Can't search for flights on VA website

[drron]

Yes I get the circle of doom in firefox,IE but Edge gets me there.
just as well for VA the alternative was JQ.

 

[JMB1]

I find it consistently works fine if you refresh once after the circle turns up

 

[dxwell]

This looks to me like VA have implemented reCAPTCHA version 3 (reCAPTCHA v3 | reCAPTCHA | Google Developers).
You may know the previous version reCAPTCHA2 from filling out forms where you hit the checkbox "I am not a robot" and if the browser doesn't get sufficient feedback, you get a Brady-bunch style panel asking you to select all storefronts/cars/tractors/etc. When you do this, the browser can detect that you move the mouse and click the mouse button. This distinguishes you, as a human, from a machine.
Anyhoo, the story is that reCAPTCHA3 does the same but behind the scenes - it gets loaded on the page and senses browser feedback from the mouse - so instead of the "I am not a robot" interaction, it is loaded and monitors behind the scenes.
VA will be doing this to prevent screen-scraping - a method for flight comparison sites to extract the flight fares from a website search programatically.
VA will want resellers to pay to use the Global Distribution System (GDS) which is Amadeus rather than screen scrape.
If you don't provide mouse feedback, or you go to another tab/window, it ain't gonna work.

TL;DR
Move your mouse after you submit search.
"It's you, not me".

 

[corrocoat]

Virgin/Velocity told me it will not work on Chrome - they have known about it for 9 months from my discussions with them...but they seem to say it is a Chrome issue, that it does not update (the only other website this bad was Accor, when it would not work on Safari). When will they fix it? Not sure. Hope it will be fixed soon, because ringing to make flight bookings is tough & getting pushed to the overseas call center REALLY tough.

 

[malmac]

It’s been bad for quite some time now. Like someone previously said start the search let it spin then go back to the search screen, previous information will be there and immedialty re submit and the search results come up.
Mind you no customer or potential customer should have to do this regardless of web browser used. I use Mozilla FIrefox same issue as others describe.

 

[hossein_au]

Virgin/Velocity told me it will not work on Chrome - they have known about it for 9 months from my discussions with them...but they seem to say it is a Chrome issue, that it does not update (the only other website this bad was Accor, when it would not work on Safari). When will they fix it? Not sure. Hope it will be fixed soon, because ringing to make flight bookings is tough & getting pushed to the overseas call center REALLY tough.

Well, at least for me it is "Safari" that consistently does not work. My go to browser on my Mac is indeed Chrome (for VA bookings anyway)!

 

[DrAndyC]

The last 2 flights Ive booked I have had problems with. Both come up with text after booking "your flight may not be processed" (or something to that effect) "Please contact guest contact centre".

I have since done that TWICE on both bookings and now one has been paid for TWICE...which is quite irritating now a week down the road missing about 500 bucks from an account (and only one e-ticket issued on it mind you)..... its not even a pend or hold charge...it has actually BEEN charged twice. Have contacted guest contact centre but can only imagine it will take ages to sort after an "escalation" to accounts. Really isnt something I want to think about.... I know i sound like a spoilt twit....but when booking a flight I dont really want to have to deal with this superfluous stuff...

both times chrome on a mac

 

[ozfflyer]

I find regularly clearing cookies related to the booking URL often results in better and more reliable performance.

tried doing this but still get this error below