Velocity seems to be deteriorating in service re Business

[econgdon]

I always use points to travel J with Virgin as it is supposed to allow any change at the last moment, this is handy when going away for weekends. However the last during the last two trips the Virgin website has been down and so I could not check availability. Thank god I had made the booking as I would have ben stuck. However Sunday night I was invited to a party in Hobart and as I had a 6am business flight HBA-MEL Monday I called ( web site down again for velocity) I was diverted to Manilla. I was told that I could not change my flight as it was made using points.

This is completely contrary to what I have always done before. Has Virgin changed its policy? There is no way I will pay $400 HBT-MEL . There is not even a lounge in Hobart. From my understanding I should be able to change my flight even up to one hour after departure. I have always done so in the past.

I have had awful experience with V travelling premium economy MEL_LAX ( they even ran out of Toilet paper, so I paid Q to return with them and forfeited Vs return fare), I have always found them domestically to be excellent however, but of late starting with the decrease in the amount you can pay using points+pay, I suspect that service is deteriorating for redemptions. Especially also now that you cannot call them outside business hours.. what if your flight is 6am next day like mine?

 

[Travel Guru]

I'm not quite sure what your exact complaint is as you seem to be jumping all over the place.

No offense, but your grammar and spelling makes what you've written very difficult to follow.

TG

 

[loobloke]

All members got an email regarding scheduled maintenance on velocity ... there is even a thread just below this one talking about it. Maybe if you read it you would know about it.

You can call virgin GC 24/7 for normal bookings, maybe a bit of organization might be helpful for early flights if you need the velocity services. The points+pay was never intended to be a permanent feature, it has now been enhanced to a comparable standard to other airlines.

I've traveled 4 times in PE on VA long haul, excellent every time, but unfortunate about the toilet paper though.

 

[Travel Guru]

I've also had A+ experience with VA Y+, to be honest I find it really hard to believe that an airline would ever run out of toilet paper (unless one of the other pax had a seriously bad case of the runs lol)

TG

 

[Moopere]

Doesn't sound right to me. I've always been able to change my J bookings either full points or P+P. Just keep a copy of the Velocity Business T&C to hand and read them out to the call centre if they are giving you a hard time.

 

[loobloke]

Doesn't sound right to me. I've always been able to change my J bookings either full points or P+P. Just keep a copy of the Velocity Business T&C to hand and read them out to the call centre if they are giving you a hard time.

They cant change redemption flights because the velocity servers are under maintenance: http://www.australianfrequentflyer....y-scheduled-system-maintenance-8-a-40030.html

 

[Sprucegoose]

I went though to a chap in america to change a flexi, couldn't have been more professional

 

[Moopere]

They cant change redemption flights because the velocity servers are under maintenance: http://www.australianfrequentflyer....y-scheduled-system-maintenance-8-a-40030.html

Well I didn't think the OP was restricting his comment to the last 3 days ... apologies if I misread. I can never change J flights on the web anyway, never works, I always have to call. Are they not able to change flight dates during the 3 days offline either?? Seems pretty strange.

 

[pat25d]

You should have been able to change it up to 24hrs after departure unless I'm mistaken.

Sounds like another case of bad service from overseas call centres.

As for the site being down, not great for you but everyone was given plenty of notice.

 

[Fruitcake]

I always use points to travel J with Virgin as it is supposed to allow any change at the last moment, this is handy when going away for weekends. However the last during the last two trips the Virgin website has been down and so I could not check availability. Thank god I had made the booking as I would have ben stuck. However Sunday night I was invited to a party in Hobart and as I had a 6am business flight HBA-MEL Monday I called ( web site down again for velocity) I was diverted to Manilla. I was told that I could not change my flight as it was made using points.

This is completely contrary to what I have always done before. Has Virgin changed its policy? There is no way I will pay $400 HBT-MEL . There is not even a lounge in Hobart. From my understanding I should be able to change my flight even up to one hour after departure. I have always done so in the past.

For those with a more detailed knowledge of how such things works, is it possible this was a fare bucket issue? ie there was no reward class availability for the flight that econgdon wanted to change into? I realise points and points + pay (for a reward seat) are fully flexible but I've always assumed that flexibility depended upon reward availability on the new flight.

If that's true, then the agent's response that "it can't be changed because it's booked on points" is technically correct but in practice is completely misleading. Another communication fail for the Velocity call centre.

 

[Moopere]

ahh,yes, I'm sure you are correct Fruitcake.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

All members got an email regarding scheduled maintenance on velocity ... there is even a thread just below this one talking about it. Maybe if you read it you would know about it.

With due respect, the OP mentioned the last two trips the web site had been down and if you check the thread you mentioned you'll find that quite a number of us couldn't log into Velocity on numerous occasions before said scheduled maintenance. More to the point, there was no notice given by DJ about those "extra" outages.

 

[bullerdude]

With due respect, the OP mentioned the last two trips the web site had been down and if you check the thread you mentioned you'll find that quite a number of us couldn't log into Velocity on numerous occasions before said scheduled maintenance. More to the point, there was no notice given by DJ about those "extra" outages.

I have to agree with this as I was unable the website was not working for me at least 2 times during the last 2 weeks.