Changes to booking engine

Hi

As heads-up, you will see some new pages appearing today on http://www.virginatlantic.com which will replace our flight search matrix with a new design and process. Only the first step of the booking flow will change at this stage, but more is to come. We gave some of you a preview of the new designs a while back so this is them coming to life. It's still a beta test so you may see old and new designs swapping over the next few days.

Comments welcomed here or via our "rate this page" feedback feature on the site.

rgds
Fergus
Virgin Atlantic eBusiness

Hey Fergus: Long time no speaky!

I like the "show all cabins." Rather useful!

However, the additional options takes you to an older looking page. The only additional options I can see are to select On each leg the class of cabin. The other addition i "exact Dates / stopover." Would be much neater if these were exposed in a similar fashion to when you click "show simple search"

The results page is much better also. However, the ability to show prices on a matrix would be good. The +/- 3 days prices are a start...

One last bit of feedback which you may be to consider: When I book a hotel with Hilton, it gives me the option to add this to my Outlook / iCal / Google calendar... Please consider this!

The +/-3 days is a must, have just spent several hours trying to fix a PE to Shanghai next week, with limited PE availablity and price fluctuations of over £900 between the fares, it has to be simpler than this to find an acceptable fare. I am extremely flexible but find the new system is not .......
Perhaps it's just me and I'm missing something?

[preiffer]

Like the change - much more up to date

Agree with the others though - having the date ticker along the top react to the cabin you select would be a big improvement. No point in showing the customer "from" prices which only relate to Economy when they've selected Upper Class on the multi-cabin search results...

As a step forward though, it's a big improvement in interface.

Thanks I just tried to make a booking now and saw this improvement. It looks so much nicer and modern.

Edit to mention that as it is, the new web page doesn't seem to allow multi cabin bookings

Hi Fergus,

We've been playing with this for a wee while forum/index.php?f=4&t=277149&rb_v=viewtopic

There's a bug in the system - when you search for upper fares it returns seats, when you search for "show all fares" for the same dates it doesn't return any upper fares.

David

This page is starting to come together nicely oo) but I would also like to see you incorporate on this page after choosing econ/prem/upper the option to add on extra leg room seats or exit row option ( if still available ). :w It would then give you the option to book this if you want to. and the full price the package would be.

Looks good from the limited play I've had

A minor presentational issue is that the 'Premium Economy' label overwrites the 'lowest' on the ticket type line.

However the turning back into the 'old' site could be an issue for some people.

All the anti internet fraud people say that if the layout of a site changes mid transaction then be suspiscious. I know you want to roll it out but it might have been best to roll out the new version of the booking engine only when it had all been updated.

And bring back the +/- 3 day matrix !

Hi

As heads-up, you will see some new pages appearing today on http://www.virginatlantic.com which will replace our flight search matrix with a new design and process. Only the first step of the booking flow will change at this stage, but more is to come. We gave some of you a preview of the new designs a while back so this is them coming to life. It's still a beta test so you may see old and new designs swapping over the next few days.

Comments welcomed here or via our "rate this page" feedback feature on the site.

rgds
Fergus
Virgin Atlantic eBusiness

Hi Fergus,

My girlfriend and I just used it, I like it - however, I did notice, like many things on the VS site, it only appears when you're in the UK version of the site (we're in the US) - obviously I know it's a simple change, but I think it should be the default across all versions.

Cheers,

Simon

New design appears to be down this morning --- have tried on home and now work connections, in IE, Firefox and Chrome, get to the header choices but trying to select any flight and the screen dims and fails to update with the just the little circle rotating in the middle of screen, can get into the "old" matrix via home and book your travel and therefore will eventually be able to book my flight.

I have just been using the new booking engine and I am missing a couple of features:

1. You cannot quickly see the lowest total flight cost for your chosen days. You have to price up the two legs. If you are flying, say, to NYC, that requires some scrolling and clicking; it was better in the previous system where you could identify the lowest total cost just by looking at the matrix. Easy peasy.

2. The absence of the date matrix is a mistake. I know you can see the individual lowest leg prices on the calendar buttons, but (again) you need to scroll and mentally calculate options to work it all out. That is MUCH less convenient than the matrix. I hope you will reconsider this?

3. I am having some difficulty getting all cabin options to display. I am not sure if it is a bug or just an issue relating to my dates.

4. The general look is obviously way ahead of the old site. y) But in the end I went via the Book Flights tab to ensure that I could use the old system. That cannot be a good sign...

A second go at providing some feedback.

The new booking pages may look better than the old ones, but using them is significantly more fiddly. You cannot see the cheapest total price for your date without picking flights - irritating. The absence of the date matrix means that you cannot see quickly whether there are much better options nearby.

I also miss the page which used to offer you the upsell to PE or UC. Again, you have to price it all up mentally.

Finally, the system could not cope with me trying to buy 2 PE returns. The total price kept coming to 0 GBP. I gave up in the end and found a way of forcing the system to produce the old engine.

I really think VS should reconsider this. I cannot see any respect in which this is an improvement other than looks. It is very annoying. It may be more similar to other airlines, cough cough, but I don't care about that -- the removal of the date matrix in particular is a mistake.

Surely I am not the only one who is having these thoughts?

I agree with much of what you say at240. I found that by logging into flying club, and trying to spend miles it took me to the old style site anyway, which seems to defeat the point of having the new site.