Volcanic ash compensation

[traymat]

Anyone received their compensation due to the volcanic ash disruptions?

I sent in the compensation claim on the 5th of May and was informed by VS that the claim could take up to 28 days to process. As of today, 22nd of June, still no response.

I fully understand that it may take some time however its been well over the 28 days.

Anyone received anything yet?

[JayPee28bpr]

Traymat,

I can't comment on Virgin's compensation timeliness, but I and my partner had flights on 3 airlines over the initial 6 day volcanic ash disruption. All compensated us within 30 days. The three were Aer Lingus, flybe, and Ryanair. Ryanair even emailed to alert us to the fact that compensation would be delayed past their normal period for settling such matters due to the sheer volume of claims. All 3 paid us within 30 days.

I'd get on to Virgin to ask them what their problem is.

[traymat]

PPRuNe website sometimes works its miracles, :-)

Day after my post, I receive information from VS that the expenses has been approved and will be paid shortly.

[ulxima]

Mine is still on the way.
But I do not know which one.
I booked the flight via TRAVELPACK.
Flight was Air France from London to Hong Kong and return.
Now TravelPack says they submitted the refund request to Air France but they did not received the money yet and they are unable to tell me anything more that "please wait".
I will wait until the middle of July then I will file a complaint to ABTA.
Have you any other suggestion?

Ciao
Ulxima

[BAAlltheway]

If their systems work anything like BA's, I would suggest you could try contacting Air France direct quoting your PNR. They should be able to look up by that, if a refund has been requested, and how far it has got.
BAATW

[ulxima]

Thanks BAAlltheway for the input. :ok:

[BAAlltheway]

More than welcome Ulxima..:)

Unfortunately AF is not my specialist area, so i'm only going by what i Do know about. fingers crossed for you.

I should say that airlines have got waaay more claims than for any other disruption ever, so their normal response times are out the window, hence the long waits in some cases. Obv the smaller the airlines schedule, the less flights, less pax and therefore less claims, which is why some of the larger more global airlines have bigger queues than others.

[ExXB]

If you want to complain you should do so to the UK's NEB (National Enforcement Body) the AUC (http://www.auc.org.uk/).

Complaining to ABTA would be a waste of your time. (They represent Travel Agents, not passengers).

[ulxima]

@ExXB

Right point ExXB :ok:
Thank you.

Ciao
Ulxima

[mrmrsmith]

I emailed my clain the Virgin 12th May , and I'm still waiting, I did email agian after the 28 days was up and below is the auto replay recived, may be of help to others !

Thank you for contacting us.
If your email is regarding reimbursement of hotel and meal expenses
incurred during the 'Volcanic Ash' disruption it will be forwarded to the
Claims Handling team within our Customer Relations department.
We had originally estimated we would process these claims within 28 days of
receipt; however we have found this date slipping simply due to the volume
and the complexity of the claims we have received.
To address this situation we are recruiting more claims handlers and we
hope to have finalised the majority of claims, received before the 7 June
2010, by the end of July. New claims received after this date will be
assessed by the end of August 2010.
Claims are being processed in strict chronological order based on the date
they were received and entered into our claims system. We respectfully
request that customers do not call us requesting their claim be given a
higher priority, as our claims team are unable to do this.
We apologise for this delay and appreciate the continued patience and
support of those customers who are affected.
Yours sincerely

Virgin Atlantic
Customer Relations

PS If your correspondence includes an application for a ticket refund we
will pass this to our refunds team for processing.

In response to:

[donna79rob]

We flew with Viking Airlines and at the time were treated very badly and still all this time later are having issues. I submitted my claim on 27th May after waiting for them to reply to my initial complaint on 26th April. I messsaged again (you can only use there online system) on 26th June and still haven't heard anything. I have tried ringing but have been told that number is only for customers who are booking flights or extras. Does anyone know if they have another phone number? Am I being unresonable to expect this to be a little quicker? (I am still broke from the added expense and also owe some money we had to borrow whilst stranded to my in laws)