VS Website - changes are a coming!

The inability to use special characters in the password is surely a huge backwards step terms of site security, particularly as you could use them previously. There is no technical reason why they can't be used and indeed some sites, such as Apple, even force their use as it makes passwords much harder to crack and therefore more secure. This is certainly hugely important on a site such as Virgin's that contains a wealth of personal information such as names, addresses, travel dates (i.e. when someone is away from home) and passport numbers.

is it just me or has it become very difficult to find reward flights? do you have to cycle through every date individually? or am I being a little stupid?

[mitchja]

One section of the VS website that does need work and seems to have been missed is the IFE section as if you click on any of the 'See what's on' and 'Now Showing' links you get sent to http://mymovies.virgin-atlantic.com which is still in the old website format and all the links on that page then take you a a 404 holding page.

is it just me or has it become very difficult to find reward flights? do you have to cycle through every date individually? or am I being a little stupid?

Yep the calendar seems to have gone, and overall the whole thing seems really user unfriendly.

Firstly thanks Oli for joining us here and on the Flying Club changes thread.

In MMB I miss the days, hours and minutes count down - was very good for sending screen shots off to colleagues just in case they'd forgotten I was going away

I've got the following anomoly on my future flights where the outbound to SFO is showing as confirmed but has no timings or miles, whereas the return does:

Capture 1.JPG (35.51 KiB) Viewed 3559 times

I'm assuming that this is due to this being a new route in 2017, as the MAN - JFK, BOS, SFO routes aren't showing on "Destinations Around The World" https://www.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/destinations/route-map.smt-member.html

Where We Fly.JPG (19.46 KiB) Viewed 3559 times

With best wishes

I have just had a go at the website and the app. App is bloody fantastic in my opinion, much better than the old version. Sadly, I cannot say the say about the website. What is it with all these new websites where you have to keep scrolling down, its a bugbear of mine. Everything should be easily accesible through main menus along the top. I much prefer the old website.

Tried doing some dummy flight searches on the website and hated it, the dates keep resetting, can't look at availability in all cabins in one view. I guess the upshot is that its going to take people that much longer to look for reward flights that they'll get bored and then someone else with persistence can swoop in and grab seats lol!

One section of the VS website that does need work and seems to have been missed is the IFE section as if you click on any of the 'See what's on' and 'Now Showing' links you get sent to http://mymovies.virgin-atlantic.com which is still in the old website format and all the links on that page then take you a a 404 holding page.

I was hoping the abysmal selection of films for November may have also got upgraded along with the website, but seems not. No films for me to and from St Lucia this month. I'll take my colouring book!

Hi Oli,

Thanks for taking the time to post here, it's appreciated. Here are a couple of things from me following the recent website changes:-

(1) **VIEW RECEIPT** When I "view receipt" for one of my bookings (which happens to two passengers on a four sector booking) it states there are four passengers instead of two passengers.

(2) **BOOK CHAUFFEUR CAR** One of bookings contains Z fare Upper Class flights. This booking is offering me the option to "book your chauffeur driven car online" - despite Z fares not being entitled to CDC. The button shows between "Passenger Details" and "Extras you might like for your trip". It so happens that on this booking I don't want to book a car, however on another booking **where fare class entitles me to book a car** the button to book the car does not show?

(3) **BOOKING REF NOT RECOGNISED ON DELTA** Before the changes at the weekend I could enter my Virgin Atlantic PNR (for a booking containing both VS international and DL domestic flights) on Delta.com and Delta would automatically pull up my booking - so making seat selection possible on Delta's site. Now the new Virgin Atlantic PNR is not recognised but strangely the old one still works?

(4) **NO MOBILE SITE** Before it was possible to access the site on iPhone. Now a message appears saying "we're really sorry but right now we don't have a version of this page that works on your little screen". Appreciate that you're directing people to the app but this seems an backward step?

(5) **GENERAL ON SCREEN LOOK/FEEL** There is a lot better than before but I have to say there is an incredible amount of empty white space between sections, so making this site one of the most "scroll down intensive" sites I've used in recent times.

Thanks - look forward to the wrinkles being ironed out in coming days!

James

Oli

Who on earth thought it was a good idea to force an extra click to get the calendar when booking flights?

There is simply no need for adding this extra step.

And the same for having to enter surnane when logging in to FC. Apparently this is for 'extra security' which I find hard to believe.

And when I do log in I then have to click again to get into my account.

There isn't an obvious 'log out' button.

There aren't any 'back' buttons and using the broswer back button takes you to the main home page


Was any of this tested by real customers? Because a lot of what you've done is just plain awful and made an already bad site even worse.

Agreed, pretty shocking website. Please put the reward availability calendar back.

I've been trying all morning to log into FC. I have no idea what my password was as it always autofilled. So tried to change password and put in my email address and then my first and last names - apparently I am doing something wrong as that information is incorrect! No - it is not! What can I do??

I've been trying all morning to log into FC. I have no idea what my password was as it always autofilled. So tried to change password and put in my email address and then my first and last names - apparently I am doing something wrong as that information is incorrect! No - it is not! What can I do??

I'm in the same boat. I'm going to wait till tomorrow before phoning them, hopefully by then the wait time might have died down a bit.

David

Oli

Who on earth thought it was a good idea to force an extra click to get the calendar when booking flights?

There is simply no need for adding this extra step.

And the same for having to enter surnane when logging in to FC. Apparently this is for 'extra security' which I find hard to believe.

And when I do log in I then have to click again to get into my account.

There isn't an obvious 'log out' button.

There aren't any 'back' buttons and using the broswer back button takes you to the main home page


Was any of this tested by real customers? Because a lot of what you've done is just plain awful and made an already bad site even worse.

Fully agree!!

The last website was never completed after many years.

Really Oli, how long will it be before the new website gets resolved.

Sorry, VS is not the airline I started flying 17 years ago.......said with sadness.

I've been trying all morning to log into FC. I have no idea what my password was as it always autofilled. So tried to change password and put in my email address and then my first and last names - apparently I am doing something wrong as that information is incorrect! No - it is not! What can I do??

I'm in the same boat. I'm going to wait till tomorrow before phoning them, hopefully by then the wait time might have died down a bit.

David

Are your passwords not stored on your computer. If it's a MAC they are, I don't know about PC's though.

I was asked for my email address, original password and surname.

Oli

There isn't an obvious 'log out' button.
There aren't any 'back' buttons and using the broswer back button takes you to the main home page

Was any of this tested by real customers? Because a lot of what you've done is just plain awful and made an already bad site even worse.

Oh thank God I thought I was the only one who could not find a 'Log Out' button to start with ! Couldn't find one once I had got into MY Booking, after checking that I still had a booking, either ! Added some personal details to the booking, came out of it then went back in to add an emergency phone number and all the previously added details all gone!

Not accepting my U.S. destination address either as supposedly incorrect ZIP code.

Still unable to get into husbands account no matter what why I try !

JUST MANAGED TO LOG IN.

Good
Managed to change seats not previously available.

Bad
System seems to have dumped my API and I cannot see a way to replace it on the main page ( not permitted on APP )

Oli

Who on earth thought it was a good idea to force an extra click to get the calendar when booking flights?

There is simply no need for adding this extra step.

And the same for having to enter surnane when logging in to FC. Apparently this is for 'extra security' which I find hard to believe.

And when I do log in I then have to click again to get into my account.

There isn't an obvious 'log out' button.

There aren't any 'back' buttons and using the broswer back button takes you to the main home page


Was any of this tested by real customers? Because a lot of what you've done is just plain awful and made an already bad site even worse.

Well said.

Not sure what's going on?? Managed to log in yesterday, however, today it's not taking my old or new FC number, my email address or password. Just reset my password and it doesn't like that either. Really don't understand how it worked yesterday but not today.

Also just to add that all the details that were visible yesterday (future flights, tier points, account details) were all correct so I was actually impressed at that point.

-Steve

Ignoring the woeful UX for now, something is wrong with the reward search functionality. Searching for LHR-DXB x2 UC in September.
No dates, refresh, tues+thurs, refresh, weds+fri, refresh, "sorry, not enough seats" etc, random days of the week coming and going across the board.

As for the whole reward UI:
1. too many clicks to get anything done
2. after doing a reward search the focus keeps moving back to pay with card
3. If I select a recent search, I'm left in limbo and nothing happens.
4. I'll stop there for now

The mobile UI/browser thing has already been mentioned so I won't go over that again. The whole thing has a feel that its been designed by committee with no one really using it prior to signoff.

Oh, I also had a few Akamai origin errors which exposed the blank white Akamai sorry page rather than a helpful branded sorry page.

hmmm

bit of a struggle logging in the first time - got stuck in a loop on the set security questions pane...

-- enter them, click, error message flashes up behind pane but is replaced before it can be read, start again

...decided to try different question, ok, my guess is there's an unstated lower bound on the length of an acceptable answer

more annoying is my new TP seem to be wrong, i've been AU for only a year, and the 'activity' report shows that i've not taken a single flight, ever

between these and reading through other issues, it's not sounding good, for an airline to release a new website in this state beggars belief

web development is not rocket science, nor are human factors engineering, testing, and quality control, there are inexcusable failures across all of these, it is simply unprofessional

makes me wonder if the failings extend to the security, i do hope not, it's our personal data in there

The new VS app is a reskinned version of the Fly Delta app. The upside of that is that there will be regular updates.

Having explored a bit more of the MMB feature I think I've found a mathematical error when viewing the receipt.

Here's the breakdown of fees, taxed & charges from my eTicket

Original Receipt.JPG (11.93 KiB) Viewed 3157 times

Here's the current receipt downloaded from MMB

New Style Receipt.JPG (34.49 KiB) Viewed 3157 times

So the "XT" fee of £ 31.22 is double counted as it's detailed in total and then broken down to the component parts in the new style receipt?

And a query from MMB from the Receipt!

This shows Meals/Other as "L" on the outbound and "D" on the inbound, with no breakdown or key to what these are?

Meals Other.JPG (8.69 KiB) Viewed 3140 times

On the old style MMB these were showing as "Standard". On the new "Select Your Meal" there is no Standard option?

Select Meal.jpg (28.6 KiB) Viewed 3140 times

I'm hoping that the codes on the receipt are Standard in the relevant class booked, rather than Low Fat/Salt or Diabetic?

The website is now giving me this warning

Flight VS108 diversion: Detroit (DTW) - London Heathrow (LHR) Monday 14 November

Flight VS108 scheduled to depart Detroit at 16.15 Monday 14 November and arrive London Heathrow at 06.55 GMT Tuesday 15 November, will now arrive at London Gatwick at 06.15 GMT Tuesday 15 November due to a diversion. We've arranged alternate transport from Gatwick to Heathrow if you need it. We're sorry if you've received a cancellation alert for this flight. This flight is operating as normal, please head to the airport as usual.

Thanks for the apology but... I'm not booked on this flight.