Virgin Blue customers revolt over retracted gold status

By Ben Grubb on Nov 16, 2009 3:29 PM
Filed under Software

Customers demand compensation.

Virgin Blue customers caught out by a computer glitch that mistakenly upgraded them to gold frequent flyer status claim they will abandon the airline.

On Friday evening, customers of Virgin Blue's Velocity rewards program were emailed a message stating they had been upgraded to gold status.

An email sent approximately three hours later stated the upgrade was a mistake and said customers should "disregard" it. The email joked that Friday the 13th had struck.

A call centre representative blamed the IT department for the error. An official spokesman had been contacted for confirmation of the cause.

Customers revolt

Velocity member, Jennifer, was critical of Virgin Blue's handling of the supposed error.

"The email saying it was an error was dismissive, rude and made a joke of the situation," she said.

That sentiment was shared by others, including fellow passenger Chris.

"I feel Virgin Blue handled this as a joke which really made me unhappy with this group," he said in an email to iTnews. "I am calling and cancelling my card and never flying with Virgin Blue or Virgin Atlantic again."

Others accused the airline of orchestrating the error.

"I think this was all a publicity stunt by Virgin as they are struggling," said one Velocity member, David.

Compensation?

Other members of the Velocity rewards program believed compensation was in order.

"I think the best marketing should do is send a complementary lounge voucher for the member + friend," said one customer, Matt. "It's some sort of compensation for the disappointment, plus shows people the sort of luxury they can anticipate when they do make gold, or join the lounge club."

Velocity member Stephen agreed: "They should be made to honour their commitments or give compensation," he said.

Forgiveness

Velocity member Nick was the only Virgin customer who emailed iTnews' editors commending Virgin for their quick response to the error.

"When I read the retraction email... I was disappointed to learn that I was still only a silver member, but you know what, Virgin Blue give the best service at ridiculously cheap prices," said Nick.

"I'm still a winner and I still feel like Virgin Blue values the business that I do."

Virgin Blue customers revolt over retracted gold status

18 comments in this discussion

"I don't want compensation, I just want the low fares and great service VB is renowned for and continues to offer. However, an annual Gold Sale would be a very Virgin reaction - I like the idea!"

By peterh_oz

Tags

virgin blue, velocity gold, email airline

IDC: Aussie business ill-equipped for IT disasters

Virgin Blue settles over check-in systems outage

Virgin to chase $20m in outage losses

Virgin Blue "error" upgrades passengers to gold status

Breaking Stories

BigPond emails will be stored overseas

Google shapes as digital dividend dark horse

Oracle buys Taleo for $1.76 billion

Scientists tout super-fast hard drives

Alstom Transport eyes single project system

Comments: 18

JamesyR1 Nov 16, 2009 5:01 PM	I received the same offer at 1800hrs Friday evening. A retraction was sent 2000hr, some 2 hours later. No harm caused. They had a banner "Friday the 13th strikes!" :) I agree with Velocity member Nick and saw no harm or impact to me. Everybody makes mistakes. They sent a message explaining the mistake, retracting the offer and an apology. No harm, no damage. VirginBlue offer great service whenever I have used them. Regards Velocity member James :)
DavidJordan Nov 16, 2009 5:14 PM	As soon as I saw it, I thought it was an error. There was no harm apart from some egos at Virgin Blue. People getting there bowels in know about something like this need to get a life.
Digger11 Nov 16, 2009 5:25 PM	I thought Virgin traveller's didn't care about this type of thing as they only cared about price ??? Maybe I've been QFF Platinum too long to understand.
rodzilla Nov 16, 2009 5:45 PM	I received the "upgrade" email but not the "disregard" email. Does that mean I'm REALLY upgraded ? :) "If it looks too good to be true, it invariably is!"
Tok Nov 16, 2009 5:55 PM	Given I've been a Virgin Blue Gold member for a few years, receiving an email telling me I'd just been upgraded was more amusing than anything! Not sure why people think they're entitled to some form of compensation, just because VB gaffed. People are complaining that they should be compensated because of the "disappointment" they felt. With that in mind, I'm getting straight on the phone to Channel 10, and demanding a free HD setup box, to compensate me for the disappointment I felt when they kept switching the X-Files timeslot, and then advertising it and not showing it. You want Gold Class, earn it the hard way. Stop whinging for handouts just because someone made a balls-up.
rrrush Nov 16, 2009 6:12 PM	people are you for real It's a mistake you don't deserve it, get over it. you would never use it to it full advantages.
Micky Nov 16, 2009 7:27 PM	VB stuffed up, be it a Marketing joke, or simply a stuff up, rules and guide lines state the level of points/travel required, if you have not reached the requirement then you fall short! If VB were to run a special offer then thats something different.
Mordd Nov 16, 2009 8:38 PM	Its interesting how technology changes things like this, if it was physical mail outs or physical vouchers given to people and it was a mistake, would they still be able to say its mistake, or would they be forced to honour it then. Was there any reference to standard terms and conditions in the first email sent out I wonder, this is usually where a company would cover themselves with some type of clause stating that as long as they publish information regarding an error within a certain timeframe and using certain methods, that they are not bound to honour the mistake. I agree people asking for compensation for dissapointment is a bit ludicrous, although we can probably blame our largely litigous society for that, as well as the American example, however there are laws around offers made by companies, specifically so they can't do things like this as promotional stunts, or use bait and switch tactics in their advertising to lure people in with false offers. Now im not suggesting this was a bait and switch, however people are right to feel angry at a company when they make a mistake like this, and then try to treat the mistake as a joke or refuse to take proper responsiblity for the mistake and the impact of it. Apart from that in general an offer made in writing is legally enforceable in most circumstances, its just a question of what the rules or laws are around something like this, how long does a company have to issue a retraction, what constitutes a binding offer, etc... No matter what the legalities of the issue though, the fact remains this is causing a lot of (negative?) publicity for Virgin Blue, and in my opinion it is their attempt to make light of it in the retraction email that would seem to be a large contributing factor to the backlash from their customers. Its also important to note that regardless how ludicrous a customers opinion / viewpoint might be, if you ignore the fact that many people will be pissed off by something like this, in the long run you stand to lose a lot of customers, right or wrong I think Virgin Blue should have issued a more sincere apology. If nothing elseand the suggestion of 1 free pass to everyone as compensation is actually a brialliant ploy in my opinion, it would make all the customers affected happy, give positive PR to the company as a result, and act as a tempter for customers to actually pay to upgrade to gold status themselves, and I doubt it would cost the company too much extra money, given that running an airport lounge will have a certain minimum cost regardless of how many people are in there at any one time, although the extra baggage limit benefit is something they might need to exclude from the voucher though, still all in all it could be a incredibly powerful tool to not only resolve the sitation but increase gold club members at the same time.
BrettWinterford Nov 16, 2009 10:27 PM	@Mordd - I do like your first point. Wonder what the impact would have been if this had been sent out in snail mail?
Mordd Nov 16, 2009 10:34 PM	I was pondering whether people would complain more about getting something in the mail 3 days later telling them it was a mistake in the days before email, as opposed to an email 3 hours later, its an interesting sideview to the issue. To be honest though, 3 hours is a pretty fast response, the problem is they obviously rushed it, 4 hours with a more professional apology would probably have had slilghtly less impact, even better is not to automate so many systems that an error like this occurs in the first place, or dont give so many users access rights to tools that send out these mails, lol.
bld70 Nov 17, 2009 12:06 AM	I still think "Gold for a Day" would be a better make-good than just a lounge pass. For one domestic flight, let the masses have Gold perks such as the additional luggage allowance, priority check-in, priority boarding and an extra 2 status credits earned per dollar... as well as access to the lounge. (The luggage could be an issue for a return ticket, but it could be suggested that they use the gold perks on the RETURN leg of their trip and make sure they bring home lots of pressies. ;-) For that matter... Virgin.... are you listening? You could even make it an annual event every November (not a big travel month, I don't think), that a limited number of people per day who were Velocity members on 13/11/2009 can use Gold perks for one flight in November, just use a certain discount code when booking the flight. I know you folks know how to laugh at yourselves. Put it on the line and give your competition something to worry about, not laugh about.
bld70 Nov 17, 2009 12:13 AM	Or, another variant on the "how to laugh at yourself and be nice to customers" above suggestion by me: On 5pm on 13/11 of every year, have a "Gold seats sale" for travel in January. This would work like any other happy hour type sale fare... when the allocated seats are gone, they're gone. Limit it to 1 per customer for fairness' sake. That would help control lounge traffic. Think about the same disappointed customers camping out until 5pm on every 13/11 to snag their Gold-perk-filled flight... it's a better way to commemorate the day, IMHO.
Digger11 Nov 17, 2009 9:26 AM	Are we all looking for jobs in the VB marketing Dept. ?????
Mordd Nov 17, 2009 9:41 AM	You just trolling digger11 or do yuo actually have something to add?
Digger11 Nov 17, 2009 1:38 PM	@Mordd - what is trolling about my comment ? Eveyone is posting valis comments about how VB could turn this inot a marketing success rather than the PR disaster it is becoming. You produce a long ranting psot about what VB should or shouldn't do so stop whinging.
Mordd Nov 17, 2009 5:29 PM	Digger, the difference is I actually express an opinion, whereas your comment is an obvious troll in that all it does is attempt to slander anyone who posted here by suggesting that we must all be VB fanboi's and wanting jobs with their marketing department. In my post I only even mention what they could maybe do to fix the problem as the closing to my post, I spent most of post criticising VB and their handling of the matter. Just because some of us are smart enough to identify what a company could do to fix a problem like this, doesn't mean we work in marketing or want to necessarily, its simply a sign that an intelligent person can make an observation. Now I really shouldn't be taking your bait here since your trolls are so obvious, but I just couldn't help point out that the majority of your posts here add nothing to the discussion and are only ever an attempt to try and inslut other posters. Oh wait except for your comments on AFACT right, I forget when it comes to them you are their fanboi. So its ok for you to make suggestiongs about iiNet but no-one else should make suggestions about other companies, because after all we don't work the companies were commenting on whereas you do work for AFACT. /sarcasm off
anonymous Nov 17, 2009 6:13 PM	@Mordd, how dare you suggest that Digger11 might be trolling. He wouldn't know how to, would he? Even about AFART? More to the point: "If you can't run your IT, perhaps you can't be taken seriously about running an airline".
peterh_oz Nov 19, 2009 11:58 PM	I don't want compensation, I just want the low fares and great service VB is renowned for and continues to offer. However, an annual Gold Sale would be a very Virgin reaction - I like the idea!