- S.B couldn’t access her tickets using link provided, but also couldn’t get a refund
On 1 August 2024, I ordered two tickets for the motoring and music festival CarFest.
These were ordered as a present for my friend via Virgin Experience Days and I paid £201.99. The event in Hampshire was due to happen on 24 August.
The voucher arrived shortly after I paid, with instructions to activate the tickets online.
I entered the codes from the voucher on the Virgin website, and was then told to visit another link to get the tickets – but the link didn’t work.
Petrol heads: Our reader and a friend were keen to go to CarFest, but when she tried to redeem her tickets the computer said no… and then she couldn’t get a refund for her £200
I asked for help from Virgin six times between 5 and 12 August, but just kept getting told to go to the same link. I also asked my son-in-law to see if he could access the link, but he couldn’t.
We were promised a reply by 14 August, and when it didn’t arrive we became worried that we wouldn’t get our tickets in time and the money would be wasted.
So on 16 August, we cancelled the tickets via the ‘help’ function on the Virgin website and asked for a refund.
I had also contacted CarFest, and on the same day I cancelled it got in touch to say the problem was now sorted and I would receive an email containing the tickets.
These would now have been useless as they had been cancelled, but regardless, the email never actually arrived.
We didn’t get to go to the festival, and so far we have still not had a refund as Virgin says the voucher code was ‘used’. Please can you help? S.B
Helen Crane, This is Money’s consumer champion, replies: It sounds as if your booking with Virgin was quite the experience – but sadly not in the way you had hoped.
Virgin Experience Days sells days out of all kinds, from afternoon tea to hot air balloon rides and race car driving.
Most people who buy one are doing so as a present, with the experience then sent as a gift voucher to the lucky recipient.
But the experiences aren’t provided directly by Virgin, so often the recipient needs to get in touch with the third-party organiser to exchange their voucher for tickets, as in your case, or to book a date and time to attend the experience.
In your case, you received the voucher yourself and were going to get the tickets for the event at Laverstoke Park in Hampshire for both you and your friend.
It was set to be a fun day out with motors aplenty and artists including Richard Ashcroft from The Verve, Olly Murs and UB40 on the bill.
But sadly, swapping the voucher for the tickets was where your efforts stalled.
You duly copied the codes from your physical voucher in to the Virgin website, but the link to get the tickets on the CarFest website didn’t work.
You contacted Virgin repeatedly to ask for help, but were met with the same response – or none at all. They simply told you to visit the same, non-working link.
You then contacted CarFest directly, but when you didn’t hear back within a couple of days you made the tough decision to cancel the tickets, a week out from the event.
You didn’t want the date of the festival to pass, and risk not being allowed a refund – and your friend was worried about organising travel at such short notice.
Up in the air: Perhaps Virgin Experience Days’ most famous offering is its hot air balloon flights
Virgin does offer refunds up to 30 days after the voucher is purchased – as long as it hasn’t been redeemed. But as you had entered your voucher code on the website, you were told your it had been ‘used’ and therefore you couldn’t easily get your money back.
You had weeks of painful back and forth with an online chat with a Virgin customer service person, who kept telling you they would contact CarFest on your behalf – but no refund ever materialised.
To add insult to injury, you got an email from See Tickets – the ticketing company that would have provided the tickets if you ever received them – the day after CarFest finished, asking you if you enjoyed it.
You got in touch with me to ask if I could help, and I contacted Virgin to ask it what was so difficult about providing a simple £200 refund.
It told me the reason you couldn’t activate the tickets was due to a ‘system issue’.
That is out of their control, but it doesn’t explain why you were given the run-around by customer services and why a refund couldn’t be granted more quickly when you asked for one.
However, I am glad to say Virgin has now been in contact and you have been refunded the £201.99 paid.
A spokesman for Virgin Experience Days said: ‘We are incredibly sorry for the inconvenience and disappointment caused when [she] and her son were trying to activate her CarFest voucher.
‘It seems there was a system issue when the voucher was redeemed and cancelled, so it has taken longer than usual to process the refund.
‘We remain in contact with [the customer] and our escalated care team has issued a refund. We strive to resolve any customer enquiry as quickly as possible, and are very sorry for [her] experience in this instance.
You told me: ‘Virgin Experience? More like Virgin Palaver. Needless to say I will never book another one.’