Who develops VS Website? grr

Don't you just love the VS website!

I've had so many problems with the thing of late I'm close to giving up. Firstly when trying to book specific dates it sometimes gives me the wrong day [:0]

Then it lost all my bookings [:0]

Now it has decided to change my seat requests to right at the back of the bus, despite me changing these to row 35 several months ago [V]

I don't mind them being changed for a real operational reason at the airport or for a plane swap. It does just appear that my seats have vanished.

So, who develops the site and can we get them replaced!!

[Edited to correct my terrible English!]

[preiffer]

Slimey,

In my experience, it gives you the "wrong" day because the dates you requested are not available. I think there's some small-print at the top that indicates as such [?]

Seat requests can reset if there's an aircraft change, and they have to reassign all passengers. This can happen way ahead of check-in.


To be fair to them, on these two specific issues, it does appear to be operating as designed (correctly )

Originally posted by preiffer
Slimey,

In my experience, it gives you the "wrong" day because the dates you requested are not available. I think there's some small-print at the top that indicates as such [?]

Seat requests can reset if there's an aircraft change, and they have to reassign all passengers. This can happen way ahead of check-in.


To be fair to them, on these two specific issues, it does appear to be operating as designed (correctly )

Would it not be good customer service to automate an e-mail telling people that their seats have been changed so they can re-allocate them?

[preiffer]

Fully agree, Slimey.

It's also the first indication to a customer that their flight details have changed (even by no more than 1 minute) - when their booking disappears. It's a ridiculous way to operate, and there are many threads on this across the site, but their website is *technically* doing what it's told.

Originally posted by preiffer
It's a ridiculous way to operate, and there are many threads on this across the site, but their website is *technically* doing what it's told.

The problem lies with the reservations system that the Website sits on top of.

This is a 'Computer Reservations System' CRS of a similar kind that all 'legacy' airlines use, and was developped LONG before the birth of the internet... so its actually quite difficult to addapt this to web style working.

Each time a schedule is changed, or aircraft type changed etc all bookings for that flight are sent to a Queue, or Queue'd back to the travel agent to make them aware, this is when the 'front end' of the website fails to find them.

Part of the problem in changing the way things happen beind the scenes is that literally years of development in getting the Travel Agency systems to talk to VIrgin's system (Called 'Shares') as well as other airlines systems means that its hard to make unilateral changes.

I don't love the VS website either....

I have to say, the BA website is far ahead of Virgin's in the following ways:

1) Reward Availability booking - BA gives you a calendar showing a whole *month* indicating when reward flights are available, with easy changing between classes. To be honest I find the better way of booking reward flights is to phone Flying Club directly and explain what I'd like. This is quicker than using the VS website.

2) Fare - BA gives you indications of the fare payable throughout the booking process. With VS there's really little clue of the fare until the very last step [:(!] which leads to lots of use of the 'Back' button on my browser / huge differences in fares coming up. In this situation I sometimes have to use either Experflyer to find out bucket availability for a flight or go through to the end of the booking to find out the fare code, both of which are unnecessary. I accept that BA doesn't give the fare code either, but it gives a choice of flights and costs.

I've also had variation in retrieving flights with my FC number associated with it. Sometimes it's worked, other times I've just had to put in all the flight details, and at the end of it see my FC number is associated with the booking, so why can't it be found under my account? Bizarre.

Thanks,

David.

[mitchja]

I do think it's time VS looked at something more up-to-date.

VS API is poor and not straight forward unlike BA or BMI. The VS e-ticket system is also pretty poor as well as far as I'm concerned.

BA managed to switch over their huge CRS system a few years ago so I think VS could also manage it to.

There's only so much developing an older legacy system can take before it says no.

Regards