New Virgin East Coast Website

[westv]

The sale we all expected to take our minds off the website launch has now happened.

50% off, book by 28 Aug, travel from 11 Sep

Another useless sale from my point of view.

 

[Merseysider]

The website is incredibly frustrating.

I'll query a journey from Newcastle to Edinburgh, and after failing twice, the website will finally return the options.

I edit the journey; typing York instead of Newcastle and hit the search button.

Nope. Still Newcastle - Edinburgh. The search box completely ignores what I've typed.

Try again, backspacing Newcastle and typing York. Same thing happens again.

Turns out you have to type York, wait for the website to load a drop-down list of stations, and then click York for it to have an effect.

Webtis didn't have this problem.

 

[theblackwatch]

Suffered the new website for the first time today.

Wahey! Your journey's now booked!
Look out for your confirmation email, it's full of useful bits and bobs.

Shame they can't send me a sick bucket at the same time...

 

[47271]

Just went online and got this:

Important Message
Our site will be going offline for an update from 23:45 this evening, please complete all bookings before then.

An update eh, why ever would it need one of those?

 

[SaveECRewards]

Perhaps this is the update where booking by fax and the green shield stamps is launched!

 

[FQTV]

Suffered the new website for the first time today.

"Wahey! Your journey's now booked!
Look out for your confirmation email, it's full of useful bits and bobs."

Shame they can't send me a sick bucket at the same time...

Quite apart from the nausea, imagine how non-English as a first language speakers must struggle with this twaddle, should they try to book a ticket between some of the UK's most popular tourist cities.

Even Google Translate just gives up with the colloquialisms.

Meanwhile, as noted above, the Virgin Train's [sic] website is indeed currently infinitely more functional than the operator of the United Kingdom's former flagship inter city railway's.

Awesome.

 

[rmt4ever]

Tried using the website around 1am after work, I got this

We'll be back soon
We’re upgrading our website and will be back soon, thank you for your patience.

Just tried again now, 8.30 am. Same thing !

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

I realise that things are not going well with the new website.

I raised a query with them about why it wasn't possible to change ADV bookings any more online (I had to phone them up to do it, but that's another story....). Anyway, the good news is both that I got a reply and that they seem to have widened the options for getting refunds if you believe what the customer service department says.... [my highlighting]

"Thank you for your correspondence received on 16 August 2017. Due to launching the new website you currently are unable to amend tickets.



By booking Advance purchase tickets before you travel, you can make considerable savings and get our lowest available fares. These tickets are offered at a heavily discounted price compared to the cost of more flexible travel and the only way we can achieve this is to observe the strict terms and conditions that come with them. They are sold subject to a very limited availability and the number available on each train is carefully planned according to how busy we expect the service to be.



If your travel plans change and you wish to travel at a different time and date then please purchase a new ticket send your original ticket to the below postal address along with proof of the new purchased ticket.



Virgin Trains East Coast Refunds

PO BOX 1259

Crawley

RH10 0JR

Somehow, I don't think I'll try it to see if it works. Having lost the SWT website in the past week, perhaps I'll now switch to using TPE as others suggest!

 

[westv]

What's the deal now with amending print at home tickets. With the old site it was easy to do.

 

[SaveECRewards]

What's the deal now with amending print at home tickets. With the old site it was easy to do.

Cancel and rebook is your only option for any changes.

Unless the new update has changed anything if you click on the change/cancel booking option it actually only lets you cancel.

 

[Deerfold]

People on Twitter are still reporting waits of over an hour on the helpline.

 

[westv]

People on Twitter are still reporting waits of over an hour on the helpline.

A total farce.

 

[47271]

Remember that you can of course take any advance ticket bought on any TOC website into a station and have it changed for the £10 fee.

Last week I visited Euston ticket office (I was passing through anyway) and had a Cross Country advance purchased via Scotrail's website transferred over for the fee plus the difference in cost.

 

[westv]

Cancel and rebook is your only option for any changes.

Unless the new update has changed anything if you click on the change/cancel booking option it actually only lets you cancel.

So if I have a P at H Advanced ticket I can cancel online and I will be refunded less £10? I then go into the new "booking" system and select/pay for the new service I want?
What about people who might want to just change the booked seat?

 

[SaveECRewards]

So if I have a P at H Advanced ticket I can cancel online and I will be refunded less £10? I then go into the new "booking" system and select/pay for the new service I want?
What about people who might want to just change the booked seat?

I think changing a seat is a phone up option. I'd recommend DM the Twitter team to double check cancel and rebook is allowed with Print at Home tickets as I know some operators allow no changes with these, but VTEC always have in the past and never heard of any changes.

 

[Hadders]

You can change a booked seat online.

 

[SaveECRewards]

You can change a booked seat online.

How, I've not found the option (unless it's been added since the update on Wednesday)

EDIT: found it! I was looking at the options at the bottom of the page, but there's a view/change link next to the actual seat allocations in the booking itinerary.

 

[island]

That's ridiculous, after all the reassurances that our vouchers were safe and they'd be ready for us when the new site launched they're leaving people without vouchers that long.

Can you raise an official complaint. Then after giving them time to reply ask Transport Focus to investigate.

All these problems were avoidable.

Waste of time. Transport Focus will just write VTEC a polite letter.

What's the deal now with amending print at home tickets. With the old site it was easy to do.

Don’t use Print at Home tickets?

 

[SaveECRewards]

Waste of time. Transport Focus will just write VTEC a polite letter.

Don’t use Print at Home tickets?

The main reason I think complaints are important is the figure is logged and I can see VTECs complaint rate jump massively for this year (catering issues que to staff cutbacks, new ticket machines and this website)

The ORR logs the complaint figures and a massive increase should attract press attention.
http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/22378/virgin-trains-east-coast-factsheet.pdf

Also if TF have to act that may also get attention. If their 'awesome' image is at risk they may start to make some customer friendly decisions.

Although unfortunately I think they hit the point of no return with the website now, it'd cause a lot of hassle if they brought back WebTIS as a temporary measure.

 

[westv]

Don’t use Print at Home tickets?

I got fed up having to insert my card multiple times when collecting tickets for more than one journey.

 

[SaveECRewards]

I got fed up having to insert my card multiple times when collecting tickets for more than one journey.

Any WebTIS based site and the new VTEC one let you collect multiple journeys under one reference if booked at the same time. Not used a trainline one for ages but I remember those gave different references for each booking

 

[SaveECRewards]

Today on Twitter they are claiming that 3rd party sites are losing reservations. I doubt that's true.

Here's one such tweet: https://twitter.com/virgin_trainsec/status/901079002277957633

 

[westv]

Any WebTIS based site and the new VTEC one let you collect multiple journeys under one reference if booked at the same time. Not used a trainline one for ages but I remember those gave different references for each booking

I found I was better off booking each journey individually as soon as the tickets were released.

 

[Merseysider]

Any WebTIS based site and the new VTEC one let you collect multiple journeys under one reference if booked at the same time. Not used a trainline one for ages but I remember those gave different references for each booking

That's still the case for XC, it can be rather irritating when splitting tickets!

 

[Hadders]

How, I've not found the option (unless it's been added since the update on Wednesday)

EDIT: found it! I was looking at the options at the bottom of the page, but there's a view/change link next to the actual seat allocations in the booking itinerary.

I used it a couple of weeks ago. Made a change but it wasn't reflected when I collected the tickets from the TVM. The actual reservations on the train did reflect the change though. You take a copy of the email as proof of the reservation.

It's the only thing that seems to be better then the old site...

 

[Wallsendmag]

Wasn't there a message on your change email confirmation saying that would be the case and only the email would reflect your new seat allocation .


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Deerfold]

Wasn't there a message on your change email confirmation saying that would be the case and only the email would reflect your new seat allocation .


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Is there anything other than the e-mail that says you need the e-mail?

 

[yorkie]

Today on Twitter they are claiming that 3rd party sites are losing reservations. I doubt that's true.

Here's one such tweet: https://twitter.com/virgin_trainsec/status/901079002277957633

I wonder which 3rd party sites they are talking about? and under what circumstances? I'd be interested to know.

(if you or anyone else can find out but the company doesn't want to disclose this publicly, a PM would be appreciated)

 

[FQTV]

It doesn't work for Railcard holders. It shows as the non-Railcard discounted rate (from York to London that's £52.60) with a note saying "Discounted"

On a related note, may I ask for any advice here on the 'refundability' of the return/inbound portion of a Super Off Peak Return ticket boght for, say, King's Cross to Darlington?

I can see that the VTEC site will still sell this ticket with a Railcard discount, but the rules about refunding 'unused' portions seems very vague on the VTEC website, National Rail Enquiries and the brfares.com site.

If appropriate, responses by PM would be welcome.

Thank you in advance. (Well, in Super Off Peak anyhow )

 

[91109]

On a related note, may I ask for any advice here on the 'refundability' of the return/inbound portion of a Super Off Peak Return ticket boght for, say, King's Cross to Darlington?

I can see that the VTEC site will still sell this ticket with a Railcard discount, but the rules about refunding 'unused' portions seems very vague on the VTEC website, National Rail Enquiries and the brfares.com site.

If appropriate, responses by PM would be welcome.

Thank you in advance. (Well, in Super Off Peak anyhow )

Half the cost less a tenner admin fee.