New booking engine is up

[Shano]

Everything I have now tried including online checkin for a Wednesday afternoon flight is now working. (ie I checked in and printed boarding passes 37.5 hrs before the flight)

Had no luck with on-line checkin, even this morning, however kiosk checkin worked fine. Was able to select exit row on my saver-lite fare so am pretty happy with this.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

To stop you realising how slow the ATRs are?

ATR = Alternative To Running

or

ATR = Air Transport Ridicule

* I confess. In case anyone was in doubt, I'm not an ATR fanbois!

 

[ben7k]

Hi guy's

I did web check in for a flight tomorrow using Chrome and got all the way through the process, but the PDF would not download at the end. Tried another time for the same result. Switched to Firefox and the PDF dowloaded fine. It would seem there may be a compatability issue with the way Chrome handles PDF files. AIUI Chrome has native PDF support and does not use an Adobe plug in.

Anyone else had similar issues?

 

[carpenteria]

Random query: why does it say at the top of each Long Haul flight search (Reward redemption or otherwise) Important Note: Return Bookings Only? Is that just saying I need to come back to Aus at some point? Doesn't seem to enforce a return flight so I'm assuming so. Still, seems odd.

 

[bcworld]

Random query: why does it say at the top of each Long Haul flight search (Reward redemption or otherwise) Important Note: Return Bookings Only? Is that just saying I need to come back to Aus at some point? Doesn't seem to enforce a return flight so I'm assuming so. Still, seems odd.

I noticed that yesterday. My search was only for a oneway (SYD-LHR EY) and while it brought up plenty of options none of them had a select radio button to go any further...I assumed the feature was disabled (or just plain doesn't work). When I tried to do a return I got nowhere fast and switched off for the night.

 

[oz_mark]

Random query: why does it say at the top of each Long Haul flight search (Reward redemption or otherwise) Important Note: Return Bookings Only? Is that just saying I need to come back to Aus at some point? Doesn't seem to enforce a return flight so I'm assuming so. Still, seems odd.

It's a heading for the paragraph below it:

Important Note: Return Bookings Only

The fare prices outlined within the tables are estimates. After you have selected your preferred flights, please refer to the Booking Summary Total for the exact cost of your fare.

When you do a return flight search, the prices are a bit strange.

 

[bcworld]

I noticed that yesterday. My search was only for a oneway (SYD-LHR EY) and while it brought up plenty of options none of them had a select radio button to go any further...I assumed the feature was disabled (or just plain doesn't work). When I tried to do a return I got nowhere fast and switched off for the night.

"The fare prices outlined within the tables..." - what fare prices???

"After you have selected your preferred flights..." - HOW??

 

[rtyuiop]

Long haul awards bookings seem to be a work in progress - earlier (after the change) I could see points needed, and move through to at least the 'passengers' section of a dummy booking, but now I can't see any points values at all...

 

[Jurahn]

You (or OH) may need to call to get the new booking reference and add the Velocity numbe (if not there).

Yes, I think you're right - I tried calling a couple of times today but had to give up - the wait times were just too long. Will have to give it a try again later in the week when hopefully things will have settled down a bit!

 

[bcworld]

Long haul awards bookings seem to be a work in progress - earlier (after the change) I could see points needed, and move through to at least the 'passengers' section of a dummy booking, but now I can't see any points values at all...

Some routes (also operated by EY) do offer a quote / radio button but with a message telling me I don't have the minimum required points...even though I have about double the points required for the economy award quoted!

 

[Brooke01]

Oh bother ! Finally managed to book a flight - and after an eternity of "processing your payment", got the "Error at Origin" message. However, a few minutes later received my itinery via email - so "yay" it worked ! A few minutes after that - and another email came through - different booking reference but for the same details. Looks like my flight booking has been duplicated. Am assuming I will be double charged, so will probably have to be brave and call Customer Service and see if I can get it sorted out. Can anyone tell me if ringing the Velocity Platinum number is still working - or are all calls just going through to a central number and "wait in the queue" situation ? Have seen some very scary waiting times !

Cheers,

Brooke

Update to the above - tried on and off a few times last night/today to call, but gave up after a while. Just tried again now - and only waited for 15minutes before the wonderful Katie on the Velocity Platinum line was able to help me. Poor thing, she sounded so tired and fed up. I tried to brighten her day by telling her what an outstanding job she (and the rest of the team) were doing under very trying circumstances.
Hopefully my refund will be back on my AmEx within 5 days - but may take up to 21. No cancellation fee either due to the fact it was a "system error".

Cheers,

Brooke

 

[bullerdude]

I like the fact that you can now book many different routes for international flight - a good example is that London flight can be on VA/Singapore/Etihad or a combination of them.

However, there are still many bugs like

- not being able to book a premium fare to London?
- the fact that some of the prices do not make sense
- the 'lowest price' figure under each date in the black row at the top always shows the cheapest economy price when booking premium/business fares

Update:
You can book a premium fare to Abu Dhabi but not a combo fare all the way through - clearly hasn't been added yet??

I think the changeover has not been anywhere near as successful as they are saying publicly - the booking systems is only just holding it together and there are error everywhere - you think they would have thoroughly testing the system for functionality before going live.

Update 2:
It seems that the price of a business class return ticket MEL-AUH is the same or almost the same as one for MEL-LHR... what the?

Surely that can't be right.

 

[rtyuiop]

Some routes (also operated by EY) do offer a quote / radio button but with a message telling me I don't have the minimum required points...even though I have about double the points required for the economy award quoted!

Interesting! Only ones I have been able to make come up with points costs (and different classes showing) are VA flights BNE-LAX. Even VA AUH-SYD doesn't give me full information...

 

[777]

I think the changeover has not been anywhere near as successful as they are saying publicly - the booking systems is only just holding it together and there are error everywhere - you think they would have thoroughly testing the system for functionality before going live.

To be honest my view was the exact opposite: wow, this seems to be going really well. I suspect the main concern for now is that flights keep coming and going on time this week while they gradually bring all the functions online. I wouldn't have expected anything but.

As for testing before they went live i bet they did hundreds if not thousands of hours of it but the reality is that most of the functions can't really be tested until they are live because all the information is dynamic. FF accounts, flight loadings, ticket prices, schedules, fare rules, seating plans, (of VA and all the partner airlines that the system interacts with) etc etc are all changing every day in ways that interact with each other. I'm sure they took dummy versions of all that and tested as well as they could but the reality is that until it's in real world conditions most of the relatively minor bugs we are seeing don't become apparent or important. I would have expected those to appear and to would now expect them to be ironed out of the next few days/ weeks.

 

[Fruitcake]

Update 2:
It seems that the price of a business class return ticket MEL-AUH is the same or almost the same as one for MEL-LHR... what the?

Surely that can't be right.

That's pretty much always been the case. For example, even booking directly with Etihad, MEL-LHR return is about $300 less than MEL-AUH return. EK is the same - ~$7,100 return in J MEL-LHR, or ~$7,400 MEL-DXB return.

There's a lot more competition (and capacity) for flights from Australia to Europe than there is for flights from Australia to the Middle East hubs.

 

[bullerdude]

That's pretty much always been the case. For example, even booking directly with Etihad, MEL-LHR return is about $300 less than MEL-AUH return. EK is the same - ~$7,100 return in J MEL-LHR, or ~$7,400 MEL-DXB return.

There's a lot more competition (and capacity) for flights from Australia to Europe than there is for flights from Australia to the Middle East hubs.

Fair enough - I was unaware of this.

 

[Jurahn]

You (or OH) may need to call to get the new booking reference and add the Velocity numbe (if not there).

UPDATE: I decided to give the call centre one more try, and after about 35 minutes on hold, I finally managed to get through. The lady I spoke to was very polite and helpful- or as helpful as she could be anyway, as it seems there's still more than one bug in the system!!! She was able to call up hubby's booking and give me the new PNR - however the booking on their system is only showing the international legs, and neither of the domestic flights (PER-BNE and SYD-PER) show up at all. She put me on hold several times to check with a supervisor, and came back and said it may just be a delay in the information coming across from the old system, although both she and the two supervisors she consulted were stumped that the domestic legs aren't showing up. The only place they DO show up is on the new e-ticket/itinerary she sent me - the domestic flights do not show up on the Virgin system she was looking at , nor do they appear on the Travel Reservation she sent me, nor (more worringly) do they appear on Virtuallythere.com - again, only the international legs appear.

She said to give them a call again next week to check whether all the flight information has come through - a rather worrying thought that the domestic parts of the booking haven't migrated across with everything else.

Also, armed with the new PNR, I tried calling the reservation up via the website - still no go, nor do I have any luck with the Velocity number either (which I confirmed was definitely attached to the booking). I did it whilst I still had the Contact Centre on the phone - and they were even more stumped as to why I couldn't retrieve the booking!!! They had no idea why it wasn't working ...

So I guess I'll just have to keep checking .... and keep my fingers crossed!!

 

[Jurahn]

And another update - SUCCESS! Hubby came home early today so has just spent the last hour on the phone to the Velocity Gold call centre. A lengthy process but finally all sorted out with the domestic flights now showing up and confirmed. Huge thanks to Samantha at the Gold call centre - fantastic customer service.

 

[elemist]

Is else having issues with the Velocity Site interfacing with the new booking engine? When i login directly to the Velocity site it works as normal - Even when i look at virginaustralia.com.au it shows me logged in. But within the Velocity site, when i select the rewards flight page, enter in the flight details to search for and then hit the search button the booking engine tells me i'm not signed in to velocity and requests my details again.

only minor but kind of annoying

 

[bcworld]

Is else having issues with the Velocity Site interfacing with the new booking engine? When i login directly to the Velocity site it works as normal - Even when i look at virginaustralia.com.au it shows me logged in. But within the Velocity site, when i select the rewards flight page, enter in the flight details to search for and then hit the search button the booking engine tells me i'm not signed in to velocity and requests my details again.

only minor but kind of annoying

Yes that happens now...I think Velocity has always been a bit like that though. Continually sprouting new windows / tabs and asking for login details again. It would be great if VA / Velocity could just appear integrated like QF...no new tabs etc.