New booking engine is up

[scwappy]

I am thankful that I have no flying this or next week but wonder how much revenue VA are losing from pax like esquire ?

I'm looking forward to what incentives they may offer in the future to entice people back. I feel some good specials coming on...........Once they are sure the system is working well

 

[QF WP]

I can't see them giving double SC's but I can envisage some cheap J seats ($200 sectors would be nice VA, if you are reading). But with the proviso that in order to book on their system that is not running up to scratch, we get given longer.

If so, I'm in

As an aside, I spoke to a friend last night who is in Flights Centre IT in BNE. He advises that bookings through them with VA are working

 

[bcworld]

I am thankful that I have no flying this or next week but wonder how much revenue VA are losing from pax like esquire ?

Obviously it's not very scientific but there is a significant proportion of the people complaining or seeking help via Facebook who claim to be Golds and Plats...and some of them are very unhappy...others are trying to book corporate travel and giving up and say they are booking QF instead. I think there is a lot of goodwill being lost which VA has done a great job of building up over recent times.

Very common complaints:
-Booking process apparently fails, credit card is charged / pre-auth'ed multiple times anyway to the tune of $000s of dollars
-Domestic sectors of international itin disappeared after migration
-Domestic sectors of international itin downgraded to Y after migration
-Current inability to use Virgin Flyer 2 for 1 comp flights (our Velocity accounts both show we have 4 available even though we have both used them up already!)
-Simply unable to book online
-Call centre unable to use or pull up details of credit shell
-Long gate delays after boarding due to inability to print hard copy of passenger manifest
-Problems with Velocity redemption booking
-Call centre wait time even for high status FFs, transferring of calls and dropped calls

...just minor stuff!
-

 

[scwappy]

Obviously it's not very scientific but there is a significant proportion of the people complaining or seeking help via Facebook who claim to be Golds and Plats...and some of them are very unhappy...others are trying to book corporate travel and giving up and say they are booking QF instead. I think there is a lot of goodwill being lost which VA has done a great job of building up over recent times.

Very common complaints:
-Booking process apparently fails, credit card is charged / pre-auth'ed multiple times anyway to the tune of $000s of dollars
-Domestic sectors of international itin disappeared after migration
-Domestic sectors of international itin downgraded to Y after migration
-Current inability to use Virgin Flyer 2 for 1 comp flights (our Velocity accounts both show we have 4 available even though we have both used them up already!)
-Simply unable to book online
-Call centre unable to use or pull up details of credit shell
-Long gate delays after boarding due to inability to print hard copy of passenger manifest
-Problems with Velocity redemption booking
-Call centre wait time even for high status FFs, transferring of calls and dropped calls

...just minor stuff!
-

It does seem like a bit of a stuff up, to put it mildly.

 

[oz_mark]

It does seem like a bit of a stuff up, to put it mildly.

Indeed, it seems to have progressed a bit beyond 'teething problems'.

 

[anat0l]

Indeed, it seems to have progressed a bit beyond 'teething problems'.

For those who live in QLD, it's not to the extent of rolling SAP out to QLD Health; they will be turning that CF into a case study for future IT and Business Management (I hope) lectures for several years.

For many of us here, that case puts all of these "issues" Virgin is having firmly into perspective, so whilst they may not be "teething problems".........

 

[oz_mark]

For many of us here, that case puts all of these "issues" Virgin is having firmly into perspective, so whilst they may not be "teething problems".........

From an outsider looking at this, I would characterise things as looking like they went a bit early with the transition. They may well known of some of these things, but not had time to deal with them.

 

[rtyuiop]

Yeah - my suspicion is that their go/no go thinking was based around ensuring that passengers could get on planes and planes could take off - note that there doesn't seem to be any issues with that (at least that I've heard of?), and they may have a few more issues on the booking side than they expected and are racing to catch up...

My experience with big complex IT cutovers that don't run perfectly is that once they get a few of the underlying problems sorted out, the complexity of troubleshooting is massively reduced and the rest of the issues should be fixed up shortly thereafter... Here's hoping!

Danny

 

[oz_mark]

Yeah - my suspicion is that their go/no go thinking was based around ensuring that passengers could get on planes and planes could take off - note that there doesn't seem to be any issues with that (at least that I've heard of?), and they may have a few more issues on the booking side than they expected and are racing to catch up...

My experience with big complex IT cutovers that don't run perfectly is that once they get a few of the underlying problems sorted out, the complexity of troubleshooting is massively reduced and the rest of the issues should be fixed up shortly thereafter... Here's hoping!

Same as mine. I think from a timing point of view, they wanted to get it in before the business year really ramped up. They would have met whatever hurdle they set for a go/no go decision. The post implementation review will be interesting

 

[pants]

Go was based around sabre being able to support the cutover at this time. Had they not gone now, they couldn't have gone live until June or so because just like aircraft taking off, other airlines around the world are queued up to do their own cutovers with sabre and sabre do them one at a time.

 

[rtyuiop]

Ah, interesting - that makes sense, if they were pushed for time by external factors that might explain a lack of focus on the booking side. Wonder how they feel about the decision not to wait for June now! I still don't think this is a full on disaster (yet), but I'm sure they would have hoped for less issues...

 

[lobo76]

Yeah - my suspicion is that their go/no go thinking was based around ensuring that passengers could get on planes and planes could take off - note that there doesn't seem to be any issues with that (at least that I've heard of?), and they may have a few more issues on the booking side than they expected and are racing to catch up...

My experience with big complex IT cutovers that don't run perfectly is that once they get a few of the underlying problems sorted out, the complexity of troubleshooting is massively reduced and the rest of the issues should be fixed up shortly thereafter... Here's hoping!

Danny

They did a LOT better than Myki at least

 

[support]

They did a LOT better than Myki at least

Any and everything is better than Myki :!:

 

[kevrosmith]

I must admit, I am glad that I don't have any bookings to make with Virgin at the moment, as I'm hoping to wait until the dust settles on some of the issues that are being discussed.

Having played around with a few searches to see what the new engine is like, must say that I'm not a fan. As others have mentioned, I don't like that you can't see both Economy and Premium/Business fares in the one search. Sometimes Flexi fares are close to Business, and so it makes that choice easier if you see them together. And then, to even modify the search criteria is a bit of a nuisance: the search options were there on the screen with you. You made the changes and pressed update. Now there's a few more clicks and more time delay for each click.

Will see how it pans out, and I'm sure they will look for feedback and make updates/improvements/amendments where necessary or where they can, but it's what you have to put up with in the meantime that concerns me.

I could easily imagine that some bookings are being lost to other carriers at the moment. I would do so if it became too much of a pain if I was in a rush.

 

[Fruitcake]

The good news is, it only took VX a couple of months to get everything running properly after they migrated to Sabre:
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&...sg=AFQjCNFN8NtgfFi03rh6ZSSKtlh1cB3tIA&cad=rja

:shock:

Glitches are plaguing Virgin America's website for the fourth straight week, threatening to disrupt the airline's busy Thanksgiving travel period.
Most Virgin America customers have been unable to modify their flights online since the airline switched to a new reservations system on Oct. 28. And many complain they also cannot book flights or check-in online, or were charged too much.

 

[Bofter]

It looks like they had enough confidence to run a Happy Hour today...
...except that about 10 mins into the time period I couldn't book the offered Perth Melbourne direct flight for the advertised $186 on any day during the offer period, and this has persisted right through the Happy Hour slot.

Given that there were still Saver Light fares available for $205 (their lowest level) for heaps of flights on most days, it would seem as though the special fares just never made it through into the booking engine.

I checked another route to see if the same behaviour was happening there, and yes it was.

 

[anat0l]

The good news is, it only took VX a couple of months to get everything running properly after they migrated to Sabre

:shock:

I doubt VA will take 2 months to get things up and running. If any consolation they have about 3 months before Easter; if they were running in second gear through that period then there might be a real problem, but I'm sure that by that time they should be in the clear.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

They recommend that after the 7 days (which for me ends this afternoon), if they haven't posted they will do a manual credit tomorrow.

Thanks Lindsay. By manual credit, do you know if she meant they'll go searching themselves, or do we need to visit them with a cattle prod (telephone call)? Seems the bots on strike in my case (8 days)!

I have four flights to book for next week and I'm a little edgy about using VA.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

For those who live in QLD, it's not to the extent of rolling SAP out to QLD Health; For many of us here, that case puts all of these "issues" Virgin is having firmly into perspective, so whilst they may not be "teething problems".........

And for some of us here, we've been stung by BOTH and still suffering (Lisa with the Qld health debacle, me with VA minor issues which I don't wish to see escalate into a situation which causes me to let my clients suffer). Are we seeing the need for the next gen computers to do what we need without the human-machine compatibilty issues? Many say computers don't cause errors......the programmers do! (my apologies to all the IT gurus out there)

 

[DC3]

I feel a double SC promo coming along.