Why is the VA website so poor?
 

For an otherwise excellent airline, the VA website seems to be literally 3-5 years back. Crashing frequently, works poorly with Chrome, and doesn't say CC information once you are logged in.

Any sense of when the last web redesign was and whether they will update it in the near future? Buying tickets is very difficult.

I find VA web site better than QF's and easier than QF to buy flights. Using firefox on windows 8.1 laptop.

KISS principle is good. Better if more commercial sites used that and not have all flashing bells & whistles chewing up my computer resources/band width.

The QF comparison is fair, although I don't buy tickets on QF due to loyalty. My comparison is to United, which is literally years ahead of anything. I've found the SQ site to be pretty terrible, as well . I suppose scale has its benefits.

KISS principle?

Because it seemed that when VA went to all SABRE, they brought in a whole new website. The service provider anecdotally used the entire budget and more to provide a very substandard result. Initially it had some incredible flaws (such as being able to book awards for just the taxes).

Over time there has been some repair but it seems there has not been the finances available to fix all the problems.

This is helpful background Serfty. Sounds like it was previously worse. Any idea what year they replaced the site?

Because they were going from a mix of Navitaire (IRRC) domestically and Amadeus Internationally to all SABRE.

This happened in early 2013.

https://www.itnews.com.au/news/virgi...pay-off-334533

Was the online booking system even worse in 2013 before they switched to SABRE?

So this website has been in place for 5 year. Sounds like it's due for an update, but possibly not soon.

I didn't mind the prior booking system; ir basically worked.

There's too much post loading of content (AJAX) on the current site.

I thought it was pretty much a skinned version of the standard Sabre booking engine.

(When you have done a search and are at the flight selection page, compare the source code of the Etihad website and Virgin website, and see how similar they are....)

Keep it Simple Stupid

Telnet and curses anyone??? I would happily swap all these flashy websites for it... Well, OK, I would prefer if Telnet was replaced by SSH... :D

Also, why is VA so slow in crediting points on their own flights - did flights last Thursday and still not through - in contrast Qantas seems to credit almost as you board the plane...

Mine typically post in 3 days. Partners can be longer.

That's only a fairly recent thing for Qantas...

As for VA slow posting, this waas a real problem after last years fare structure/crediting changes but by mid year they had basically fixed it.

This recent slow crediting is a new thing - perhaps they have enhanced the process.