Velocity/Virgin websites are RUBBISH

[bcworld]

Do they actually realise they have the worst website on the planet?
I've been trying to book since yesterday and when I get halfway through I get this:

Temporary Error


We experienced a temporary error, please try again. If the error persists, please contact our Guest Contact Centre to complete the booking for you. #00193

Yup, I see this one over and over and over again. It's very repeatable, happens any time I modify existing search criteria, and lots of other times too.

 

[Justinf]

Yup, I see this one over and over and over again. It's very repeatable, happens any time I modify existing search criteria, and lots of other times too.

Ended up booking with QF even though I had $70 in travel bank with VA. It was still malfunctioning last night so I gave up.

 

[Quickstatus]

Yesterday had to change a flexi booking to a flight 1.5 hours later as traffic to SYD airport was at a standstill.

Tried to call with a VA WP frequent flyer number but was on hold for a while (suspect everyone was doing same thing)

Went online to move flight via change flight

clicked option to change outbound flight only. unchanged flight was return flight.

found alternative flight 1.5 hours later at the same price as original booking.

booked that but an additional fare was charged.
Did not know why but as it was an urgent matter paid it with the intent of ringing VA to look into that later.

Original reservation has both legs in L fare bucket.
modified reservation showed the changed outbound leg as a L fare bucket but the unchanged return leg went to a higher H fare bucket.

So rang VA - they had a look at it and could not understand why it happened but were happy to correct the H fare to lower L fare with a refund coming.

They said usually the website directs customers to ring to change flights so close to original flight (2 hours when it was done). it usually does not allow online flight changes in that situation.

I believe this is a website issue.

However thankyou to VA customer services for efficiently correcting error.

 

[HeavyElectricity]

I've also been experiencing lots of errors recently when trying to sign in to the Velocity website.

I also emailed them (probably about 6 months back) about the poor https encryption configuration used on the connections to both virginaustralia.com and velocityfrequentflyer.com websites - enquiry was ignored. By today's standards they're really behind, and currently receive an 'F' grade on the SSLLabs test:

For virginaustralia.com:

https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=virginaustralia.com

For velocityfrequentflyer.com:

https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=velocityfrequentflyer.com&s=103.18.155.38


Just something people should be aware of, although there's nothing much that can be done about it by us.

 

[kevrosmith]

I think this article on Ausbt clearly highlights why VA's website is and will remain a complete mess...

Quoting from Mr. Borghetti himself:



Virgin Australia CEO John Borghetti shares 10 lessons in business - Australian Business Traveller

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

I haven't made VA bookings of late, but my dummy bookings always come up with an ERROR, and it just hangs there.
Not worth the effort, have tried removing cookies, and still the error code exist.
Don't have a 2nd computer to try the dummy and maybe making it real bookings.
Pity that no one at VA is making a real effort to look into the booking process of the VA website, ie, someone from VA doing a dummy booking, and then looking into the whys that the errors keep coming up.
QF never has this error come up.
Don't think I will retain VA PS by the looks of this constant error when I make bookings, even dummy ones that might become real ones, if I find the right price.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

Quoting from Mr. Borghetti himself:

View attachment 59370

Perhaps they need to stop buying the no-brand band-aids, as they keep falling off!

 

[Ausbt]

In the CBR lounge now connected to their net, have rebooted once, think I'll try toggling to my iPhone:

"We are sorry, but we are unable to complete your request at this time, please try again later.

If this problem persists please contact our Membership Contact Centre on 131 875."

 

[kyanar]

I've also been experiencing lots of errors recently when trying to sign in to the Velocity website.

I also emailed them (probably about 6 months back) about the poor https encryption configuration used on the connections to both virginaustralia.com and velocityfrequentflyer.com websites - enquiry was ignored. By today's standards they're really behind, and currently receive an 'F' grade on the SSLLabs test:


Just something people should be aware of, although there's nothing much that can be done about it by us.

I actually cannot connect to it from any computer in my house already. Internet Explorer, Chrome, (don't have Firefox), they all simply say unable to negotiate an acceptable SSL cipher. I had to manually go to the HTTP version of the pages, then use Developer Tools to change the form targets to HTTP just to get anything to load, and contacting them simply got "we're sorry to hear you're disappointed" which I assume means they couldn't work out what it meant and sent a form reply.

 

[Milefest]

Apparently there's "scheduled" maintenance.

 

[Denali]

Making some bookings online and got the *error, phone customer service* message.

Phone customer service, just got a "Sorry, we are experiencing technical difficulties" recorded message, heard muzac for about 4 seconds and then cut off.

Edit: Im guessing the Bali situation has their phone support stretched to the max.

 

[Denali]

Oh, did notice that for a Christmas day flight I was trying to upgrade on points, previously I was getting an error "You have already checked in" message.

Now I can Waitlist the flight for points upgrade (8 vacant J seats, no rewards seats released so far). Waitlist wasn't a previous option.

 

[kyanar]

Still haven't fixed the SSL though. You'd think that they'd prioritise an issue that prevents people even accessing their website at all. Nope.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Wonder if VA does not make a enough sales, and keep making low profits/not high enough ROI wonder how long before co owners (SG/EY/NZ) start making noises ala AN in the time prior to AN's demise in late 1999/early/mid 2000.

 

[bcworld]

Wonder if VA does not make a enough sales, and keep making low profits/not high enough ROI wonder how long before co owners (SG/EY/NZ) start making noises ala AN in the time prior to AN's demise in late 1999/early/mid 2000.

I don't think VA really cares about the poor quality of the web channel...that much is obvious actually! Essentially, it's been lousy since the Sabre implementation, and that was a long time ago now. Someone in the industry told me then that when Sabre rolled out, the experience for travel agents booking on VA drastically improved and their company sent much more business VA's way. I'm not sure how much the poor web experience is really harming them, the impact is probably barely noticeable to them.

 

[greenfish]

I don't think VA really cares about the poor quality of the web channel...that much is obvious actually! Essentially, it's been lousy since the Sabre implementation, and that was a long time ago now. Someone in the industry told me then that when Sabre rolled out, the experience for travel agents booking on VA drastically improved and their company sent much more business VA's way. I'm not sure how much the poor web experience is really harming them, the impact is probably barely noticeable to them.

It'll be hurting them. I don't know how significant direct sales are for Virgin, but you'd think they'd be even more important than for QF. And for Qantas, Qantas.com + contact centres is the single largest channel, see Pg 23.:

http://www.qantas.com.au/infodetail/about/investors/2013InvestorPresentationSupplementary.pdf

On a side note, I noticed (and used) some new (to me) functionality on the VA site - the ability to book multi-stop tickets that include an international segment (well trans-tasman at least). This worked really well. The only disappointment was I couldn't book a segment that arrived and departed within NZ even as part of TT booking.

 

[Justinf]

I've fallen to Silver status so I thought I'd join the Lounge for $300 after I'd used my two free passes.
I keep getting this:

[h=1]Request Entity Too Large[/h]The requested resource
/public/system/thelounge/index.html
does not allow request data with GET requests, or the amount of data provided in the request exceeds the capacity limit.

 

[kyanar]

I keep getting this:

Request Entity Too Large

You can actually get to the site at all though, so you have one up on me.

 

[Bundy Bear]

Trying to book a return flight on Virgin;

Brisbane to Melbourne, return, bringing up this error.

We experienced a temporary error, please try again. If the error persists, please contact our Guest Contact Centre to complete the booking for you. #00193

Book Brisbane to Melbourne, one way, and no error.

I find Virgin shows too many indirect options which takes a long time to load.

 

[Ausbt]

Seriously had to email Velocity to ask for a copy of an itinerary - there was no way to reprint regardless of using IE, Firefox or Chrome, tried them all. Ctrl+P didn't format correctly, quite amazing there is no print option ATM! Apparently Chrome is on the banned list for Velocity, I'm certainly aware of that one.