In early 2011 I was given 2 vouchers for a ballon flight by my brother, as a birthday present. The vouchers were restricted to weekday flights (excluding weekends). We booked for a flight in June. I was an early morning flight, so we also booked a hotel the night before, and took a day off work the following day. At around midnight we called the number provided, from the hotel, and found that the flight had been cancelled due to high winds. So it was a wasted journey, hotel booking and day off work.
On return, I upgraded the vouchers to allow us to book a flight at any time, including weekends (paying about £25 extra per voucher). We intended to book flight in the spring of but in view of the bad weather we didn't do so. Now, in July I have just tried to make a booking but have found that our vouchers expired in June.
I called Virgin to ask for an extension, but was told categorically, by both the customer services agent and by her supervisor, that the vouchers had expired. No refunds are available, so Virgin have pocked the money (around £350 in total), not to mention the cost of the hotel, day off work etc.
Apparently I could pay another £80 per voucher to get an extension, but that seems like throwing good money after bad!
The moral of this story is that you should read the small print and not expect to get a ballon flight just because you have vouchers. I've since found a number of similar cases online, of people who have made multiple bookings, each one being cancelled due to weather etc., until their booking period runs out. The extension fee of £80 is prohibitive. The fact that Virgin do not offer a refund of any sort in these circumstances strikes me as unfair at the very least.
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