New booking engine is up

[bcworld]

swanning_it and other interested members, I had a lovely chat with Tamara from Velocity just now. I asked her when I could expect to have my flights from last Thursday credit. She went to a supervisor to check the latest update they had been given. Appears that they have a bot which "collects" all the FF flight details and normally posts it within 24-48 hours after flight (consistent with my account experience). However, they are unwilling to do a manual re-adjustment inside 7 days, which is the maximum time limit for the bot (otherwise there may be double the flights post ). 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. Hopefully this also means that my Plat year starts tomorrow and not last week.

She said they are finding the number of queries are dropping but there are still issues which are commonplace (seating for Navitaire booking, etc.)

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

So what's the consensus on points posting time for flown flights currently? I flew Fri 25th Jan...so far no points...and this was a status run for activity before 28 Jan! 7 days being up I tried to fill I'm the claim form this morning but it told me that unfortunately some required information was missing - I had filled in every field!

 

[robd]

I have had to clear the cookies to fix this when it happens.

Thank goodness Firefox allow site specific deletion.

I reset Safari - all good now.:-|

 

[robd]

"Sale across Australia" Book Now.


Error 404! Surely there's more than 404 errors

 

[MarkD]

Surely they are Joking, Im getting the same thing, Im not an IT person, but, really, its been 3 weeks since they made it go live, and obviously many years in the planning, and its crashed completely. Bit hard to make a booking when you cant even get to their site. Was only looking because of the comments here, and find it totally unbelievable.
Isnt the Sabre system used by airlines all over the world? Isnt it a tried and proven system? Isnt it supposed to talk to other airlines "Sabre" Systems and make everything including their international codeshares streamlined? They really are digging the hole that little bit deeper each day arent they. Qantas are probably laughing their guts out at this ameteurish sideshow, and cancelling their next advertising campaign, because these clowns have given them far more endorsement than any advertising could do... The ability to ACTUALLY BOOK A SEAT LMAO

 

[bcworld]

"Sale across Australia" Book Now.
View attachment 13187

Error 404! Surely there's more than 404 errors

Might be a blessing...if you booked you might get charged 404 times! FB wall is littered with a fresh batch of multiple charged customers still this week.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

Surely they are Joking, Im getting the same thing, Im not an IT person, but, really, its been 3 weeks since they made it go live, and obviously many years in the planning, and its crashed completely.

I do recall someone saying they had to jump early due to the Sabre team being fully booked out. So it was a choice of go early (read: not ready) or wait until mid 2013.

I suspect they chose the wrong option. It would appear we're at risk of waiting until mid 2013 for a fully workable implementation anyway, but instead of the old system with it's known warts, we're now lumbered with the new beaut system with an unknown number of new warts!

 

[Deleted member 29185]

I tried to fill I'm the claim form this morning but it told me that unfortunately some required information was missing - I had filled in every field!

As per advice Lindsay Wilson received and posted in one of these threads, I didn't use the on-line claim form. I've (sucessfully) used this email address '[email protected]' and listed my name, VFF number, flight number, date and booking reference. I attached a PDF copy of the itinerary and the boarding pass.

 

[777]

I suspect they chose the wrong option. It would appear we're at risk of waiting until mid 2013 for a fully workable implementation anyway, but instead of the old system with it's known warts, we're now lumbered with the new beaut system with an unknown number of new warts!

on the upside: Some of the new warts have proved quite useful!

 

[oz_mark]

Isnt the Sabre system used by airlines all over the world? Isnt it a tried and proven system? Isnt it supposed to talk to other airlines "Sabre" Systems and make everything including their international codeshares streamlined?

As far as I am aware there is nothing really wrong with Sabre. The problems are really what they have built in front of Sabre (the website which we interact with), how they have set up the fare rules within Sabre.

So, while Sabre is fine, what they have done with Sabre has resulted in a pretty dire customer experience.

 

[serfty]

As far as I am aware there is nothing really wrong with Sabre. The problems are really what they have built in front of Sabre (the website which we interact with), how they have set up the fare rules within Sabre.

So, while Sabre is fine, what they have done with Sabre has resulted in a pretty dire customer experience.

It occurred to me they may have implemented a new sabre product for customisation of the 'skin'.

It is really clunky and slow - I envisage a development team with SOA desktops not doing any real world testing like running it on 1.6Ghtz notebooks and the like.

 

[rtyuiop]

Surely they are Joking, Im getting the same thing, Im not an IT person, but, really, its been 3 weeks since they made it go live, and obviously many years in the planning, and its crashed completely. Bit hard to make a booking when you cant even get to their site. Was only looking because of the comments here, and find it totally unbelievable. Isnt the Sabre system used by airlines all over the world? Isnt it a tried and proven system? Isnt it supposed to talk to other airlines "Sabre" Systems and make everything including their international codeshares streamlined? They really are digging the hole that little bit deeper each day arent they. Qantas are probably laughing their guts out at this ameteurish sideshow, and cancelling their next advertising campaign, because these clowns have given them far more endorsement than any advertising could do... The ability to ACTUALLY BOOK A SEAT LMAO

The hard bit with most large IT projects like this isn't building the individual bits, it's getting them to talk to one another, and deal with the absolutely enormous number of possible combinations of data, and the large quantity of data, and the large number of transactions, and the near-impossibility of doing realistic testing, etc., etc.

Having said that, by now I think everyone will agree this particular change hasn't gone well .

Danny

 

[Deleted member 29185]

It is really clunky and slow

I agree. It's almost like the bad old dial-up days when I'd go and make a cup of coffee whilst waiting for a page to load. The VR home page seems worst for some reason.

 

[williamsf1]

Isnt the Sabre system used by airlines all over the world? Isnt it a tried and proven system? Isnt it supposed to talk to other airlines "Sabre" Systems and make everything including their international codeshares streamlined?

The Sabre system is very old and complicated and does not play well with others.... VA was on a great system ( Amadeus) and may be should have followed other airlines like SQ and CX that recently changed the whole operation Amadeus.
I know EY is changing to Sabre later this month ..... but I cannot think of any "big" airlines that are on Sabre ..... I understand even AA ( who use a version of Sabre) are getting off soon.

 

[QF WP]

So what's the consensus on points posting time for flown flights currently? I flew Fri 25th Jan...so far no points...and this was a status run for activity before 28 Jan! 7 days being up I tried to fill I'm the claim form this morning but it told me that unfortunately some required information was missing - I had filled in every field!

There are plenty of us in the same position . Mine are from 10 Jan...

 

[AnneMarie999]

There are plenty of us in the same position . Mine are from 10 Jan...

Mine took 7 days to come through from flights on 18 and 20 Jan. couldnt submit online request and when spoke to guest services they advised to wait little longer then ring back. They did come through a few days later JIT for me to upgrade to gold have been some teething prblems certainly but have had mostly ​pleasant staff at airport....

 

[bcworld]

Friend booked a flight for $280. Credit card was authorised for $280 x FIFTEEN!! And to top it all...no actual reservation was made! Hours and hours and hours on the phone. Now waiting for funds to be released.

He's still waiting for the funds to be released. But, he now has a travelbank account with $200 compensation / goodwill gesture sitting it!

 

[curiost]

The buggy booking system can have its perks, I went to book a flight yesterday and the Saver fare was about $30 cheaper than the Saver Lite fare (no baggage). I didn't need baggage anyway, but booked the one with baggage because it was cheaper. It would be great to find out other bugs that work in our favour

 

[KCMil]

The buggy booking system can have its perks, I went to book a flight yesterday and the Saver fare was about $30 cheaper than the Saver Lite fare (no baggage). I didn't need baggage anyway, but booked the one with baggage because it was cheaper. It would be great to find out other bugs that work in our favour

It's not a bug, each fare bucket has a specific number of seats attached to it. As they are sold, that fare class goes up a notch. If everyone is buying only saver lite then that fare class will go up quicker as it is sold out. If no saver fares have been sold then that class will not have gone up, leading to the apparent disparity. This was often seen with the saver V's Flexi fares where Flexi was cheaper or only a few dollars more than a saver fare.
When the revnue ops team review that flight they may or will see the disparity and manually adjust it. That is probably why VA has increased the size of its revenue operations / sales teams over the last couple of years with lots of internal and external employment oportunities advertised on a regular basis.

 

[day-heg]

Isnt the Sabre system used by airlines all over the world? Isnt it a tried and proven system? Isnt it supposed to talk to other airlines "Sabre" Systems and make everything including their international codeshares streamlined?

I share many frustrations that have been detailed here - don't get me started on the use of a 12-hr clock, and that's only a little thing - BUT it does seem that at least one thing has improved beyond any recognition... partner airline points posting.

My experience: my wife was on her way back from the UK with SQ with no layover in SIN, and the points & SCs for the first leg posted BEFORE she even landed in Aus!!

 

[Lizzi]

I share many frustrations that have been detailed here - don't get me started on the use of a 12-hr clock, and that's only a little thing - BUT it does seem that at least one thing has improved beyond any recognition... partner airline points posting.

My experience: my wife was on her way back from the UK with SQ with no layover in SIN, and the points & SCs for the first leg posted BEFORE she even landed in Aus!!

She's lucky - I waited and waited and filled in the retro form and have been told I'll be waiting up to 12 weeks from the claim for mine!