I missed CarFest due to technical issues with the voucher: Why won’t Virgin Experience Days refund me? TAP ON THE CASE

On August 1, 2024, I ordered two tickets for the car and music festival CarFest.

These were ordered as a gift for my friend through Virgin Experience Days and I paid £201.99. The Hampshire event was due to take place on August 24.

The voucher arrived shortly after I paid, with instructions to activate the tickets online.

I entered the voucher codes into Virgin’s website and was then told to visit another link to get the tickets – but the link didn’t work.

I asked for help from Virgin six times between August 5 and 12, but was always told to go to the same link. I also asked my son-in-law if he could access the link, but he couldn’t.

We were promised an answer before August 14th, and when it didn’t arrive we became concerned that we wouldn’t get our tickets on time and that the money would be wasted.

So on August 16, we canceled the tickets via the ‘help’ function on Virgin’s website and requested a refund.

I had also contacted CarFest and on the same day I canceled I got in touch to say that the issue had now been resolved and that I would receive an email with the tickets.

These would have been useless now as they had been cancelled, but either way the email never actually arrived.

We haven’t been able to go to the festival and so far we still haven’t received a refund as Virgin says the voucher code has been ‘used’. Can you please help? S.B

Helen Crane, This is Money’s Consumer Champion, replies: It sounds like your booking with Virgin was quite an experience, but unfortunately not in the way you had hoped.

Virgin Experience Days sells all kinds of days, from afternoon tea to hot air balloon rides and race car driving.

Most people who buy one do so as a gift, with the experience then sent as a gift card to the lucky recipient.

But the experiences are not offered directly by Virgin, so often the recipient must contact the third-party organizer to exchange their voucher for tickets, as in your case, or to book a date and time to join the experience live.

In your case you received the voucher yourself and you would buy the tickets for the event in Laverstoke Park in Hampshire for both you and your friend.

It promised to be a fun day out with plenty of motorcycles and artists such as Richard Ashcroft of The Verve, Olly Murs and UB40 on the program.

But unfortunately, exchanging the voucher for the tickets was the point where your efforts stalled.

You copied the codes from your physical voucher to the Virgin website, but the link to get the tickets on the CarFest website didn’t work.

You’ve contacted Virgin repeatedly to ask for help, only to get the same response – or none at all. They simply told you to visit the same, broken link.

You then contacted CarFest directly, but when you didn’t hear back within a few days, you made the difficult decision to cancel the tickets a week before the event.

You didn’t want to miss the date of the festival and risk not getting a refund – and your friend was worried about organizing trips at such short notice.

Virgin offers refunds up to 30 days after the voucher has been purchased as long as it has not been redeemed. But because you entered your voucher code into the website you were told 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 representative, who kept telling you they would contact CarFest on your behalf – but a refund never materialized.

To make matters worse, the day after CarFest ended you got an email from See Tickets – the ticket company that would have provided the tickets if you ever received them – asking if you enjoyed them.

You contacted me to ask if I could help, and I contacted Virgin to ask what was so difficult about providing a simple £200 refund.

I was told that the reason you couldn’t activate the tickets was due to a ‘system problem’.

That’s beyond their control, but it doesn’t explain why you were hassled by customer service and why a refund couldn’t be issued more quickly when you requested one.

However, I am pleased to say that Virgin have now made contact and have refunded you the £201.99 you paid.

A spokesperson for Virgin Experience Days said: ‘We are extremely sorry for the inconvenience and disappointment caused when (she) and her son attempted to activate her CarFest voucher.

‘It appears there was a system issue when the voucher was redeemed and cancelled, causing the refund to take longer than normal to process.

“We remain in contact with (the customer) and our escalated care team has issued a refund. We strive to resolve every customer inquiry as quickly as possible, and we deeply regret the experience in this case.

You told me, ‘Virgin Experience? More like Virgin Palaver. Needless to say, I will never book one again.’