Article: The problems with Virgin Australia codeshare bookings

[AFF Editor]

Canonical URL

https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/virgin-australia-codeshare-woes/

Virgin Australia Codeshares: Pay More for a Less Seamless Experience is an article written by the AFF editorial team:

Virgin Australia Codeshares: Pay More for a Less Seamless Experience

Virgin Australia sells VA-marketed codeshare flights on several partner airlines including Singapore Airlines and Air Canada. When booking these, you'll often pay more for a less seamless experience.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

This is the moment on Hell’s Kitchen where Ramsey calls the team into the back room, slams the door and screams ‘have you given up? Get the hell out of here and nominate two people who should go home. And you know what? You’re spoiled for choice tonight!’

VA isn’t even trying. Except for stupid ads with dancing baggage handlers that have nothing to do with the actual VA experience.

 

[Gold Member]

“Occasionally, price variations may be caused through inventory being sold under different fare brands and delays in synchronisation between Virgin Australia and partner booking and scheduling systems.”

“Virgin Australia is continually exploring ways to improve the experience of its customers booking partner flights. Seat selection is one area that we continue to work on together with partners,”

Did a couple of the Qantas Marketing gurus who pedal the “We Listened to our Customer” (TM) script just switch shops to VA?

I don’t doubt that VA are trying to resolve these issues (albeit it’s clearly not a priority), but these problems are far too common to be casually labelled as occasional and attempted to be swept under the carpet. This is a combination of under investment in IT systems and corporate profit greed carefully disguised as inter-airline ticketing complexities that’s out of their hands. Who do they think they are fooling?

Disappointing show all round from Virgin and Bain.

 

[moa999]

Sounds like fairly simple IT issues both with VA and some partners for things like seat selection.

The pricing issue is more due to what agreement the airlines have on the codeshare - are they selling out of the same buckets, or do each have separate allocations, and indeed whether they have competition authority approval to price the same.

You occasionally see similar differences between QF and EK as well.

 

[papeto]

Agree with the sentiment here, Virgin is only paying lipservice to these issues. The focus is now on controlling costs and Bain getting their listing done. From a velocity member perspective, the value of the membership is going down with the Qatar purchase. Loss of Etihad redemption and these changes, makes it less attractive.

 

[HeavyElectricity]

Remember when Bain said VA would become tech based/run, self service, and the separate apps (Virgin/Velocity) merged with added functionality? Whilst there has been minor improvements to some things like rebooking on cancelled flights, and luggage tag viewing, pretty much nothing else seems to have been updated that much, other than some visual refreshes (at least from a customer end-user point of view).

 

[ozstamps]

Agree with the sentiment here, Virgin is only paying lipservice to these issues. The focus is now on controlling costs and Bain getting their listing done. From a velocity member perspective, the value of the membership is going down with the Qatar purchase. Loss of Etihad redemption and these changes, makes it less attractive.

Sadly yes.

Also agree with this person in Matt's article -

As one AFF member noted:

Huge problems like this with the VA booking system, always has been. Can’t book flights to many destinations, you can’t even search for Dubai!

I think it’s ridiculous they expect Lifetime Gold to have 75% of our credits on VA flights when you can’t even book the flights you want as VA tickets (and have never been able to!).

I took MANY paid Biz class trips to Europe on Etihad. In those days the price was generally similar whether booking with Virgin or Etihad but Etihad as usual offered more OPTIONS. Took several of the SYD-PER-AUH-Europe in paid biz or SYD-MEL-AUH-Europe etc, as that that gave me far more SC - total no-brainer.

Also to change anything - seats or dates or connections - meant a short fast call to Etihad - not some bungling Call Centre 'Virgin' staffer, who could never change anything much even after 15 mins on the phone.

Now these geniuses years afterwards, tell us that NONE of those flights and the resultant high SC numbers, count to our 'Lifetime Gold' figures. INSANE. No-one back then said - 'ONLY BOOK THE SAME $$$$ FLIGHT WITH US - or in 5 years you'll REGRET it'.

Scrap the 75% arrant nonsense - a ton of SC in the bank meant you got a heap of money off many of us. 10 or whatever Years of Platinum, and xx_XX SC earned by any means, and you are Gold - simple for all to understand. That is how United does it - learn from EXPERTS. It is mere lifetime GOLD they are handing out to reward serious past loyalty, not lifetime PLATINUM, for goodness sakes. Unless folks pay money and FLY, a gold card is useless, so WIN-WIN for Virgin.

Indeed United. gives Milliion mile flyers Lifetime Star aslliance Gold, AND their nomianted companion lifetime Gold as well.

Too many radical changes, way too fast, in this last wave of 'program enhancements you will all LOVE' - we have lifetime United Star Gold Cards so free Virgin lounge entry, free baggage, priority check-in etc, and they can take their new changes and stick them.

Am Platinum for another full year, and wife for a full year after that expires, as I'll gift it to her in 12 months.

Their new AMERICAN CEO can take his millions in juicy listing bonuses, but very few of those $$ will be coming from us.

Virgin are the wannabe airline in this market, a clear #2, and they SHOULD be shoring up loyalty like crazy before any float, not losing it.

The number of elites they will lose over these madcap changes will be significant.

 

[PERLHR]

Yeah as a simple comparison...I was looking at some Singapore Airlines flights to Tokyo from Perth via Singapore and comparing Cathay flights via Hong Kong. Also looked at ANA direct from Perth ...all would be in Y class. I'm Platinum with VA and Gold (OW emerald) with BA at the moment ..final year. Apart from being 250 AUD cheaper with Cathay they offer me as BA status during the booking process free priority seating and extra leg room. If booking via VA on ANA or SQ I get offered nothing in terms of seat choice. So I wonder who I will book with......also while I get lounge access with SQ I don't I believe with ANA. I get plenty of lounge choices with CX.

 

[HS-TQE]

It probably doesn't help when Bain isn't willing to put in the $$ to expand important partnerships into 50/50 Metal Neutral Joint Ventures (JVs) with the sole exception of the recently approved JV partnership with QR.

If Bain isn't willing spend the $$ for VA 2.0 to go beyond the standard reciprocal codeshare and FF partnerships (apart from some limited approvals from the ACCC to co-ordinate pricing with SQ, UA and AC), chances of Bain putting in the $$ for VA to apply for an Alliance would be next to zero.

VA 1.0 previously had JVs with DL, EY, SQ and NZ on routes between Australia and USA/Abu Dhabi/Singapore and New Zealand respectively where it was a 50/50 partnership and it was metal neutral. The SQ/VA 1.0 JV was similar to the QF/EK JV where one partner operates 100% of the services, but the other partner puts in their financial contribution to the JV.

 

[clifford]

It probably doesn't help when Bain isn't willing to put in the $$

Since when were venture capitalists interested in putting more cash into an organisation than is required to offload it at a profit?

You just have to look at the record of such arrangements with other Aussie concerns, and how well they went.

 

[HS-TQE]

Since when were venture capitalists interested in putting more cash into an organisation than is required to offload it at a profit?

You just have to look at the record of such arrangements with other Aussie concerns, and how well they went.

Agreed there.

However this is more aimed at those wanting VA 2.0 beyond (or do more with) the current partnerships even though it's unlikely they'd be expanding beyond the status quo unless Bain is sure that those partners will "maximise their ROI" for the eventual IPO, hence the recent Qatar Airways investments/upgrades.