New Virgin East Coast Website

[westv]

When will my previous bookings show up on the new site?

Edit: I can see some past bookings listed but there doesn't seem to be any option to click through to the Printathome PDFs!

 

[Joe Paxton]

Is there any way to purchase a 1st class Advance in one direction, and a Super Off Peak single (at half the price of a return) in the other direction?
...

SaveECRewards raised this issue in this recent blog post.

It's a surprising omission... unless VTEC didn't have much love for this ticket and the changeover to a new booking engine was seen as an opportune moment to ditch it?
...

it'll be back soon

Good to hear it will be back

 

[Bletchleyite]

But in the meantime it's fine to give people well in excess of a 25% fare increase on a return journey?

The incompetence of this is staggering.

 

[infobleep]

But in the meantime it's fine to give people well in excess of a 25% fare increase on a return journey?

The incompetence of this is staggering.

Can't disagree. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a deadline to meet at any cost. I've come across such things elsewhere outside the railway.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Can't disagree. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a deadline to meet at any cost. I've come across such things elsewhere outside the railway.

Yes, often it's the client who forces this kind of thing on the supplier who would rather not put such a half-job live.

 

[Joe Paxton]

Yes, often it's the client who forces this kind of thing on the supplier who would rather not put such a half-job live.

Today is the first of the month... at a guess, VTEC's licence with Worldline for use of the WebTIS product (which the old booking site used) expired at the end of July.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Today is the first of the month... at a guess, VTEC's licence with Worldline for use of the WebTIS product (which the old booking site used) expired at the end of July.

Proper prior planning......

 

[Merseysider]

According to VTEC, still no timeframe available for migrating pre-existing eVouchers over from old to new accounts.

Very poor show.

 

[westv]

Omnishambles?

 

[Silver Cobra]

try again now

Done a quick test of searching for Stevenage to Leeds fares, and they now show up correctly. Stevenage to Edinburgh also now offers advances again rather than just first class walk-ups.

 

[47271]

I'm just searching for a York to Kings Cross single for next week. I wouldn't be on the site at all were it not that I need to travel on the East Coast.

I'm very amused that the 'Go Cheaper' and, better still, the cringeworthy 'Go Classier', and best of all 'Go Faster' recommendations are sending me to a Grand Central service, easily identifiable by the lack of a Virgin logo in the left hand column.

I think that I might just take myself over to GC's site and book that on the strength of feeling shown by VTEC...

 

[Wallsendmag]

According to VTEC, still no timeframe available for migrating pre-existing eVouchers over from old to new accounts.

Very poor show.

I've been doing that today I'd say two to three days


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Hadders]

It seems as though the Stevenage issue has been fixed. A couple of other comments:

- If I want to purchase a Stevenage-London Zones 1-6 Travelcard I have to enter 'London U123456' as the destination. This isn't simple for a normal passenger to understand - can it be changed to 'London Zones 1-6' (Incidentally I thought 'U' was used for a single journey add-on Underground journey, shouldn't it be 'R' for Travelcards?)

- When trying to purchase a Stevenage - London Zones 1-6 Travelcard you get presented with all the fares to 'London Terminals' as well. This causes confusion as you have to scroll right across to see (for example) an Off Peak Travelcard.

- Not specifically related to the new site but why are there VTEC only fares from Stevenage. These will simply cause confusion as the vast majority of the services are provided by GTR. It doesn't help when these are listed first without it being immediately obvious that they are VTEC only fares.

 

[Leisurefirst]

I have a couple of future bookings.
One is showing in my account on the new site, though you can't tell what seats.
The other​ isn't listed at all!
Luckily I still have the emails and have already collected the tickets!

 

[Leisurefirst]

I have a couple of future bookings.
One is showing in my account on the new site, though you can't tell what seats.
The other​ isn't listed at all!
Luckily I still have the emails and have already collected the tickets!

Oh, had already contacted VTEC web team about this, now all my bookings have disappeared past and future along with the WiFi codes which I have not got copies of...

 

[47271]

As far as I can see from what I have current at the moment, if the booking was made on the new site then it shows on the new site. If it was made on the old site, and however far into the future it is, it doesn't appear.

I'm not too bothered about it in terms of where I am now with my plans, but that could change tomorrow.

 

[SteveP29]

I made my first booking through the new site yesterday.
In short, I hate it.
Once you’ve entered your journey parameters its…
Scroll scroll scroll to find the train you want.
Then scroll scroll scroll to find the return leg train, even though for both journeys, I specified the ‘leaving at’ times as close to the actual time I wanted to travel as possible (obviously before the departure time, or it wouldn’t show without clicking ‘earlier trains’)
Only one price showing for that journey.
As previously mentioned, the ‘wahey’ at the end of the booking process- so cheesy.

Also had the email about re-registering a few weeks ago. Did it and got the next email saying I had to verify my email address. When I went to do this, I was constantly getting a ‘something went wrong’ error, so gave up.
When I went to make this booking yesterday, it wouldn’t allow me to do so without re-registering, upon doing so, I was told that my email address had already been used and if I was the same person, to login (which I did and got back to my account)
Upon trying to view previous bookings (done under the old website) I got the ‘verify your email address’ message again.
It wasn’t untio I made the booking that clicking on the ‘past bookings’ tab allowed me to see them.
Past bookings doesn’t give all of the details of your booking, only the date and time of your journey and the all important booking refernce to collect tickets from the tvm. Past bookings aren’t clickable, so you can’t go into a booking to get further information (ie coach and seat number, price paid). To get this information, I had to find the confirmation emails.

The old version was so much more user friendly, input your parameters, click the train you wanted to travel on and it gives you a range of fares, pick the one you want and to coin a phrase, wahey, you’re done.
I can’t really think of one good part of it to be honest.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It looks very Trainline matrix-like to me - is it a Trainline variant?

 

[Paul Kelly]

It looks very Trainline matrix-like to me - is it a Trainline variant?

Check the very first page of this thread! (That was my first thought too, but it's something completely different.)

 

[SaveECRewards]

When I first had a access to the beta, in the spirit of wanting the new site to be a success (after all it would have been something I'd be using a lot) I spent a morning going through the site and sent the team a 10 page document listing issues with screenshots to back them up.

I'm sure when Southern ditched WebTIS they still made it possible to log in to view/change bookings on the old site. The fact that WebTIS just disappeared with VTEC seems to suggest they were unwilling to continue paying licence fees for the software.

When the beta site was created a fork of the CMS content on the existing site. When they put the beta site live they just made www.virgintrainseastcoast.com point to the beta instance meaning the 'take me back to the old site' is still in the footer even though it doesn't work and a lot of the content is outdated. If you look at the foodbar menu you'll see it's the winter 2016/17 variant. The items offered and the prices charged have changed since then.

 

[Romilly]

I have a couple of future bookings.
One is showing in my account on the new site, though you can't tell what seats.

I have discovered that, for bookings made on the new site, if you click on "Print your itinerary" you see (before pressing Print) a version of your booking details that includes the details of your seat reservations. Hopefully that's useful to know.

But I still need there to be an Edit function for my past bookings. My feeling is that the ability to change bookings online was part of the contractual terms on the basis of which I bought tickets through the old site and that, if I lose out (through phone call charges or Advance prices going up before I can change my bookings) as a result of removal of that facility, I have the makings of a claim for damages for breach of contract.

 

[westv]

Why are IT "updates" so often retrograde steps for the end user?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why are IT "updates" so often retrograde steps for the end user?

Primarily because businesses like cost-cutting.

 

[Haywain]

As far as I can see from what I have current at the moment, if the booking was made on the new site then it shows on the new site. If it was made on the old site, and however far into the future it is, it doesn't appear.

I'm not too bothered about it in terms of where I am now with my plans, but that could change tomorrow.

It won't. Definitely.

 

[Haywain]

According to VTEC, still no timeframe available for migrating pre-existing eVouchers over from old to new accounts.

That has now been completed, I understand. Not bad for a completely manual process!

 

[westv]

That has now been completed, I understand. Not bad for a completely manual process!

Any news on when previously booked trips will be fully available and viewable?

 

[Wallsendmag]

Any news on when previously booked trips will be fully available and viewable?

You should be able to view them , interaction with WebTIS bookings won't be possible though.

 

[westv]

You should be able to view them , interaction with WebTIS bookings won't be possible though.

When you say interaction what do you mean? VTEC advised us that previous bookings would be safe. If we can't amend them or view any relevant PDFs then that clearly would have been a lie.

 

[Haywain]

Any news on when previously booked trips will be fully available and viewable?

This should be visible, although with less detail than previously and in read only form. Obviously, you need to be registered with the same email address for this to happen. If it isn't appearing, you may need to log-out and log back in again but there is a possibility of a delay of a day or two

 

[Deerfold]

You should be able to view them , interaction with WebTIS bookings won't be possible though.

This is going to be a real pain.

I use print outs from VTEC to show what times I was travelling when billing people. I could have grabbed it all, but was told bookings would be transferred across. I have the information in e-mails but they don't print out nearly as smoothly.

The data transferred across doesn't allow amendments to be made, doesn't show travel times, doesn't show how many people have booked, doesn't show how much of cost was each part of booking (One journey is allocated all of the cost, the others are £0).

And twitter are not responding to me (It's been over a day).

Actually, they are, but only where my tweets are about Harry Potter.