Velocity Frustration

[QF WP]

Just got an email from VA headed "Travel Reminder" - which I thought only came out 24 hours before a flight (apparently 48 hours now). It made me s*** myself, for a couple of seconds I thought I had either booked the wrong date (tomorrow) or it had been changed by the Plat Desk when I rang the other day. Thankfully the body of the email did say Friday, as did the reservation in Sabre. Be still my beating heart...

So proceed to check in - thankfully I had been put into 3A by the Plat Desk, so the seating page was correct. Get to the Print/Send Boarding Pass" page and it clearly shows "VA Gold". Blood pressure goes up a notch So much for being Platinum. They'd better get it right one of these days [#firstworldproblems, I know :shock:].

 

[djchuckles]

Just got an email from VA headed "Travel Reminder" - which I thought only came out 24 hours before a flight (apparently 48 hours now). It made me s*** myself, for a couple of seconds I thought I had either booked the wrong date (tomorrow) or it had been changed by the Plat Desk when I rang the other day. Thankfully the body of the email did say Friday, as did the reservation in Sabre. Be still my beating heart...

So proceed to check in - thankfully I had been put into 3A by the Plat Desk, so the seating page was correct. Get to the Print/Send Boarding Pass" page and it clearly shows "VA Gold". Blood pressure goes up a notch So much for being Platinum. They'd better get it right one of these days [#firstworldproblems, I know :shock:].

Were you Gold when you booked? I've had that a few times from flights a book a while back

They still track at the rght 100% bonus points etc.

 

[IainF]

Still waiting on points and 160 SC's for LAX-BNE flight the first day of new system. Did just receive the $1000 credit VA gave all J class for the 3+ hour delay which was nice!

Wait what ??
I was in J class on VA8 on the 12th of January (Sabre changeover day) LAX-BNE which was delayed by 4 hours.... I didn't get an offer of an extra napkin let alone a grand?
Where/how was this offered ?

 

[bcworld]

Wait what ??
I was in J class on VA8 on the 12th of January (Sabre changeover day) LAX-BNE which was delayed by 4 hours.... I didn't get an offer of an extra napkin let alone a grand?
Where/how was this offered ?

There's a very recent post on VA's Facebook wall from a passenger asking where the $350 credits they were promised for a 4 hour delay on VA8 (due to Sabre issues) are! It states they were handed a letter with the details - but the promised follow up never came (I'm shocked! ).

 

[IainF]

Thanks for that. I will have a look.

 

[Justinf]

Having to log in twice is VERY infuriating.
I just gave up on a MEL-BNE-MEL flight and gave it to QF despite the fact that I will have no lounge access.

 

[straitman]

I made, after several attempts, a booking for 7 people MEL-NAN last night. The first time I tried to do it all the right way and put in all the information they were asking for. By the time I had completed it the page timed out on me evil. the second time I just put in the basics and it worked fine.

This now means several calls to VA to give them the complete details as that cannot be done on line. The booking did not recognise anyones status and when I tried seat allocations the best available was row 11. EF also said row 11 was the best available. When I rang through I managed to seat everyone in rows 3 & 4.

 

[docjames]

NAD? Or NAN?

 

[straitman]

NAD? Or NAN?

NAN.

Thanks.

 

[Gerardf]

The frustration I'm having with the website is the inability to allocate seating on line. I need to ring the Velocity Helpless Desk each time but the wait times for VA to pick up the call are extraordinary.

 

[maninblack]

"Velocity frustration" I think we are stuck with it forever. The new web check in system is a total mess and I didn't get my points or SC's from my last two flights (seperate bookings). And when I ring Velocity I enter my membership number as prompted but I don't get through to Platinum, just the regular call centre, this has been going on for months now. Why can't they get things right? (They claim that they think this is important!) It just doesn't have to be this way!

 

[VMC73]

"Velocity frustration" I think we are stuck with it forever. The new web check in system is a total mess and I didn't get my points or SC's from my last two flights (seperate bookings). And when I ring Velocity I enter my membership number as prompted but I don't get through to Platinum, just the regular call centre, this has been going on for months now. Why can't they get things right? (They claim that they think this is important!) It just doesn't have to be this way!

I agree. I am still waiting on SC's and points from 11 January (160 SC + points) plus a flight on the 28 Jan. The flights in Feb seem to have posted fine but cannot select seats until OLCI opens, that being said I have been given row 3 every time so not a big issue re seat selection.

I have rang numerous times, sent emails with boarding passes etc to no avail. The 11 Jan flight we received a $1000 credit each for the inconvenience of the delay as this was the change over day and flight was delayed 3 hours out of LAX, however even though they have given us the $1000 credit each they cant seem to work out that we were in fact on that flight and credit the points and SC's!! The boarding passes are classic however they were hand written sure that had something to do with the 3 hour delay!

 

[straitman]

"Velocity frustration" I think we are stuck with it forever. The new web check in system is a total mess and I didn't get my points or SC's from my last two flights (seperate bookings). And when I ring Velocity I enter my membership number as prompted but I don't get through to Platinum, just the regular call centre, this has been going on for months now. Why can't they get things right? (They claim that they think this is important!) It just doesn't have to be this way!

Why would you say 'I think we are stuck with it forever?'

My one experience with web checkin and points/SC posting since the changeover was good. I rang the call centre three times in the last two days and whilst it took longer than I would have liked I got Platinum desk each time and the service was great. (The time line was still faster than Telstra and many others)

Before someone jumps up and down, I am not defending VA but simply stating the facts.

There is a system wide patch due within the week and hopefully that will sort a lot of issues out both for the staff and the customers.

 

[grubbidok]

Has anyone else noticed that while it takes about 3mins to log into your Velocity account on the Velocity website(slight exaggeration, but not that much), logging in to your account on the Sabre-driven reward flights section is almost instantaneous? Makes me think the non-Sabre Velocity site is still under construction or update, may be some improvements (and hopefully not enhancements though) coming. Or they've just killed it.

 

[bcworld]

Why would you say 'I think we are stuck with it forever?'

I think there is an extent to which some things are just being but in the too hard basket when it comes to Sabre and customers suffer as a result.

One example is the Virgin Flyer 2 for 1 credit card offer.

The same booking classes are now being used for both sale and non sale fares depending on the date. The latter (non sale) are, according to Virgin Money, still eligible for the offer - however the fare classes are listed as ineligible in the reservations manual. That's OK for when they represent sale fares but not when they don't.

In addition Sabre charges full taxes for each passenger on the booking. This is not supposed to be the case. One agent told me that he does his best to override this but many agents do not know how to do this and will insist that the each passenger pays full tax. According to the other thread on here people are being told, by ordinary agents AND supervisors that new policy is to charge full taxes to both passengers. It seems obvious to me that this is not new policy at all, they simply do not know how to or are unwilling to tame Sabre and fix the issue - it's easier to change the terms and make customers pay more. It's an example of something I see not getting fixed at all.

 

[Mackey]

Has anyone else noticed that while it takes about 3mins to log into your Velocity account on the Velocity website(slight exaggeration, but not that much), logging in to your account on the Sabre-driven reward flights section is almost instantaneous? Makes me think the non-Sabre Velocity site is still under construction or update, may be some improvements (and hopefully not enhancements though) coming. Or they've just killed it.

If you look at the right side when logging in via the Sabre system it says "Balance as of Mon 04 Feb" under your points total. It seems they need to manually copy the data over (and not very regularly at that) to the Sabre system. I heard that as part of the change over to Sabre, Velocity would be moving over too, but I guess that will be a bit further down the track.

 

[bcworld]

If you look at the right side when logging in via the Sabre system it says "Balance as of Mon 04 Feb" under your points total.

Wow - that sucks. And explains an irate Facebook post I saw from someone who had transferred points from another family member to book a flight but days later their balance was still not updated and stated as too low to book the flight.

 

[grubbidok]

If you look at the right side when logging in via the Sabre system it says "Balance as of Mon 04 Feb" under your points total. It seems they need to manually copy the data over (and not very regularly at that) to the Sabre system.

So they do! Mine says Feb 13 though, perhaps they automatically update every time there's activity detected in the account, as yesterday was my last activity.

 

[straitman]

I think there is an extent to which some things are just being but in the too hard basket when it comes to Sabre and customers suffer as a result.

With a little time I'm sure it will work out.

In addition Sabre charges full taxes for each passenger on the booking. This is not supposed to be the case. One agent told me that he does his best to override this but many agents do not know how to do this and will insist that the each passenger pays full tax. According to the other thread on here people are being told, by ordinary agents AND supervisors that new policy is to charge full taxes to both passengers. It seems obvious to me that this is not new policy at all, they simply do not know how to or are unwilling to tame Sabre and fix the issue - it's easier to change the terms and make customers pay more. It's an example of something I see not getting fixed at all.

Could you clarify:?:

I don't understand this.

 

[serfty]

With a little time I'm sure it will work out.


Could you clarify:?:

I don't understand this.

Unadvertised changes to the 2-4-1 deal.