Virgin Australia Reviews 

Once I was dropped off at the airport a whole 1 hour and 45 mins before my flight, I wasn’t checked in until 20 minutes before the plane was scheduled to depart, due to extremely long queues.

As I boarded I made it known to the lady in black that I had a connecting flight and attempted to show her my connection. Without even looking, she dismissively said “you should be fine.”

I stressed that it was a tight turnaround of 40 minutes, to which she simply responded “we’re still on time and we’re predicting a slightly quicker flight time today.”

I was surprised by this response given it was 16:20, 2/3 of the flight had not boarded, and we were scheduled to depart at 16:25. She showed no sympathy for my concerns whatsoever. Had she bothered to check, she would have realised that my connecting flight was going to be on the same plane departing the same gate we arrived into, so I needn’t worry.

In fairness we departed the gate just 10 minutes late at 16:35, but I feel my concerns were entirely reasonable given how fine we were cutting it and not knowing the above.

I was then incredibly disappointed when I found the menu in my seat card and it became apparent that there would be no complimentary food served given the ticket price, and the 3 hours 10 mins flight time.

Later, I got up to go the toilet at the front of the plane, as my rear was blocked by the trolley service which seemed to take an eternity.

As I arrived at the front, I was again greeted by the lady in black who asked if I was looking for a bathroom and informed me that the front lavatory was for business class passengers only, and that exceptions were sometimes made, but not whilst the passengers were eating.

It then became clear to me why she was not interested in my connecting flight concerns when boarding: she was clearly very elitist and concerned herself only with the experience of business class travellers.

How can a cheapskate airline that charges high fares yet doesn’t serve meals on a >3 hour flight be in the same breath so elitist?

Your ridiculous number of fare levels signifies your clear distinction between economy and priority passengers. Every other airline I have travelled with still manages to treat its economy passengers with courtesy and respect.

Despite arriving into Brisbane “20 minutes ahead of time” according to the first flight, the second flight to Sydney on the same plane was delayed by 30 minutes due to “a late arrival into Brisbane.”

I have had much more enjoyable experiences with other airlines, notably Jetstar (significantly cheaper) and Qantas (competitive on price yet meals served and excellent service).

Based on my experiences, I plan to never fly with Virgin Australia again. Incredibly disappointing from a brand with such a strong reputation.

Instead of spending my Friday night flying to Adelaide as planned, I spent it on the airport floor with my overtired melting down preschooler as I clutched a phone to my ear trying desperately to get a refund on our cancelled flights and scrambling to find somewhere to sleep for the night.

The longer version: Our flight was cancelled after multiple long delays, and then all the Virgin staff in the airport said they weren’t qualified to help us rebook. One member of staff deigned to tell me there wouldn't be any flights available in the next 24 hours but he would not provide any further assistance, just told me to call the customer service number. Virgin would not offer any accommodation or meal vouchers even though the cancelled flight meant we were stranded away from our home city and that all our ongoing travel plans would be disrupted. As it was the first night of school holidays, I was forced to book an overnight hotel room at massively inflated prices. We also lost our rental car and accommodation bookings at our destination. In addition to the enormous inconvenience caused by the flight cancellation, I was then forced to spend an HOUR on the phone with Virgin’s customer service just to have our cancelled flight refunded. There was no option to get a refund online or in the airport even though it was Virgin who cancelled the flight. I understand cancellations happen but clearly their policy is to provide as little help as possible and make it as difficult as they can to get your money back. Atrocious service.

Dogs are animals not humans
I am a dog owner but why does this airline pander to the .01% of people who want to take dogs into the cabin?
It’s wrong on every level.
I never want someone’s animal in an hermetically closed space for 10 plus hours.
Please dismiss the person whose ludicrous idea this was.
I will not use your airline and I am telling everyone not to use your airline.
It’s totally insane.

My flight with Virgin was comfortable, and the staff genuinely seemed happy to help. it felt relaxed compared to other airlines.

I wanted to book a flight from Perth to Sydney and Virgin Australia seemed a bit cheaper than Qantas. But when you run through the booking, they implement a lot of "extras" like if you want to sit next to your partner, you need to pay to reserve. Thy also asked to pay to send the infos online. And at the end, there was a choice to accept a premium membership or pay over $200. What the hell can this be allowed?
I went back to Qantas, sorry Virgin, you are a rip off and I will never book with you in the future.

Flew Brisbane to Adelaide direct on 7 September 2025. After a lousy Virgin check-in experience at the schamozzle that is Brisbane Airport (what a hell-hole!), this very full flight was actually very good. Boarding was it's usual bunfight, but we left and arrived on time, the flight was smooth and the service on board was excellent. The delighful Poppy, the Senior Flight Attendant was excellent! Best I've had in a very long time. Thank you Poppy - hope our flight paths cross again.

My flight was delayed by about 30 minutes. There crew was kind, but the snack options could be better.

Horrendous. Absolutely despicable. We had to change our flights by a few hours and the service agent, Kat, was incredibly rude, and disrespectful.

Every single action needed requires a fee, which seemingly increased during the conversation. One moment the fee for moving a flight ahead a few hours was $99, then suddenly two minutes later it was $109. Anything that needed to be done cost extra money. Change name? $100 fee! Reissue ticket? $100! Breathing? You bet $100! It is absolutely despicable.

We had to ask Kat multiple times for the total cost of the situation and she kept listing off every fee, amounting to over $500 just to change a flight.

I have never been so angry at a service. Avoid this company at all costs. There are far cheaper, more respectful companies out there. These idiots do not deserve your time or money.

Edit: called back and the $100 few was now $400! Incredible how it inflated in such a short time. Criminals, actual legitimate criminals

I have flown with many airlines and Virgin Australia is by far the worst (Ryanair looked like business class in comparison). We were threatened upon checking in that we are not allowed to leave Australia due to having foreign passports (we had two in-date valid British passports). We were advised you need an Australia passport to fly. After stating to them that this isn’t a rule, they thankfully changed their tune at an instant and we were allowed to check in and get boarding passes. It looked like they were trying to avoid doing some extra work as it is easier to check in someone with an Australian passport. I was avoid at all cost to ensure your trip doesn’t get ruined by this company.

I am so deeply disappointed in my travel experiance. I went to the incheckdesk 3 hours before the flight (which I normally wouldnt do). I had a flight from Denpasar to Sydney and then Sydney to Melbourne. I only traveled with carry-on luggage and still had to wait 1.5 hours in the line. When it was finally my turn, the lady booked my on the direct flight to Melbourne without even asking my permission. This flight was way earlier so I now only had 20 minutes before boarding. Then she made me put my carryon luggage on the scale (I never have to do this). The scale stated that my bag was 11.3 kg which was basically impossible. Then I removed my laptop (which is a minimum of 1.5kg) and my boots (also at least 1kg) AND THE SCALE ONLY WENT DOWN 0.2KG. At this time I only had 15 min before boarding and had waited at the desk for 25 minutes so I had no time to fight about this. Virgin Australia ripped 160AUD from me, a poor student, and I was left deeply hurt. Because of this I now had 1 second to say goodbye to my long distance boyfriend and had to run to the gate. Virgin Australia took the opportunity for me away to have a proper farewell to my boyfriend who I now wont see for many months. Thanks a lot for making me pay you 160AUD for your ripped scale system and making me cry nonstop!

I won't be traveling on a Virgin flight again if there's dogs and cats on it ,for Christ sake what next .

How does virgin constitute charging 2 different prices for airfares. I looked for flights Per to Mel got a quote $1300 return for 2 people. Great prices then because I'm a velocity FF member decided to look at using my points and guess what those exact same flights using over 100000 points plus I have to pay in $1700. Where is Virgins recourse for FF member and discounts. How do I use all my point plus pay an additional $400 for the same tickets I can just book direct and cheaper. Come on virgin why have a FF program if this is going to be the case. Day Light robbery

That was the worst trip ever from Australia to Bali. The staff is arrogant, rude, customer service is non existent and they want you to pay for everything, even a blanket. Absolute madness. Plus no leg room! If your more than 1,65 m tall you won't have space. Don't even talk about having a kg overweight on a luggage, they'll make you pay! Never had an issue with that in ever before, only Australian airlines. A steward called Ben even wanted to pick a fight when he didn't understand English properly. What madness is this???

Travelling in Australia for the Lions tour 2025. Out of 9 flights with 5 different airlines, Virgin Australia are not good! Poor service all round. Will definitely try to avoid next time.

Great flight from SYD to DOH! Technically, the ticket was issued under VA stock, but the flight was operated by Qatar Airways. The experience was excellent
- fantastic crew, delicious food, and Starlink internet. What more could you ask for in Economy? Highly recommended!

Just returned from a 5 day stay in Fiji and so disappointed with Virgin Australia. It is some time since I have flown with Virgin (pre Covid) so we are dealing with a new regime and the trip was marred by the flight experience. The seats are cramped with barely enough leg room available for a 180cm male. The service is inconsistent but the real killer was a 90 minute wait to check baggage in when returning to Australia. It might be ok for short flights but dreadful for a 5 hour flight to Fiji.

Virgin deleted all my points without warning. I called them to ask why and they said they had emailed to let me know they were about to expire but I never received the email.

When I told them I hadn’t received the email, they then changed their story and told me I had opted about of emails?! This is not the case, I have never opted out of emails and a complete lie. Even if I had opted out of emails they specifically say they will still contact you regarding anything to do with your account.

I’ve spoken to them directly on the phone and they keep changing the story and blaming me. So I’ve lost over 100k points with no warning and no way of returning because no one will assist me. What’s the point of all the credit cards and rewards programs if they can delete your points as they please?! There is no one monitoring this and it’s not good enough that they can choose to do whatever they want with your hard earn points.

Rude, arrogant staff. The experience on flights with Virgin are marred by staff who, for some reason, exert an air of superiority over you, regardless of travel class. This is an airline of last resort - even Jetstar is now better than Virgin.

Please do yourself a favour and don’t fly Virgin for your sanity. Our flight was delayed with minimal communication as to what was happening. Fine, no biggie. Main issue was the dinner service on our 6 hour flight. Serving microwave food isn’t exactly rocket science but these attendants took over an hour to deliver food we bought. No provided in flight meals for a dinner time flight also just shows how p*ss poor Virgin is as a company. Anyways, we paid for some dreary microwaved meals and the cabin crew have no system in place as to who orders what. It’s like they didn’t expect a majority of customer to order dinner on the dinner flight ??? The crew just seemed to chat to each other during service too which just delayed our order even more. To top it off, I was told after an hour that they had oversold meaning my paid meal wasn’t available. I was given cold sandwiches as a replacement but was offered a refund for my microwaved meal. They asked if they could do the refund afterwards as they were too busy trying to fix the dinner service mess they’d created. They didn’t bother following up and I was too tired to ask again as my mood was killed from their service.

Unfortunately it doesn’t end there. After expressing my frustrations through the survey they requested, the customer support staff through email were just as pathetic.
I had requested compensation for my food but the only responses I received were from a generic template “apologising for my experience”. After urging them to look into the matter multiple times, it became clear they simply didn’t care.

TLDR, steer clear from virgin. Their service sucks and isn’t worth the headache you get.

I’ve always had great service from the staff on the flights I take regularly, they’re super friendly and professional. Unfortunately, the customer service call centre is a different story… really bad experience there.