Velocity/Virgin websites are RUBBISH

[eastwest101]

Using the Flight Calendar to compare prices for flexible dates seems to be a waste of time on the VA website - however for two particular dates I selected, I CAN book at the prices shown on the Flight Calendar page, but not on the VA website - the exact same flights on Zuji are $600 less and on Best Flights are $300 less than I can select on the VA website. So WTF is the point in even trying to book directly through VA??? (ETA: Have just tried going via the Velocity site and the same thing happens).

Yes I wouldn't bother either, I would either ring Virgin on the phone and not accept any assisted booking fees at all explaining your problems with the VA booking site, or just use Zuji or Best Flights to book with the important caveat that you have to be really careful that the fares you are getting are Velocity SC & Points earning fares, if earning status and points are important to you. In either case you will of course have to fight to get your SC and Velocity points awarded at all or even correctly so screen shot everything and keep all etickets and boarding passes until the flights post correctly in Velocity.

By Nov-Dec this year, its possible that some of these Web site/IT/Sabre issues may be fixed, but on current evidence, lack of communication and at current rates of progress, I would not rely or even try to predict if any of these issues being fixed.

 

[Jurahn]

That's the problem, isn't it ... and the main reason why I wanted to book directly with VA as the SCS are a big issue for me - now I've finally got some status, I intend to try to keep it for as long as possible! Although many people have experienced major hassles getting SCs and points since the migration (and often before that too, as I know only too well), I didn't want the added problems of fighting with Velocity over flights that were booked through a travel agent or Zuji etc, which seems to have happened to a number of people - especially as the first 2 flight legs will be only a week before my review date and will give me enough SCs to retain Gold.

As reluctant as I am to do so, looks like I might have to get on the phone ....

 

[QF WP]

Anyone who has followed my current dummy spit to Senior Management on Facebook will understand that I am quickly waning loyalty to Virgin.

For those that aren't on FB, when I get home I'll post the communications thus far.

 

[Markmat]

Since the change to Sabre I have had to ring every time I have had a booking. My bookings are done by the company so not being able to associate FF number on the website has been a major hassle and the queues have been long and in some cases 20 minutes and that was on Platinum line. In one case I checked in and they said it wasn't logged. That was after waiting 20 minutes for someone to allocate it. I still have points not allocated after 4 weeks and no response from Virgin. From discussions with other travellers I am certainly no orphan! Many travellers in my company have moved back to Qantas and I have moved all bookings to Qantas. Not sure what Virgin are doing about their problems as all I have heard is silence, if they admitted the problems and mentioned timelines for resolution almost everyone would be forgiving. These may be First World problems, but frequent travellers want better.

 

[eastwest101]

Since the change to Sabre I have had to ring every time I have had a booking. My bookings are done by the company so not being able to associate FF number on the website has been a major hassle and the queues have been long and in some cases 20 minutes and that was on Platinum line....

You are not alone Markmat , a lot of my bookings are done by a corporate travel agent whom provide me with evidence that they say they have advised VA of my Velocity and QFF numbers. No problems with seeing and managing my QF flights. Since Sabre came out I cannot manage any of my VA bookings or do online seat selection despite having reservation numbers and FF membership numbers linked to the bookings, I would have had to phone to do all my seat selection and have had to manually retro-claim all my flights. I could do all of this before Sabre despite it being a little "borky".

This has got me thinking about what our actual corporate travel agent is actually doing to book the VA flights in the first place. Anyone have any clues as to how the travel agents are doing this? I assume its not through the VA booking site?


Next time I am booked on VA I will try using www.[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]virtuallythere.com[/FONT] and see if that works, apparently that at least talks directly to Sabre - thus bypassing the VA and Velocity websites.

 

[QF WP]

You are not alone Markmat , a lot of my bookings are done by a corporate travel agent whom provide me with evidence that they say they have advised VA of my Velocity and QFF numbers. No problems with seeing and managing my QF flights. Since Sabre came out I cannot manage any of my VA bookings or do online seat selection despite having reservation numbers and FF membership numbers linked to the bookings, I would have had to phone to do all my seat selection and have had to manually retro-claim all my flights. I could do all of this before Sabre despite it being a little "borky".

This has got me thinking about what our actual corporate travel agent is actually doing to book the VA flights in the first place. Anyone have any clues as to how the travel agents are doing this? I assume its not through the VA booking site?


Next time I am booked on VA I will try using www.virtuallythere.com and see if that works, apparently that at least talks directly to Sabre - thus bypassing the VA and Velocity websites.

Depends on which GDS the TA's are using - the TA that I use told me that he was using Amadeus for their VA bookings.

 

[toowongman]

Searching for domestic reward tickets shouldn't be this difficult:

 

[Jurahn]

After reading about all the hassles that everyone's been having, I was almost too scared to go ahead and book flights to LAX - and as per my earlier post, yesterday's frustration of "the fares on the Flight/Fare Calendar for the most part bear no relation to what you can actually book on the Select Flights page" nonsense didn't help matters. Turns out I now need to come back a day earlier than originally planned so had another look at flights today - ah, that's day's cheaper, and yes, that cheaper fare DID come up on the Select Flights page, then promptly shot up in value when I clicked another date tab to check prices and clicked back again. AAARRGGGGHHHH. So I thought I'd give it one more shot. Refreshed the Select Flights page which took me to a "Search for Flights" page, re-entered the details, and lo and behold, the original lower price was back, so jumped in and booked straight away. Thankfully (unlike a lot of others), I only had to do my Velocity log in once, and was able to get right through the booking process without any hassles, except being told "Seat Selection unavailable for this flight - seats will be allocated in check-in" for both domestic legs ***sigh*** - I've also checked my online banking (twice LOL) and - touch wood - my CC only seems to have been charged once. Was quite worried about that, given the cost of the tickets (travelling in J), and there still seem to be a lot of complaints on VA's Facebook page at the moment about doublecharging.

 

[QF WP]

Anyone who has followed my current dummy spit to Senior Management on Facebook will understand that I am quickly waning loyalty to Virgin.

For those that aren't on FB, when I get home I'll post the communications thus far.

Sent this email at 1.03pm Tuesday to my contact in VA:

There are some serious issues with Sabre and/or Virgins’ IT.

Try as I might, using the VA Domestic Business flight sale which ends today, I want a BNE/SYD/BNE same day return. Using the web, looking from 7 April (the beginning date of the fare sale), am getting availability @ $300.90 each way on 8 April (screen shots below – it was available on EVERY flight) – and when I click through to try and secure the flights (VA912 BNE/SYD and VA981 SYD/BNE [not shown in the second screenshot]), am getting the warning message at the top. Going back (using the correct VA Back button at the bottom of the screen), the prices change back to $430 or shows no availability at all.

Rang VA Platinum Desk and Juanita (in AKL) was getting same issues. She asked her Supervisor to look at the issues and the Supervisor confirmed they were seeing the same problem. Then was transferred to Plat Priority Assistance and spoke to Jessy (also in AKL) who used the exact search as I did below and came up with the exact same issue. She has screen shots herself and is sending off to (I believe) the VA IT team to check on the issue.

I have just spent almost an hour on the phone trying to book what I expected would be a relatively simple booking process. I want to use VA, I want to try Business at these prices - but the system is working against me. Looks like I’ll either just buy a Saver Lite or check Qantas’s fares and book through them. Either way, a loss of revenue to VA and an impact on the loyalty I am trying to show VA, now that I am a Plat member.

Surely I’m not the only one with these issues. If this is a Sabre issue, then I hope you have some recovery procedure against Sabre. John must be pulling out what little hair he has left .

followed that with another at 2.10pm:

Here is a perfect example of an attempt to book flights BNE/SYD on 15 April…

Front screen shows availability…

[inserted screenshot here]

Clicking through to that date, the prices look the same – but try and book one of the flights (I tried selecting Business Saver on VA912) and it’s a different matter (up comes the “Price Not Found” error message):
[inserted screenshot here]

I think I’ll give up and hope there’s another sale in the future THAT WORKS…

then the third at 3.09pm - to John B with a copy to my contact:

Hi John (cc [name redacted]),

Just wanted to let you know that I am a completely and utterly frustrated Platinum member, trying to be loyal to VA, but your Sabre booking system is making it utterly impossible to make bookings and my newly renewed loyalty is fast waning.

My case in point – after getting the Domestic Business Class sale email yesterday, I thought the prices were great and that I’d do a booking in Business Class BNE/SYD return. I thought I’d found availability, but no, it’s like a “bait and switch” – what’s there one second, isn’t there on the following screen (see my earlier emails to Matt).

I have had the pleasure of being in the building beside the Sabre Implementation Team and have many a good chat with them since they arrived. I understand some of the issues with the delay from 26 October to 10 January and the inability to extend them any longer, given they were needed to do the same changeover at Etihad. I accepted the delay in getting 6 flights flown on 10 January posted to my account (and thankfully [name] came to my rescue 3 weeks later), which got me over the line to Platinum.

What they left you, from a consumer viewpoint, is a completely useless system that should be confined to a training module in Marketing 101 (How Not to Implement a GDS changeover). Bring back Navitaire (but I know that isn’t going to happen ).

So I could get my flights booked today, I have had to resort to using Qantas. Not exactly what I wanted, but at least I get to SYD for my meetings.
[insert screenshot of QF booking, almost same times, cost $50 more per sector but booked in 3.5 mins]

I hate to think how much time I have wasted today that I’ll never get back to spend in my business. But I felt it was important for you to know, on the off chance that you don’t already know some of the problems facing Virgin. I hate to think of the leakage back to QF at the moment…as I know I’m not the only one who has tried to make bookings and have failed.

I had a response from my contact at 5.48pm:

Dear Lindsay, sorry for the delay in responding. Regrettably I've been travelling. Let me get stuck into this and I'll report back to you.

Heard nothing until this afternoon at 2.45pm (just as I was heading out the door for a 3pm appointment), somebody from VA rings. My staff tell her that I am on my way to an appointment, please ring back after 4pm. Well, that was 40 mins ago, still waiting...

 

[Fruitcake]

For what it's worth, I can proceed all the way through to payment for a return J trip SYD-BNE on 7 April. Total cost is $598.

 

[QF WP]

Just got off the phone from the newly appointed Business Development Manager for Qld. They had received my email from John B today (having only met him for the first time yesterday ). We had a very full and frank discussion (less on my issue, more on the AFF and VA relationship). I think we are getting somewhere. They are coming back to me tomorrow (having found out who is the Social Media Manager and who "operates" the Authenticated Rep personas). She is going to organise a meeting with them and me (plus I hope, markis10 and any other Mod who can attend at short notice). She'll pop her head in to say hi. Maybe I'll get to eyeball my contact and John B at the same time .

If I can organise it (and I suggested this upfront to the BDM); would anybody be prepared to attend "focus group meetings" with VA [so they have direct content-rich feedback from frequent flyers] ??

For what it's worth, I can proceed all the way through to payment for a return J trip SYD-BNE on 7 April. Total cost is $598.

That might mean that they are fixing (or have fixed) the issue Fruitcake. That sounds promising.

 

[MarkD]

If I can organise it (and I suggested this upfront to the BDM); would anybody be prepared to attend "focus group meetings" with VA [so they have direct content-rich feedback from frequent flyers] ??
.

Count me in, if it happens.

 

[markis10]

I think there would be many who would jump at the chance of being a focus group participant, we have a good range of diverse views here from people who do the hard yards experiencing the good and bad, and have suffered through the recent silence. More than happy to meet given the village is a casual stroll from my workplace, and LW you have got a pretty good idea of my availability for the next two weeks .

 

[Boris spatsky]

Count me in, if it happens.

Me too........

 

[eastwest101]

Count me in, if it happens.

I will be busy with work, but a search of the numerous Virgin Australia and Velocity threads would throw up quite an exhaustive list of things that do not work on the VA/Velocity web sites post Sabre. As a matter of fact - it may be easier just to collect a list of things that do work properly!

I think it will take months or years to fix all the problems they have but would be nice to know if there is a list of things to fix, and what is higher on the list, and a rough timeframe for these fixes.

One other thing to discuss is maybe having a look at the contract before not paying whomever was contracted to do the transition in the first place.

 

[notzac]

If I can organise it (and I suggested this upfront to the BDM); would anybody be prepared to attend "focus group meetings" with VA [so they have direct content-rich feedback from frequent flyers] ??

I'm sure you'll have a stack of interest - but add my name to the list

 

[hummel]

I'm sure you'll have a stack of interest - but add my name to the list

+1 here.

I'm trying really hard to direct spending to VA but with no communication from them at all via online media it's making it very difficult.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

Good on you LW.

I must admit, I haven't wasted my time emailing VA/VR since I did so with my grievances relating to the total cold shoulder snub they gave loyal VA FFers last year and recieved an absolute load of drivel as an excuse. Lip service we can do without. Real change we all need urgently.

I won't put my hand up as I doubt the easy words that form on my lips are diplomatic enough, but I think an AFF task force is a good idea.....followed by a AFF corporate discount rate , as part payment for the huge collective of UNPAID R&D work we've done (or at the very least, a nice supply of those "specials" for the spreadsheet).

 

[lobo76]

I'd partake in a focus group if available... not sure I'm the typical FF demographic though...

 

[anat0l]

Always interested in participating in a focus group, so thanks Lindsay Wilson for taking the initiative to push the idea.

That said, I might be disqualified, if the focus (at least currently) is on frequent flyers, let alone frequent Virgin flyers!