Velocity/Virgin websites are RUBBISH

[Warks]

It's nigh on 24 hours before my flight and I still can't check in online. Am I the only one with a problem I wonder?

 

[ronnie66]

I haven't been able to book my own reward seat online for ages now. The website let me select a flight, add my velocity number, adds my details and then... error - the website report that information is missing. I have checked all the requirement, text boxes, phone numbers etc. completed everything, however website keeps refusing to accept the details. This means you that one has to call the call centre. I know they are helpful etc. but I think that booking by phone (I am a visual person) is not as efficient as booking via the internet. It usually takes ages and mistakes are easily made with dates/times etc. Especially in my case (visual preference for numbers/dates etc.). No matter how many suggestions I have forward to Virgin it is still not working. It is just taking so much time to book a reward flight. Once again: not complaining about the help one receives when calling to book a reward flight.
I am a platinum member and prefer to arrange these things myself.

 

[anat0l]

I haven't been able to book my own reward seat online for ages now. The website let me select a flight, add my velocity number, adds my details and then... error - the website report that information is missing. I have checked all the requirement, text boxes, phone numbers etc. completed everything, however website keeps refusing to accept the details. This means you that one has to call the call centre. I know they are helpful etc. but I think that booking by phone (I am a visual person) is not as efficient as booking via the internet. It usually takes ages and mistakes are easily made with dates/times etc. Especially in my case (visual preference for numbers/dates etc.). No matter how many suggestions I have forward to Virgin it is still not working. It is just taking so much time to book a reward flight. Once again: not complaining about the help one receives when calling to book a reward flight.
I am a platinum member and prefer to arrange these things myself.

Does it tell you what kind of detail is missing or wrong? It should usually be highlighted as such.

Note that one problem all of us had originally was that the phone number field was incorrectly filled in. And it wasn't displayed by default (you had to click the "..." button to see what was wrong).

 

[ronnie66]

I clicked the .... and checked everything including the phonenumber - all details are correct.
I have changed it a couple of times, just to be sure.
If all of you had issues with the phone number, it is obviously not very intuitive.
But FYI : number was correct.

 

[MarkD]

Booked a last minute flight to cairns yesterday, for today, couldnt select seats, it then auto allocated 3 B. i could see 3 F available but could not select. Then it told me I had only one luggage item allowed as platinum. One step forward, two steps back

Another annoyance is the constant login cough, seriously, why cant you just drop in FF # and all the fields auto populate, and REMEMBER these details???!?
Why do you have to sign in to see a booking, even though you are already signed into your account. Kind of sucks really

 

[lukenet]

It is getting a bit tedious now.. I hate how price options are hidden and so random and the login is so inconstant. You would have though they would have fixed it by now.. I would hate to think how much it has cost them in lost sales revenue..

 

[williamsf1]

I haven't been able to book my own reward seat online for ages now. The website let me select a flight, add my velocity number, adds my details and then... error - the website report that information is missing. I have checked all the requirement, text boxes, phone numbers etc. completed everything, however website keeps refusing to accept the details. This means you that one has to call the call centre. I know they are helpful etc. but I think that booking by phone (I am a visual person) is not as efficient as booking via the internet. It usually takes ages and mistakes are easily made with dates/times etc. Especially in my case (visual preference for numbers/dates etc.). No matter how many suggestions I have forward to Virgin it is still not working. It is just taking so much time to book a reward flight. Once again: not complaining about the help one receives when calling to book a reward flight.
I am a platinum member and prefer to arrange these things myself.

may be a PM to the Velocity rep on this site with your details and explination of issue. Your Velocity profile may be corrupted and need a reset. A large number of members had the same issue after cutover

 

[bcworld]

It is getting a bit tedious now...

Yup. Here we are coming up for 7 months later and I can't actually think of a single real functional improvement.

 

[hummel]

Website is still useless.. nothing new there.

I do have a question though, when I goto my bookingsand put my # in (again), password etc it throw up an error. Now I know I don't have any current VA bookings but do an AirNZ booking with my velocity number attached. Is this normal behaviour? Are people with no current bookings able to log in to my bookings?​

 

[Clivem]

It is getting a bit tedious now.. I hate how price options are hidden and so random and the login is so inconstant. You would have though they would have fixed it by now.. I would hate to think how much it has cost them in lost sales revenue..

My point exactly - I am amazed share holders are not standing out side the Bowen Hills H.Q. front door with pitch forks in hand - the revenue going out the door would be very very disturbing !!!!!

 

[Fruitcake]

My point exactly - I am amazed share holders are not standing out side the Bowen Hills H.Q. front door with pitch forks in hand...

That's because the shareholders are too busy using their pitchforks against each other to decide who can buy shares the fastest! (Except Mr Branson, who is generally selling).

 

[bcworld]

My point exactly - I am amazed share holders are not standing out side the Bowen Hills H.Q. front door with pitch forks in hand - the revenue going out the door would be very very disturbing !!!!!

Maybe...but perhaps it's being supplemented in other ways.

I don't know exactly the details...but I have a friend who is very senior in the local travel industry. They told me that at the time of the Sabre cutover, VA also rolled out other new systems (details I'm not sure of, but not just purely Sabre) which have made life much easier for travel agents...and as a result their organisation's business with VA has increased hugely.

 

[notzac]

Now I know I don't have any current VA bookings but do an AirNZ booking with my velocity number attached. Is this normal behaviour? Are people with no current bookings able to log in to my bookings?​

I can't check this as I have bookings - but in theory, it should let you log in regardless of whether you have bookings or not. I very much doubt the NZ booking would show up, seeing as it's a partner booking.

..which have made life much easier for travel agents...and as a result their organisation's business with VA has increased hugely.

Maybe so, but a massive chunk of their business is retail - and I can't for the life of me understand why VA would want to piss off that retail customer base and just say "oh well, we've got more GDS business now, that'll do".

It sure seems that VA have decided that fixing the website belongs in the too hard / too expensive bucket.

 

[totd]

I can't check this as I have bookings - but in theory, it should let you log in regardless of whether you have bookings or not. I very much doubt the NZ booking would show up, seeing as it's a partner booking.

For the first time in about 12 months I have no bookings. This is what I see


FWIW, NZ bookings would only show up if booked through VA (i.e. a VA codeshare on NZ metal).

 

[Deleted member 29185]

I can't for the life of me understand why VA would want to piss off that retail customer base and just say "oh well, we've got more GDS business now, that'll do".

Why not?

Didn't they do exactly that to their old proven BIS status members when they tried to lure in a whole new breed with, not just a raft of freebies to the newcomers, but a whole battleship full? (and then managed to lose a truck load of them with the Sabre issues).

BTW, when I've tried to log in with no bookings (more often these days ) it lets me but just takes me to a screen asking for a particular booking reference number. (EDIT as per example above)

 

[maninblack]

It is the worst website in the entire world of air travel, perhaps in the history of e-commerce and the more deeply you go into it (OLCI, manage bookings and so on) the worse it gets. How JB and the senior management can have this go on so long is beyond mind boggling. If I was the Board I would fire the lot of them, there can be NO EXCUSE for this debacle They are running a retail business but making the customer interface a total schmozzle. VA could be a really good airline if it weren't for this element of the experience.

 

[bcworld]

It is the worst website in the entire world of air travel

Hardly...go try using the Asiana website! :shock:

 

[Deleted member 29185]

How JB and the senior management can have this go on so long is beyond mind boggling.

Fairly recently, I heard a VA rep speak and the insinuation was that many airlines using Sabre have similar issues so VA don't see a big problem with it.

I have a problem with the fact they don't believe they have a problem!

 

[eastwest101]

I have a problem with the fact they don't believe they have a problem!

That is funny - I wonder if they have bothered to look at their own corporate Facebook page?????

 

[bcworld]

That is funny - I wonder if they have bothered to look at their own corporate Facebook page?????

I've noticed the complaint of the moment seems to be response time to complaints / feedback...people seem to be going months without a response, never mind 15 business days. Standard response given of 'the team are dealing with a larger than usual number of queries...' type thing. It's always funny when unusual becomes the new usual!