If it aint broke....

Tried booking my yearly hop across the pond to Florida, but decided to try Virgin Holidays. I used to use them but then tried expedia.
I went on the website and if you're booking a holiday after May 2008 you have to phone up (Goodness knows why). Fair enough i thought so phoned up - 40 Minutes on hold. I kid you not.
When i eventually got through i spoke to some lovely man who couldnt help me enough. The only problem was he could barely speak English.
'Can i get 1 adult and two children PE from Manchester to Orlando 27th December for 2 weeks?'

Response

'Ok sir, if i understand you would like 2 adults to San Francisco - What was your dates and departure point please'

Anyway, after what seemed an age of trying to make a simple booking i started to think Jeremy Beadle was going to knock on my door! In the end i just said forget it and hung up.

Whoever thought booking a holiday could be near impossible!

[preiffer]

As this relates directly to Virgin Holidays, I'll move it into there for responses.

[Neil]

I don't know why you had to phone up, I have just been able to generate a booking on your dates from MAN in PE through the website without any problems.

[preiffer]

I wonder if you meant May 2009, rather than 2008? [:?]

[Neil]

Booking for December 2009[:0], now I like to book holidays well in advance but that would just be crazy. Not sure we will ever find out now as I am pretty sure the forum this thread is now in is not open to non members to reply in!

[Darren Wheeler]

I suspect Dec 2009 as well. The site only goes to April 09.

I have tried to price up holidays for the far east after May this year and am unable too. Does not seem to be a problem with America though.

Originally posted by Gavin
I have tried to price up holidays for the far east after May this year and am unable too. Does not seem to be a problem with America though.

Yes, same thing with me at the weekend, since I'm not in a rush I left it but it wasn't a problem with my computer - the website insisted that holidays after May 2008 weren't loaded onto the system.

[mitchja]

You cant book any Worldwide package with V Hols for travel after May 2008 online [n] [n]

Regards

Like you guys, I suspect that our man Stu up there is trying to book for 2009, as there's no problems with Florida bookings for 2008 online at the moment.

The reason that Worldwide packages can't be booked online after May 2008 at the moment is because we're introducing a new reservations system to the company. At present, we're only using it for Worldwide bookings after May 2008, and we're in the midst of making sure the web can talk to the new system properly before we let bookings go through the site. It's not expected to be a long process, but we are aware of the inconvenience its causing, and want to get it sorted out as quickly as possible.

Originally posted by VirginHolidays
Like you guys, I suspect that our man Stu up there is trying to book for 2009, as there's no problems with Florida bookings for 2008 online at the moment.

Cheers for the heads up vh. This is interesting when put beside the MCO topic where vs were accused of treating MCO like a second class route. Obviously here they're ensuring that there are no booking problems for the Florida holidays whilst trialling the new system elsewhere.