V-Flyer

Was just wondering if anyone else was thinking the same …how long does it take to upgrade a reservation system and are we the paying public being fobbed off. :0

Hey - we are talking VS here, remember.

VS and IT excellence are not, and never have been, phrases you hear together that often.

You only have to look at the many unfixed bugs that are often discussed on here to be totally unsurprised.

I noticed speculation on Flyertalk this morning that the reason it has been 'on hold' for so long is that they could be moving to a BA style - pay to reserve system - I don't think there is any evidence to support this theory though.

You have only got to look at their partially upgraded website, (which has been a mess for months with some pages on the new site, but lots still waiting to be updated) to see that VS have no pride in their IT systems at all.

Nick

I hadn't noticed anything amiss. What am I missing ?

JCBR wrote:I hadn't noticed anything amiss. What am I missing ?

For any VS flights booked in any cabin for travel after November 1st 2012, you can no longer select your seats (or even view seat maps). It's been like this for a few months now.

This is just my personal theory, but I suspect you won't be able to select seats again until after November 1st, as up to that point flights are operating with the old seat map system running so the new system will not go live until the old seat selection system finishes.

VH are doing a similar thing with their new reservation system. They explained to me that customers won't be able to view new bookings online until the last of the passengers have travelled on the old system (which is Dec 31st 2012).

Personally I wouldnt mind paying extra to assign a seat I really want and have used in my previous UC Trips but I assume only a select few wouldn't mind paying but a lot in sure will be angry having to pay extra!

I'm travelling 3rd sept 2013 (ages away) and really I'm hoping to be able to assign myself some
Good UC seats again for me and the missus!

What do BA charge to pre book seats on there flights?

I suspect there will be a charge,I would not mind paying but would that mean a gauranteed seat or still subject to change (excluding a plane change)

jodash wrote:I suspect there will be a charge,I would not mind paying but would that mean a gauranteed seat or still subject to change (excluding a plane change)

At a guess, it's more likely you'd keep it but if they did kick you out you'd get your reservation change refunded.

If they plan on bringing in a charge, then they should give a date for it to start and all bookings made before that announcement should be honoured without a charge.......... But will they?

I have a flight booked for 20 November this year. Back in January, as soon as seats were available to request, I asked for two seats to be reserved. It was only because I regularly check my booking, that I saw this fiasco going on. My better half has recently had surgery on one of her feet, so wanted to have one of the rear banks of seats, so no one could stamp on her foot in error *ouchy*. When I spoke to VS, I got no joy at all, not even an apology really. They must have been aware that this "upgrade" was going to happen, it beggers belief that Virgin would open up a flight for seat requests, to promptly take it back down after a month, terrible planning IMO. They could/should have at least communicated the changes to customers who had already requested seating.
I gave up in the end and upgraded to PE, which we couldn't really afford, but I'm sure we won't regret

Fordie wrote:
What do BA charge to pre book seats on there flights?

It varies depending on route/cabin etc, but they start from £25 each for the shortest non domestic/EU flights.

A colleague of mine is travelling to to South America on BA in Club World this weekend and the charge for him to select his seat would have been £113 for his outbound and £95 for his return, he decided against it!

The question that bothers me is: why deny people seat selection so far in advance when you are supposedly working on a new system in the interim?The absence of a seamless migration suggests to me that something pretty significant is happening. Perhaps there is a tie-in with a new booking engine?

at240 wrote:The question that bothers me is: why deny people seat selection so far in advance when you are supposedly working on a new system in the interim?The absence of a seamless migration suggests to me that something pretty significant is happening. Perhaps there is a tie-in with a new booking engine?

Have to agree we have 3 UC flights booked up and till May next year and have not been able to book seats on any, not a good advert for customer service, like others have said would be happy to pay if we had too

I have created a fresh topic for this as I want to try to analyse the hiatus in seat requests and hopefully gather some suggestions as to what is going on. My own suggestion is below.

Time for some analysis. And before anyone says it, yes I clearly do need to get out more.

What do we know?

1. At some point we move from the current system to a new or upgraded one.

2. We do not know exactly when that happens. (It is easy to assume that 1 November is the key date, but this is not necessarily the case...)

3. Seat requests have been disabled for flights departing after 1 November.

4. Seat requests have not been disabled for flights departing before 1 November.

What might we assume?

I think we can assume that VS would only want to suspend seat requests if it were absolutely necessary.

I also hope we can assume that if possible VS would want to move from one system to another with minimal downtime and no loss of existing requests.

What can we deduce?

Something happens on or by 1 November which is significant enough for VS for to suspend all requests after that date. If my assumptions are correct, then we are left with an invidious choice.

Option 1. The upgrade or change in system is so great as to render it impossible that pre-exisiting reservations could be kept.

Option 2. Some aspect of seating policy changes which makes it impossible to honour pre-existing reservations.

In fact, we are not obliged to choose -- both options could occur!

What do I think?

I don't think option 1 is very likely. Such a requirement would be a basic part of the spec for such a project, and somewhere at the back end of this system must be a database that cannot be THAT complex. But what do I know?

I think option 2 is more likely. The introduction of a policy of seating charges would be an example of a change of policy which might cause such an outcome, because one would, I think, want to introduce it on a blanket basis on all flights from a given date, so as not to penalise people who simply had already booked but not yet allocated their seats. And remember, at the moment VS says that seating will be available to allocate at T-24 after 1 November. That claim could still be honoured if they moved to pay-for-seating -- a la BA's policy of not charging for seating after T-24.

Are there other 'enhancements' which might be introduced that would wipe out the possibility of seat requests? I've made the case for pay-for-seating. Are there other possibilites?

What do you think?

Is my logic flawed? My assumptions crazy? Alternative explanations?

gayboyzuk wrote:

at240 wrote:The question that bothers me is: why deny people seat selection so far in advance when you are supposedly working on a new system in the interim?The absence of a seamless migration suggests to me that something pretty significant is happening. Perhaps there is a tie-in with a new booking engine?

Have to agree we have 3 UC flights booked up and till May next year and have not been able to book seats on any, not a good advert for customer service, like others have said would be happy to pay if we had too

Oh dear! and I was hoping to request (book!) seats for our Aussie trip in March

Ian6969 wrote:I have a flight booked for 20 November this year. Back in January, as soon as seats were available to request, I asked for two seats to be reserved. It was only because I regularly check my booking, that I saw this fiasco going on. My better half has recently had surgery on one of her feet, so wanted to have one of the rear banks of seats, so no one could stamp on her foot in error *ouchy*. When I spoke to VS, I got no joy at all, not even an apology really. They must have been aware that this "upgrade" was going to happen, it beggers belief that Virgin would open up a flight for seat requests, to promptly take it back down after a month, terrible planning IMO. They could/should have at least communicated the changes to customers who had already requested seating.
I gave up in the end and upgraded to PE, which we couldn't really afford, but I'm sure we won't regret

There are a few posts on another site about this,and although I sympathise for people who need to be together is it up to Virgin to decide if they have a genuine case? we have flown long haul many times and have been been seperated for a few and although a bit of a bore no real problems,and as said it is only a request,I know BA and the charters charge for seat allocations,my only hope is when my grandtwins are old enough to fly to Orlando someone else can look after them at the back of the plane

at240 wrote:I have created a fresh topic for this as I want to try to analyse the hiatus in seat requests and hopefully gather some suggestions as to what is going on. My own suggestion is below.

Shame these threads were merged, think of the fun we could have had with a conspiracy theory thread that could have branched to several different areas.

My two cents on the matter is, knowing VS we won't find out for sure until 1st November and maybe not even then..

Like others here I wouldn't mind paying to book seats with family members/friends seated together, but as most of my travelling is on my lonesome (yes I need to get some mates) it wouldn't affect me too much.

If VS do pursue the charging for seat allocation hypothesis, could there be a potential new benefit for AU holders? Free seat requests.. [sorry a bit off topic perhaps - still trying to justify renewing AU to myself for another year] ?|

joeyc wrote:Shame these threads were merged, think of the fun we could have had with a conspiracy theory thread that could have branched to several different areas.

I have merged the the two threads because otherwise the same information and discussions gets rehashed over and over again. We have had numerous small threads asking the same questions with the same answers and discussions.

If we have one master type thread it keeps everything neat and tidy in one place and will allow all discussions and information to be easily found without repeat threads cluttering up the board.

If and when new information or a new system is installed we will probably start another thread to discuss that, but while it is all purely speculation it is better to keep all of that in one place - this is something we do with all repeat threads on the forums.

Neil wrote:

joeyc wrote:Shame these threads were merged, think of the fun we could have had with a conspiracy theory thread that could have branched to several different areas.

I have merged the the two threads because otherwise the same information and discussions gets rehashed over and over again. We have had numerous small threads asking the same questions with the same answers and discussions.

If we have one master type thread it keeps everything neat and tidy in one place and will allow all discussions and information to be easily found without repeat threads cluttering up the board.

If and when new information or a new system is installed we will probably start another thread to discuss that, but while it is all purely speculation it is better to keep all of that in one place - this is something we do with all repeat threads on the forums.

Ahh fair play - very organised oo)

I think this is something that has been going on for some time with working on the new seat allocating system. As when I flew to Orlando in March this year and booked this September last year I was able to select my seat. When I went in a week later my seat allocation had been lost and someone else had selected the seats that I had in turn meaning that I had lost the seats I had requested. Although a little miffed as I didn't pay for the privilege I was not too fussed as there were plenty of other seats in PE. There was a message in the news feed from VS, without looking there I would not have known, it explained that due to an update / upgrade being applied it lost all seat allocations and they apologized for this and advised they would try and accommodate all seat requests but were unable to take any actions if this had already been lost and as per seating policy seats are likely to change due to aircraft and operational reasons. Therefore I believe they have been working on this for some time and rather than have the above mentioned happening again they have suspended all reservations until the point it has been input and then re-opening again. But also November is in line with the end of the aircraft re-refurbishment schedule also so this could also be a factor.

at240 wrote:I've made the case for pay-for-seating. Are there other possibilites?

I claim the rights to be the first to forecast pay-for-seat-reservations some time back, it was pure conjecture, but I agree with your logic. The prospect of moving from one database to a new one without the ability to migrate data is something that only VS's IT department could cock-up however ... so your option 1 is still possible :0 .

I agree, slinky.

Although you might think that if they knew about this some 9 or more months in advance, they would try to solve it rather than just treat it as inevitable!

I am struggling to think of other policy changes (besides paid seating) that would cause a blanket withdrawal of seating requests.

I have a sneaking suspicion some people on this board know what is happening...

I would agree that the "paid for" scenario is a credible option. Another possibility is that maybe the Au card holders will get the option of free extra leg room upgrades - no point in introducing it as a benefit if all the extra room seats have already been sold for the next 12 months.

Paul

Paul wrote:I would agree that the "paid for" scenario is a credible option. Another possibility is that maybe the Au card holders will get the option of free extra leg room upgrades - no point in introducing it as a benefit if all the extra room seats have already been sold for the next 12 months.

Paul

But they haven't stopped selling exit rows/extra legroom seats so that wouldn't make any sense.

I suspect its a change to a paid-for-seating system.

If this is the case it disappoints me, as this has been a unique selling point for VS. When I booked my Florida trip for December, the BA cost and times were marginally better, but its their pay fr seating policy that swung me to book VS... I think this is something that may get them more business....

The maximum cost of a pre booked seat on BA is £60.00 per seat per leg and that is in Club World