Please Join My Boycott of Virgin America!

Do you see that little search field up in the left-hand corner of this blog? If you enter the word "virgin" you will access the five previous articles I have written mentioning Virgin America, four of which were quite positive.

It has been said that you can suffer no great disappointment with someone or something unless you believed in them or it greatly.

Or if it hasn't been said before, I've just said it.

The first time I flew Virgin, I easily fell for it. Who wouldn't? The airline is as user-friendly as any I've experienced, other than Singapore Airlines, which is my personal all-time favorite.

But I digress.

Here is why Virgin America has made me very sad and mad.

The week before last was spring break for public school students here in San Francisco, and I took the opportunity to let my youngest son drive down to Pasadena with my oldest son to visit the latter's lab at Cal Tech.

In order to get the former home, we had to find a one-way flight from LA to SF that was affordable.

The boys and I searched every airline that flies that route and picked Virgin because it offered a fare (~$185) that was competitive, and a time that worked with our mutual schedules. Plus I and my kids all wanted to support what we thought was a very cool company.

As part of making our choice, we of course investigated whether his age (14, just a week shy of 15) would classify him as an "unaccompanied minor," which would not only be embarrassing to him, but utterly inappropriate, given his many travels by air, here and overseas.

Every other airline site we visited clearly stated that the "unaccompanied minor" age ended when a kid turned 12. Although Virgin's website did not explicitly confirm this (because it said nothing at all about this issue), we assumed that they too conformed to the industry standard.

We were wrong, and that proved to be a very expensive mistake. When my oldest son took my youngest son to LAX to catch his flight home, they were informed that Virgin, alone among all domestic airlines, considers a child an "unaccompanied minor" until he reaches the age of 15.

This led to a whole series of problems for all of us on both ends of this journey, and also to an extra charge of $75!

I can't express how angry this has made me, and all of the members of my family. We feel totally ripped off. If Virgin had had the decency and honesty to have revealed on its website that the true cost of flying from LA to SF for a 14-year-old was not $185 but $260, we would have chosen one of the many alternatives, most likely Southwest.

As it now stands, I have decided to never again fly Virgin America, and I ask anyone who reads this post to join me in this boycott.

What do you think? Your comments are welcome.

p.s. The Virgin representative who helped me fill out all of the ridiculous paperwork to be able to meet my son when he arrived told me she could not believe that her employer was maintaining such a "consumer-unfriendly" (her words) policy.

p.s.s. I think I deserve to get my $75 back. I will cancel this boycott when and if that happens.

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