New booking engine is up

[serfty]

...
And Serfty - what do you mean status pax can't select beyond row 13 until 14 days out? I can select all seats from row 7 to the very back... or did you mean the reclinable exit from 14 days with no charge?

I was referring to non status PAX - they can't select seats forward of row 13.

It did seem seat selection was unavailable for non status more than 14 days before a flight - I'll recheck after clearing all cookies ...

 

[bullerdude]

For those VA Gold members who were having difficulties selecting seats forward of row 7 (on a 737), I have just spoken with the Velocity team and they have advised me that only Platinum members are able to select from rows 3-6 and Gold from 7 back. What's left of the 'Platinum Block' of seats will become available to Gold members 24hrs before departure and can be selected (if available) online.

Disappointing...

As for paring back the seat selection for Gold... ah well, they had to make Gold and Platinum rather different in time. There was a nice honeymoon period between being a Gold and a Platinum for a while after the new VFF was rolled out; can't have a honeymoon forever.

I don't mean to be rude to Gold Status passengers, but I am very pleased with this change as there has not been that much difference between Gold and Plats since Plat was implemented. This says to me that they will slowly make the levels more defined as each will have a different set of benefits that is appropriate for the effect required to reach those levels.

 

[elemist]

Having been through my share of deployments, and spent the first couple of days running around with a fire extinguisher, a couple of comments

Pointing to an internal site:
If the 'live' site is 'the public' site, then it's easily done. Just a misconfiguration that can easily be overlooked. I've seen some other sites that have pointers into test, or uat servers, but get away with it as those servers are also internet facing. PVT will generally pick these issues up, but in the internet world it can mean that the public have seen it too.

Agree to an extent and i've seen it happen numerous times with either out of date links, or linking to internal documents. That said these aren't obscure links buried deep in the terms and conditions. But obvious and major links that are the first things many people will click/look at. I would assume they ran an internal test site which may or may not have been live to the internet. Then migrated that site across to the "live" or "public facing" site. However i would have thought prior to the live/public site being actually available to the public they would have run through a QA process again.

If i had to guess i would suggest there QA process may have been run in house within the VA network. Thus those links would probably have loaded fine - and given there's no address bar on the little drop down sections of the fare headings unless you were looking at the code you wouldn't see they still linked to an internal site.

I would hope they ran an external QA process as well that picked up a number of things that were fixed prior to the launch

Also agree with your mention of launching the site with known issues. This is pretty common with IT projects - sometimes its a complete shambles and the launch should have been delayed, more often than not though the known issues are generally minor and the benefit of the new system outweighs the known issues. Hell sometimes the only way to give your staff the final push to get things over the line is to have people screaming and giving a sense of urgency! (sad but true!)

 

[oz_mark]

This is going to degenerate a bit into a discussion about IT, so off-topic, but a few key bullets:

• Just because go-live with a fully fledged site is almost impossible doesn't make it a poor target to strive for

True, but at the end of the day the project decides on a level of quality it will accept at go live. There will also likely be an early life team around to support it through the first little while, before it settles into BAU. Strive for it all you like, but make sure you have support around to fight those fires.

• There's a difference between fixing bugs and incremental improvements

True, those two sentences should have been separate paragraphs. The point is, though, you will have some known bugs at go-live. You may even have some planned releases scheduled to deal with them. Feedback may also allow you to make improvements here and there.

• I would've thought that VA is different management and is more understanding in this regard, and as a result would invest much more time and resources into ensuring the success of the rollout. It seems they have been at least mildly successful, considering that the statistic of rollout failures (i.e. non-functional system on go-live) is largely high.

I don't know what support have or have not given the project team, but the fact that something happens does not mean it was not thought about or considered. Sometimes, it's the users that need to take a Bex and have a good lie down

 

[Justinf]

Is anyone else having trouble viewing their upcoming booking in My Bookings?
The system hasn't let me do this all day.

 

[bcworld]

Is anyone else having trouble viewing their upcoming booking in My Bookings?

Yes. It never works via the Velocity profile. Alternatively you try from the main site using your Velocity number but this typically results in:Not found (error to origin)

 

[oz_mark]

Also agree with your mention of launching the site with known issues. This is pretty common with IT projects - sometimes its a complete shambles and the launch should have been delayed, more often than not though the known issues are generally minor and the benefit of the new system outweighs the known issues. Hell sometimes the only way to give your staff the final push to get things over the line is to have people screaming and giving a sense of urgency! (sad but true!)

Absolutely! Sometimes you get a date set, and you have to meet it. Like it to the Olympic Games - there's a date and you have to meet it. In the lead up, there is all sorts of stuff happening, and in the case of the Olympics the media start commenting on whether the venues will be ready!

 

[lovestotravel]

Is anyone else having trouble viewing their upcoming booking in My Bookings?
The system hasn't let me do this all day.

Oops, fatal server error. Contact administrator please or just take it easy.

 

[serfty]

Yes. It never works via the Velocity profile. Alternatively you try from the main site using your Velocity number but this typically results in:Not found (error to origin)

Yep, but at least if you get the "error to origin" message, a refresh or three may prompt it into action.

Here's an interesting thing. Old bookings you currently do not seem to be able to select a seat online but can do so when making new bookings.

I hope that get's sorted soon.

 

[lovestotravel]

I am sure some have been waiting for me to rant about Virgin.

Weekend outage - Acceptable
Website working but important parts having errors - FAIL

Virgin you continue to FAIL

At least you are consistent with it

 

[oz_mark]

Here's an interesting thing. Old bookings you currently do not seem to be able to select a seat online but can do so when making new bookings.

I hope that get's sorted soon.

I have a feeling I read somewhere that migrated bookings could not be modified online. That might include seating...

 

[Fruitcake]

I have a feeling I read somewhere that migrated bookings could not be modified online. That might include seating...

I recall that too. I've been looking for the document which said it, but haven't been able to.

I was able to avoid carrying bookings over the migration - took my last booked flight yesterday. Have some stuff to book but I'll give it a few days for the website to settle down.

 

[Shudai]

This is becoming a little annoying now. I have some urgent bookings to make and have waited until today to do them....but still can't.

Get it together, Virgin, or I need to book these on QANTAS instead.

 

[notzac]

I recall that too. I've been looking for the document which said it, but haven't been able to.

Manage Your Booking | Virgin Australia - second paragraph in the Note: section.

 

[serfty]

I have a feeling I read somewhere that migrated bookings could not be modified online. That might include seating...

I recall that too. I've been looking for the document which said it, but haven't been able to.

I was able to avoid carrying bookings over the migration - took my last booked flight yesterday. Have some stuff to book but I'll give it a few days for the website to settle down.

Manage Your Booking | Virgin Australia - second paragraph in the Note: section.

Thanks for that - looks like some calls are in order for 5 or so bookings.

 

[Shano]

Made a booking after a few failed attempts and the seat selection for tomorrow's midday flight has disappeared.

Tried mobile check-in, but got an error message "Mobile check-in is only available between 48 hours and 30 minutes prior to departure. Your flight is outside of this timeframe. Please try again later or proceed to the airport to complete check-in."???

Also trying to do a web check-in, but cannot select a seat - any seat I try and select I get a message that it is no longer available.

It also looks like it has lost the link to Velocity status, as this isn't reflected in the baggage allowance.

Will keep trying tonight to see if things improve. Had considered booking Qantas based on other peoples reported issues, but this trip will take me to VA SG.

 

[anat0l]

It also looks like it has lost the link to Velocity status, as this isn't reflected in the baggage allowance.

That I don't completely find surprising or concerning, since the new system seems to make it clear that tier baggage allowance will be applied at the airport under separate rules.

So whilst you may see something that a Red would feel is normal and you don't, the expectation is that at the airport, it's all clear and taken care of.

 

[clarkkent]

"Mobile check-in is only available between 48 hours and 30 minutes prior to departure. Your flight is outside of this timeframe. Please try again later or proceed to the airport to complete check-in."

Interesting, so mobile check-in opens 24 h before seats open up for non-platinums? Same for online?

Also, wonder if the new system allows repeating mobile/online check-in multiple times.

 

[AlterEgo]

Funny thing....was waiting for the GCC to answer and the the hold music playing was "Let's call the whole thing off" LOL

 

[rtyuiop]

On the upside, the new redemptions booking search looks a bit nicer (although I think the points costs may have increased, weirdly!). Couple of errors on various searches due to cookie problems, I think, but not bad overall!