Dear Australian Frequent Flyers and loyal Velocity members

[Velocity Frequent Flyer]

OK, I'll add a welcome back as well.

Having said that, I agree with others here that there was nothing new in your post VFF. Surely, we don't have to reiterate the problems, I was hoping you'd already know them, know a timeline for rectification and at least let us know which areas are going to be on-going problems for a while so we too can try to work around them........remember you lot are not the only ones trying to run a business.

For your records, I'm still seeing issues with non-crediting of SCs/points (latest being last Tueday SYD-OOL not crediting....7 days old, booked a few days earlier, flown with no problems etc) and also family pooling may have issues. I tried today to change a family pooling tie and could cancel the pooling, but then couldn't reinstate it to any family member (same res. address etc etc) with an error message continually coming up. The status call centre could do it however, which tends to suggest a web problem which is causing a) us grief and extra time calling, and b) the call centre grief by dealing with tasks which should be able to be done on line without a phone call.

Up side.......I really hope VR intends to give a bonus to all the poor call centre staff. We whinge because we can and we do have genuine things to whinge about, but those call centre staff have been great and all I can think is that they must have been going home exhausted (phyically and emotionally) and I do genuinely hope VA/VR appreciate them.

Another up side......the on-board FAs have also been great. I note they have got a bit of flak here from some, but that has not been my experience. All of them have been pretty good and some of them have been absolutely superb.

Hi Swanning, thank you for the welcome. To be honest, this was about fronting up, saying here we are (again) and acknowledging areas that have seen the most frustration ie, website functionality, online seat selection, and point posting delays.
We will look to share as much information as we can, when we can, of issues that become resolved, because as you say, you all have places to be and we obviously want to get you there with the least amount of hassle as possible.

If you have outstanding points issues, please email the retro email address, and we can get that fixed up asap.

We also appreciate your empathy to the rest of the team, so thank you!

 

[smit0847]

Hi Smit, as Lindsay mentioned, it would depend on whether you wanted a public or private reply.
For a specific Velocity member question, feel free to utilise our inbox and supply your Velocity number as well as any other contact details you think would be needed.
If the question is one for the wider group, and a new topic, a new thread would be a good place (as long as we stay on topic!).

We're aware there are a few questions, so we will try to get through these for you.

Thanks - I've sent you a PM with my major issue as it is a personal one.

In terms of questions that might benefit everyone here:

- post-Sabre, connecting flights are now priced as two completely separate flights to purchase (by both $ and points). For example, MEL-OOL Flex may be $299 while MEL-SYD-OOL Flex might be $599. I understand this is an automatic result of the Sabre changeover, but is it intended that this will be the policy for connecting flights from now on, or will it be corrected so that connecting flights are about the same price, or only slightly more than a direct flight? Surely no-one is bothering to book connecting flights if they're twice the price so Im not sure why VA bothers to sell them?

- will happy hour ever be coming back?

- there's been absolutely no acknowledgement whatsoever from anyone at VA that the Sabre changeover has been anything less than perfect. A quick read of this forum and your facebook page quickly reveals exactly the opposite. We've found it strange that VA has a history of being honest, frank and humble over the years yet went into complete silence over what has been, for many here, a disaster. Would you care the comment?

- are you one person, or a team?

 

[rtyuiop]

Just a quick note to agree with swanning_it - most of the call centre staff, and all the lounge staff and crew I've dealt with, have been absolutely fantastic, and they are (particularly the lounge customer service team) a major reason I haven't headed back to Qantas.

 

[777]

If it was 6.00am AEDST that might well mean it was 05.00AM QLD time where VA are based.

It's 9am somewhere.

 

[Markmat]

I am very happy that there will be communication now happening and based on this communication have made a booking with Virgin. My past 10 bookings have been with Qantas due to reservation issues with Virgin and not wanting to waste valuable time in the process of effectively travelling as part of my job. I hope it all goes smoothly and my FF number is associated, I can select seats, and I get the corrects SCs and points after I fly without having to ring someone. To me that is the ultimate result I desire and will effectively be my litmus test as to where future bookings go for the immediate future. I want Virgin to do well as competition is what keeps the prices low and that is good for my business and I would normally go with best fare of the day, but I and many others would like to be forgiving, but it costs us time and money. I like the fact they are now starting to communicate, it is a great start!

 

[docjames]

Online seat selection
One bug bear that caused members problems post-Sabre, have been the issues with online seat selection.
You can choose your seat online at time of booking (prior to Sabre it was only possible within 14 days) or when checking-in. Some members are still having issues selecting a seat online, we have prioritised resolving this and we’ll provide an update asap. If you need assistance or you want to select a seat after you've made your booking, contact us at 136 789 and the team will be able to allocate your seat.

Thanks and welcome back.

Is there a plan to have seat selection available (online) between booking and T-14?

 

[ozstamps]

Advance seating is a nice plus -- have used it a lot lately.

Sabre intro has been buggy we all know that.

we signed p for a few Amex deals late 2012 that gave us $50 Virgin credits via unique ecert number. So we ended up with 6 x $50 ecerts.

Sadly of course with new system there is no way to redeem them online and it take a half hour calling staff who have no idea how to input it, to get the discount taken off, and then on hone payment can only be made by card - at a fee - and not by POLI with no fee.

That needs to be addressed.

 

[Jurahn]

Welcome back VFF! It's great to see you back on deck

 

[Deleted member 29185]

Hi Swanning, thank you for the welcome. To be honest, this was about fronting up, saying here we are (again) and acknowledging areas that have seen the most frustration ie, website functionality, online seat selection, and point posting delays.

Thanks for the courtesy of the reply. To be honest, fronting up is step 1. Acknowledging issues is step 2. But what about steps 3 and 4. We all know the problems VFF, what we don't know is:
a) what VA/VR intend to fix (presuming what we want and what you're prepared to give are two different things); and
b) when you are going to do it.

Remember we're still waiting for the "never, never" ife system. If I told my clients "it'll happen when I'm bloody good and ready and not before", I've a feeling I'd have passed a disturbing number of clients to my competitors.

Not too much to ask, surely? A simple time frame we business (and leisure) travellers can work with.







PS........I'm also not impressed with my bookings being changed and only seeing it on-line with a "FLOWN" notation next to the booking and a new booking made with no formal notifcation from VA/VR. This has happened multiple times so far.....all in business class. I'm wondering when VA/VR intend to notify me, or is it assumed my time is so expendable, I can afford to sit around for hours waiting for changed (but not notified) flights, or worse still, being booked on later flights after missing the ones that changed to hours earlier with no notification? That level of customer service is......well, not.

 

[aupirate]

Welcome back, and as others have stated I hope this is the start of a renewed higher level of dialogue from Virgin. On a positive note I had reason to change to another day a return flight BNE -SYD for myself and a colleague. The increase in fares and penalties would have been in excess of $300, your very helpful Virgin call centre member waived these fees without question, thank you and good luck with the fine tuning of your IT systems.

 

[Pushka]

The increase in fares and penalties would have been in excess of $300, your very helpful Virgin call centre member waived these fees without question,

I need one of these to get my overdue refund back. They aren't being helpful here.

 

[Travel Guru]

Welcome back VFF, nice to have you back on board.

For myself, being a TA, one of the biggest issues I'd love to see addressed post-Sabre would be preferred seat selection made available with GDS bookings.

If I put a Platinum QFF number into a booking it opens up availability that wasn't there beforehand simply due to status level, but the same unfortunately isn't true with VA and if I book myself through Galileo I then have to call up to do a seat selection.

Aside from that I've provided some feedback on service consistency but you've still firmly got my business.

TG

 

[RooFlyer]

Along with all the welcoming back of the company rep, very large thanks I think due to Lindsay Wilson and others who put the effort in to getting VA's attention.

Well done!

adding ... Special mention eastwest101 !

 

[Velocity Frequent Flyer]

In terms of questions that might benefit everyone here:

- post-Sabre, connecting flights are now priced as two completely separate flights to purchase (by both $ and points). For example, MEL-OOL Flex may be $299 while MEL-SYD-OOL Flex might be $599. I understand this is an automatic result of the Sabre changeover, but is it intended that this will be the policy for connecting flights from now on, or will it be corrected so that connecting flights are about the same price, or only slightly more than a direct flight? Surely no-one is bothering to book connecting flights if they're twice the price so Im not sure why VA bothers to sell them?

- will happy hour ever be coming back?

- there's been absolutely no acknowledgement whatsoever from anyone at VA that the Sabre changeover has been anything less than perfect. A quick read of this forum and your facebook page quickly reveals exactly the opposite. We've found it strange that VA has a history of being honest, frank and humble over the years yet went into complete silence over what has been, for many here, a disaster. Would you care the comment?

- are you one person, or a team?

Answering your questions:

1. Where we had “journey” fares before, we have now implemented pricing based on sum of sectors especially where a direct flight also operates. With your particular example, we simply want to encourage people to fly direct MEL-OOL rather than connect hence the cheaper fare on the direct flight. This is a pretty standard industry practice.

2. Have asked the question for an update on Happy Hour.

3. While we of course acknowledge that there have been teething issues during the Sabre transition period, being a publicly listed company, questions such as this we will defer to our executive team.

4. While the person typing this reply is one person, there is of course a much larger team behind him (or her )

Thanks and welcome back.
Is there a plan to have seat selection available (online) between booking and T-14?

Hi Doc, yes there is a plan to allow seat selection online between booking and check in. Sabre wasn’t able to support this functionality at cutover, however we are working with the Sabre team on a solution. We know that the current setup isn't perfect, but know that we are working towards giving as much flexibility as possible to our members to choose their favourite seat!

 

[RooFlyer]

Answering your questions:

1. Where we had “journey” fares before, we have now implemented pricing based on sum of sectors especially where a direct flight also operates. With your particular example, we simply want to encourage people to fly direct MEL-OOL rather than connect hence the cheaper fare on the direct flight. This is a pretty standard industry practice.

2. Have asked the question for an update on Happy Hour.

3. While we of course acknowledge that there have been teething issues during the Sabre transition period, being a publicly listed company, questions such as this we will defer to our executive team.

<snip>

What's it been .. oh, 8 hours or so? Honeymoon over yep, it can be a tough gig here.

For answer 1) 'With your example', charging double the price of a 2 segment connection Va a direct flight is deemed to be 'pretty standard practice'. I for one never knew this, so many thanks for making that clear.

For answer 3) ASX Continuous disclosure rules apply. In a nutshell - anything which is may have an impact on an investor's decision to invest or sell (cf 'price sensitive information') is disclosed to the market as soon as company becomes aware. Such as here: Announcements - Search results - Australian Securities Exchange - ASX

Ergo, with no related disclosure to the market, VA has seen no commercial impact, or foresees any commercial impact to the company for the fiasco of the Sabre implementation. So, putting it delicately, ..... suckers!!

 

[Must...Fly!]

Nice to see you back VFF

I'm sure you realise the level of angst, inconvenience and distrust your airline has built amongst some AFF'ers and other FF'ers around the country since the sabre transition. I welcome your return and I presume desire to fix these relationships between the airline and some of it's most frequent customers.

 

[grubbidok]

What's it been .. oh, 8 hours or so? Honeymoon over yep, it can be a tough gig here.

For answer 1) 'With your example', charging double the price of a 2 segment connection Va a direct flight is deemed to be 'pretty standard practice'. I for one never knew this, so many thanks for making that clear.

Am I right in assuming there's an element of sarcasm in your voice

I'd like to start and thank VA for fronting again. The VA interaction has been great previously - it certainly helped me out of some binds previously.

I see a certain point in charging significantly more where there are plenty of direct flights available (e.g. SYD-CNB-MEL over SYD-MEL). But surely you can't be serious on the routes where the connection is usually the 'default'? I'm just thinking of some of my regulars (SYD-MEL-HBA, SYD-BNE-MKY, SYD-BNE-ROK) where there are few direct options with times that are rarely convenient, yet bucketloads of availability on one hop. I see massive, often unjustifiable differences in fares - and usually find a much better deal on connections on QF. For an airline that still depends largely on hub-and-spoke, particularly to regionals, the current 'double-price if extra sector' system is a cop-out. And I certainly can't remember it ever being industry practice on most of the airlines I've flown with - in fact on US flights it's usually the directs that are premium. The business market may be VA's target, but they're not going to stand for that, particularly when there are many other options wanting to take your coin. The business market is becoming increasingly cost-sensitive, and the other mob aren't doing this so guess where they're going to book next time an itinerary requires a connection! I sincerely hope that comment was mistaken and it isn't going to become permanent VA policy.

Apologies if this response is blunt, but I couldn't let this go. As someone who usually connects on business trips not for want (I may be slightly points obsessed but I value my sanity and time over 'why fly direct when you can connect') but because for practical reasons they have to this statement was red rag to a bull.

 

[eastwest101]

I see a certain point in charging significantly more where there are plenty of direct flights available (e.g. SYD-CNB-MEL over SYD-MEL). But surely you can't be serious on the routes where the connection is usually the 'default'? I'm just thinking of some of my regulars (SYD-MEL-HBA, SYD-BNE-MKY, SYD-BNE-ROK) where there are few direct options with times that are rarely convenient, yet bucketloads of availability on one hop. I see massive, often unjustifiable differences in fares - and usually find a much better deal on connections on QF. For an airline that still depends largely on hub-and-spoke, particularly to regionals, the current 'double-price if extra sector' system is a cop-out. And I certainly can't remember it ever being industry practice on most of the airlines I've flown with - in fact on US flights it's usually the directs that are premium. The business market may be VA's target, but they're not going to stand for that, particularly when there are many other options wanting to take your coin. The business market is becoming increasingly cost-sensitive, and the other mob aren't doing this so guess where they're going to book next time an itinerary requires a connection! I sincerely hope that comment was mistaken and it isn't going to become permanent VA policy.

I agree with a lot of the points you made there, and would be interesting to see the Velocity Frequent Flyer response to these questions, I think that competition and yield management will mostly solve these issues for you pretty quickly anyway, certainly Y cabins and loads are doing OK but I think that VA may have to "get real" and/or adjust their fares if they do try to push through increases in fares that are implied in the connecting hub & spoke routes where there is no direct option. The market will certainly tell them pretty quickly!

 

[koonyaflyer]

Am I right in assuming there's an element of sarcasm in your voice

I'd like to start and thank VA for fronting again. The VA interaction has been great previously - it certainly helped me out of some binds previously.

I see a certain point in charging significantly more where there are plenty of direct flights available (e.g. SYD-CNB-MEL over SYD-MEL). But surely you can't be serious on the routes where the connection is usually the 'default'? I'm just thinking of some of my regulars (SYD-MEL-HBA, SYD-BNE-MKY, SYD-BNE-ROK) where there are few direct options with times that are rarely convenient, yet bucketloads of availability on one hop. I see massive, often unjustifiable differences in fares - and usually find a much better deal on connections on QF. For an airline that still depends largely on hub-and-spoke, particularly to regionals, the current 'double-price if extra sector' system is a cop-out. And I certainly can't remember it ever being industry practice on most of the airlines I've flown with - in fact on US flights it's usually the directs that are premium. The business market may be VA's target, but they're not going to stand for that, particularly when there are many other options wanting to take your coin. The business market is becoming increasingly cost-sensitive, and the other mob aren't doing this so guess where they're going to book next time an itinerary requires a connection! I sincerely hope that comment was mistaken and it isn't going to become permanent VA policy.

Apologies if this response is blunt, but I couldn't let this go. As someone who usually connects on business trips not for want (I may be slightly points obsessed but I value my sanity and time over 'why fly direct when you can connect') but because for practical reasons they have to this statement was red rag to a bull.

i am glad I am not the only one who feels this way! As VFF's suggestion I would love to fly direct from HBA to SYD, but the flight times are in the middle of the day .... So I have no choice but to "connect". Initially the connect fares were nearly $400 more than the direct fares on a Flexi, now it is down to around $90 each way. The point situation is worse, now around 12k points to upgrade via CBR compared to 7400 direct.

A letter to Virgin basically dismissed this issue, and I have to say it has really tested my loyalty. I re qualified for Platinum in 3 months this year, fully self funded, and have just passed Partner Platinum less than 3 months later ....with 6 months of my year to go I am spending time this Easter working out my strategy for the balance of the year. Whilst I dislike Jetstar intensely I could buy myself a row of seats for what Virgin is costing me each week at the moment!

 

[hummel]

My question.. What happened to the suit bags that were around for hanging coats /jackets up?

The last 4 times I've flown my jacket has been hung but no bag, not a big issue but remember it being advertised.

Also, what's the policy regarding hanging? I'm flying Y today, row 3 and asked if I could jacket hung up.. Told they will because they've got room but not always an option. Is it a J thing?