Thinking it's time to give VA the flick

[bcworld]

Sabre is a fully integrated solution AFAIK. I doubt very much that one sabre system is not able to talk to another. Put simply, that's what LCC GDS's like Navitaire are like. VA have moved to Sabre to get away from patches and strung together solutions.

Give it time I say. From my sources in VA things will be getting better, but I can't say much more.

It certainly seems that at the moment that loyalty and reservations are not linked other than a crude periodic update of your Velocity balance in the booking engine. I don't know what the product stack of Sabre looks like but there is certainly something missing at the moment!

 

[drewbles]

It certainly seems that at the moment that loyalty and reservations are not linked other than a crude periodic update of your Velocity balance in the booking engine. I don't know what the product stack of Sabre looks like but there is certainly something missing at the moment!

They're merging a lot of different systems and it's clearly a far more bumpy road that they thought. Having worked on large scale projects in the past, i'm willing to cut them slack, but can appreciate how others may not be so understanding. Of course, there will come a day where I do just throw my hands up and go back to QF, but it's a way off still.

 

[smit0847]

Give it time I say. From my sources in VA things will be getting better, but I can't say much more.

I'm amazed that with how hard JB has worked the last few years to bring new customers across from QF that he is letting them go back without so much as a 'the implementation didnt go exactly as planned'.

 

[jasejman2000]

I hope you send a complaint about that. I must admit, I rarely use the on-board facilities (I'm not yet at an age where my bladder can't handle the 1-2 hour flts I normally take) and when I do, I don't look for change tables (those days are definitely past for me), but expecting people to change a babies nappy either on a toilet seat, on the floor or on a pax seat is just primitive and an insult to not just those flying with a baby, but to other pax on the flight seated around them. Imagine if it was one of those lovely sloppy yellow styles that have an unusually quaint yet distinctive nose!

Our return flight fro MCY to MEL was even worse. They ended up cancelling it then bussing us to Brisbane. Not one staff member was seen at MCY. We followed the crowd and all stood confused waiting to see what would happen. Thank goodness we got on a flight in Brisbane and got home 5 hours later! A rough trip with little ones. I'm glad I'm flying Qantas later this week. Hopefully they're good to me .

 

[MarkD]

Thats actually pretty common for all airlines. MCY and OOL have flight disrupts all the time, due to weather etc, and buses do take pax to BNE. Better than trying to land the bugger and making a crater.

 

[nlagalle]

They're merging a lot of different systems and it's clearly a far more bumpy road that they thought. Having worked on large scale projects in the past, i'm willing to cut them slack, but can appreciate how others may not be so understanding. Of course, there will come a day where I do just throw my hands up and go back to QF, but it's a way off still.

It just looks like nothing was tested or rushed in too early. There is so many things that don't work anymore or work so poorly it's laughable. I would have preferred they waited until more functionality was ready before rolling it out. From my conversations with Virgin it will still be months before we see anything like online seat selection being available again.

As an update I didn't receive any emails from the rep i was dealing with, until I emailed her. The response was basically you are too hard for me and my manager will call you next week when he is back. Pretty pathetic really. So as a result my flights this week are Qantas.

 

[drewbles]

It just looks like nothing was tested or rushed in too early. There is so many things that don't work anymore or work so poorly it's laughable. I would have preferred they waited until more functionality was ready before rolling it out. From my conversations with Virgin it will still be months before we see anything like online seat selection being available again.

As an update I didn't receive any emails from the rep i was dealing with, until I emailed her. The response was basically you are too hard for me and my manager will call you next week when he is back. Pretty pathetic really. So as a result my flights this week are Qantas.

I believe the actual Sabre migration team (who work for Sabre) were not available for a considerable period so it was 'now or very very later'. Obviously they probably should have waited, but the lead time was around 1 year I believe, so they bit the bullet.

It could have been managed better yes, but i'm still going to reserve my lambasting!

 

[jasejman2000]

Thats actually pretty common for all airlines. MCY and OOL have flight disrupts all the time, due to weather etc, and buses do take pax to BNE. Better than trying to land the bugger and making a crater.

I agree 100%. Just wish they'd communicate better. We all stood there confused not even sure where to go to get bus. Had to ask at car rental counter! There was not a staff member in sight to help people. Lots of people asking questions cos they'd never had to do a transfer like this before.

 

[Anna]

Even before the Sabre changes, the dreadful and difficult VA website was a major reason why VA never really got off the ground with me (ha! See what I did there?) Reading this thread just consolidates my view that VA isn't yet a true competitor for QF. The only part of VA that I have found to be consistently better than QF is the ground staff (check in and lounges).

Having a properly functional website ought to be Airline Management 101 these days. I can think of 2 overseas trips and several domestic trips where the VA website was so unhelpful that I gave up even considering VA as an option.

 

[bcworld]

Even before the Sabre changes, the dreadful and difficult VA website was a major reason why VA never really got off the ground with me (ha! See what I did there?) Reading this thread just consolidates my view that VA isn't yet a true competitor for QF. The only part of VA that I have found to be consistently better than QF is the ground staff (check in and lounges)

The staff maybe but VA seems to be getting a lot of complaints about 1 hour bag drop queues these days...queues they decided to add silver velocity members to of course!

 

[medhead]

Well $99 fares on my usual route leaves me with a bit of a dilemma. Is a 36% saving over qantas worth the hassle?

 

[munitalP]

Well $99 fares on my usual route leaves me with a bit of a dilemma. Is a 36% saving over qantas worth the hassle?

I'll retype that to what you should have written MH

"Well $99 fares on my usual route leaves me with a bit of a dilemma. Is flying Virgin over Qantas worth the hassle?

 

[notzac]

It just looks like nothing was tested or rushed in too early. There is so many things that don't work anymore or work so poorly it's laughable. I would have preferred they waited until more functionality was ready before rolling it out. From my conversations with Virgin it will still be months before we see anything like online seat selection being available again.

My issue with the whole thing isn't so much that it was rushed (it clearly was and I get why), but the fact that VA have become totally non-communicative about the whole thing. Their number one sales channel (the website) is a mess. Online management of existing bookings is a mess. There's been no cohesive communication showing that VA are actually aware of the problems and how they plan on fixing them -- to the point of having denied knowledge of problems in some cases documented here!

I haven't personally been affected by any problems yet, which is why I haven't said much. Still, it's really disappointing to see (a) a number of people having a hard time of it, and (b) no official VA rep on here answering questions (even if it was "I don't know, I'll find out") -- especially given that this used to be something that VA were great at.

~~

I'm going to assume that people at VA are reading this (I know they're reading the mistake fare thread..): you guys need to assign one or more senior staff to get back on here and respond to questions. No one expects you to have all the answers, but knowing that someone is listening (and hopefully, passing feedback and getting timeframes from the right departments) will go an awfully long way.

While I'm dreaming - I'd love to see a web person from your IBE team jump on here and start answering questions and taking feedback.

*gets off soap box*

 

[medhead]

I'll retype that to what you should have written MH

"Well $99 fares on my usual route leaves me with a bit of a dilemma. Is flying Virgin over Qantas worth the hassle?

Thanks. That makes it much easier. Not.

At 6am all planes are pretty much the same. So the only really difference is the price. Evening flights are another story and I really don't know how many more hotdogs I can handle.

 

[docjames]

Thanks. That makes it much easier. Not.

At 6am all planes are pretty much the same. So the only really difference is the price. Evening flights are another story and I really don't know how many more hotdogs I can handle.

Doesnt that answer the question - VA outbound, QF home?

 

[medhead]

Doesnt that answer the question - VA outbound, QF home?

Yes, that has been my MO more or less. Just that I agree with the sentiment of giving them the flick, which would mean no VA even for $99 (+$7.70)

 

[maninblack]

Points not crediting, name and address entry every time you book, family pooling function not working, the website is actually more dysfunctional than it was before (if that's possible), call centre staff lacking knowledge, hit and miss service, etc etc etc...

Wasn't so long ago everyone was singing JB's praises. Seems it's not so easy to run an airline and do it well

 

[bcworld]

My issue with the whole thing isn't so much that it was rushed (it clearly was and I get why), but the fact that VA have become totally non-communicative about the whole thing.

Agreed. Other than the scale of the lack of functionality we have now, VA's refusal to communicate proactively about all this has been surprising & disappointing.

I'm amazed that 7 weeks after go live unsuspecting customers are still getting their credit cards maxed out by payment being taken multiple times...and the hoops VA seems to make people jump through to get their own money back. I also work in IT but I'm not prepared to cut VA limitless slack because implementing a new system is hard. How can it be that 7 weeks after go live we still have a payment gateway / website that is double charging customers on a daily basis? Should this not be on the critical priority list? Watching the social media team feign surprise & concern at each new report of double charging is kinda infuriating!

I sympathise with Virgin Money too who I think are caught up in a sh*tfight with VA over the 2-4-1 promo over an issue that I think is a simple case of VA not being able to work the reservation system properly.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

family pooling function not working,

I haven't read about this being an issue. Am I missing a thread or two here?

I haven't family pooled since Sabre, but will be this weekend. Is there a problem I've missed?

 

[Deleted member 29185]

VA's refusal to communicate proactively about all this has been surprising & disappointing.

I sympathise with Virgin Money too who I think are caught up in a sh*tfight with VA over the 2-4-1 promo over an issue that I think is a simple case of VA not being able to work the reservation system properly.

I'm not surprised about the communication (or lack thereof). I just think they don't know what to communicate except "Sabre is great". (Bollocks)

As for Virgin Money, I'm not as sympathetic as you. I don't for one minute think VM are blameless, in fact I personally believe they're complicit!