be devastating, and for us to have no other option than British Airways would be grim. We need healthy competition and choice for our travel.

What would happen to my holiday if Virgin goes bust?

This is unlikely and not something to worry about, it is the same process for any holiday firms that go bust

• Your holiday will be immediately cancelled
• You will be due a full refund – as the holiday is protected by ATOL, though this will take a while.
• You will be able to claim the refund quicker by doing a Section 75 chargeback on your credit card.

Can I claim on my holiday insurance if I decide to cancel?

This is where you will have to contact your insurer as terms and conditions vary. Always get decent travel insurance as soon as you book. Have a read of our guides which cover travel insurance inclusions and cancellation info. However none of the reasons listed at the start would be covered unless;

• Safety. The FCO advises against travel to the Country
• Money. You are now unemployed from a job you have been in for over 12 months.
• Time. No exceptions
• Family / Health. You would be covered if you or a close family member is ill with a non pre-existing condition.

So what can you do if you still can’t go on your Virgin Holiday?

Wait it out and hope that Virgin Holidays cancel your holiday.

Don’t hope for them going bust (even though you’ll get a refund) as we should be doing all we can to save this fantastic, customer focussed Airline.

A world without Virgin Airlines would be a less fun world.

Let me know what you are doing with your Holiday, will you cancel or wait? Where were you going? Leave us a comment, share your experience as this will help other readers.

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