Money Making Airline Industry -
 

I am one of the miserable passenger who was not allowed to board the flight few hours before departure. I wanted to share my suffering as well as the financial crisis undergone by one decision from the Virgin Atlantic, not allowing me to board the flight.

At the time of my arrival at the JFK airport, few hours before my flight departure, I provided all my documents to the supervisor in charge of issuing boarding pass. I provided with my passport in addition to other documents.

The supervisor after looking at my documents refused to issue me a boarding pass and told me that my visa is not valid and a determination was made that I won't be able to board the flight. Even when I am a passport holder of the destination country I was traveling to. Upon my continuous requests, the supervisor denied all my explanation. I almost had tears in my eyes but he didn't help me with anything. Since my flight was a round trip, I asked if I would be able to take the flight back to US. The supervisor refused saying that it’s our policy that you cannot take a round trip flight if you are not boarding from here. You have to plan your own arrangements and get a flight with other airline.

I went through all airlines at the airport asking for assistance with my travel but I guess I wasn't lucky enough to get a seat in any plane. I ended up calling a travel consultant to help me with my travel and have me land on a same day flight as I had some of my own personal travel emergencies. I spent hours on phone trying to find a flight which could make me reach my country on time. After going through so much pain, the consultant was able to find one flight flying that day but my worry doesn't end here. The only seat available on that plane was a business class seat costing a hefty sum of 5,000 dollars. Still in the trauma of what I had gone through, I probably thought 10 times before purchasing this ticket but on the other hand, due to my emergencies I had to travel no matter what. I ended up buying the ticket which broke my entire financial budget. I also had to buy another flight on my way back which also cost me a lot of money.

Had I known about the issue with this airline, I would not have booked this flight. This above case was presented to Virgin Atlantic and all I hear is sorry we cannot help for your loss.

Not to mention my seat was given to another passenger by charging him another hefty amount for booking the flight few hours before schedule. Is this how airlines are making money now ! This greed needs to end !

What was your destination country (country of passport)?
Curious if the problem (which should have been told to you at JFK if this was the case) was one of the following.
1. The country of your passport requires a VISA to transit the UK (which I am assuming you were doing if you were flying Virgin.
2. Going back to transitting UK, a visa should not have been an issue if you were not having to stay over night at (assuming Heathrow) London and were not switching airports in London. (if you landed at Heathrow and had to switch to Gatwick or another London airport, then you would have had to clear UK customs and needed a Visa (I ran into this issue once landed at Heathrow and had to transfer the same day to Gatwick, was required to clear UK customs in order to go over to Gatwick airport).
3. After the having to switch airports that one time and dealing with UK customs, you might try in the future connecting (if possible) in either Frankfurt, Madrid or even Paris, Zurich can be easy if you can get Swissair all the way to your country).
Hope this helps, good luck with Virgin Atantic

Virgin Atlantic
 

Thanks so much for taking time and replying to my post. My destination country was India. I only had a 2 hour stopover at Heathrow to the connecting flight going to Delhi, India.

I was supposed to fly with my sister, she was able to travel even though she had no transit visa to UK. Just that her US visa was valid and mine was expired but I had the extension which they neglected to look. I cannot get US visa in US so I had to travel to India to get my visa issued based on the extension.

I ended up paying 7000 dollars for my trip to India and when I reached out to Virgin Atlantic they are saying that my documents were incomplete and they can't do anything. Just annoyed with what happened. I reached out to US customs and border protection and also showed my documents and they are in my favor. Was wondering if a lawsuit will help me get compensated on the above. I can still go online on Virgin and book a ticket without any documentation but these things are never mentioned in the website. My hard luck that I had to go through this pain.

P.S. They also told me that I cannot travel on my way back to US even if I have a valid US visa which concerns me that something is wrong on Virgin Atlantic side. I ended up paying my return as well with a different carrier (Turkish).

Please let me know the best course of action.