Virgin Atlantic - expiration of reward miles, no-one cares (long)

[BeaucoupFish]

Several years ago, I was a frequent trans-Atlantic flyer, flying from the UK once or twice a month for business. I was a huge fan of Virgin Atlantic, and chose to fly with them almost exclusively and was soon a Gold-level Flying Club member with a large balance of reward miles.

After I moved to the US, I barely made one flight a year, often none.

This year, I decided to plan a couple of trips back to the UK, and finally use some of my reward miles. I had a feeling these miles would be expiring soon, and it turned out I was right: when I logged on to view my options, I had missed the deadline by a matter of a few weeks.

Unfortunately for me, Virgin Atlantic's customer service reps took the hardest of lines, and a zero sympathy policy went into effect. While the responsibility of keeping my account active is clearly my own responsibility, this whole situation has been extremely disappointing to me for many reasons:

- When I was a frequent flyer, I was fanatical about VA! There are not many major businesses I am passionate about, in fact VA may be the only one. I loved that airline! Along with many similar-minded travellers during the early days, I felt that my business contributed somewhat to VA's success. This loyalty is of no concern to the customer service reps, and neither, apparently, is any potential future business from me either.

- VA's early-days attitude of being a new, exciting, "screw the rules" airline and beating the bigger players (BA / AA) at their own game is in stark contrast to the recent "rules are rules" attitude I have been given, makes me truly [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] They have evolved into exactly what they were trying to beat.

- I did not discover this months too late: I missed the expiration date by a matter of a few weeks. VA does not send any notification that your miles are due to expire. When you have no recent activity, they do not send statements either (I was told the last statement sent was in 2004).

- I am not quibbling over some trivial rewards, like an upgrade ticket. I have (or had) sufficient miles to make two separate upper class trans-Atlantic trips, which cost over $13k to purchase each. This loss is somewhere in the region of $25k-$30k!!!

- Note that keeping your account in good standing does not need any actual air travel. Had I logged on the previous month instead, I could have spent a mere $50, or a few hundred miles, on flowers from FTD.com, or any other partner, and had my expiration date reset for another three years.


I feel ripped off, and disgusted at the "don't give a crap" attitude from their Customer Service, but more than anything, that my intense loyalty of choosing to only flying with Virgin during my travelling years to have been a complete waste of loyalty. I feel used....

Ok, so this wasn't meant to (just be) a rant, I just wondered whether anyone had any similar experience, advice on solving the problem, or am I being completely unreasonable to expect any courtesy to have been extended in this case?

Their customer service has ignored my requests for a contact number, and all communication has been by email (and I poured my heart into these emails!). The numbers given on the web site are for Flying Club representives who were quite sympathetic, and told me that since I had such a large balance that, while they could not make any changes themselves, to continue to email customer support to make the adjustment. Only sadness and disappointment followed.

<font color="blue">
tldr: Large balance frequent flyer miles (valued at $25k+) expired without notification (by design)...discovered very shortly after expiration...zero sympathy from VA's customer service...OP is very sad</font>

[El Diablo]

BCF,

You should post this over at flyertalk.com.

[StevieG]

This is definitely a scenario that would make one regret giving a company loyalty int he first place.

Thanks for the reminder to check on some balances and terms. Many reward programs have added expiration and it's a good idea to check up on the programs where there are big balances sitting there.

[BeaucoupFish]

[ QUOTE ]
BCF,

You should post this over at flyertalk.com.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good link, thanks!