Virgintrains.co.uk website (in the post - InterCity West Coast franchise era)

[Agent_Squash]

Virgin have became the first former franchisee not to immediately redirect their website to their replacement, but it looks like they're already setting up for their new booking system.

Currently their booking link redirects to LNER, but it certainly makes clear that Virgin aren't leaving rail anytime soon - and something that will most likely confuse many infrequent travellers especially in the weeks after the franchise change.

Edit: looks like they've got a new 'about us'...

Hello, we’re the new Virgin Trains. Why new? Because after 22 years of running extraordinary trains up and down the country, we’re now on a new mission to make your train ticketing experience awesome-er than ever – up, down, and everywhere in the country.

So if you’re travelling for work, want a weekend away with family and friends, or simply want to get from A to B anywhere in the UK, we’ll sort out your ticket – with savings of up to 80% over walk-up fares. And we’ll also be introducing some exciting new ways to save on your daily, weekly and advance travel very, very soon.

It’s time for a rail ticketing revolution. Ready? Let’s go!

 

[mde]

Virgin have became the first former franchisee not to immediately redirect their website to their replacement, but it looks like they're already setting up for their new booking system. The booking link on the website admittedly currently redirects to LNERs system, although this is probably because I'm stupidly early.

Let the confusion commence!

The main webpage does indeed link to LNER's booking engine; but… look further within and this one pops up: https://vt-tickets.uat-uk.webtis.net/vt/en/journeyplanning/faresview

The former VT entity used a Trainline white label site, whereas, this is the Worldline (Atos) WebTIS product.

 

[Agent_Squash]

The main webpage does indeed link to LNER's booking engine; but… look further within and this one pops up: https://vt-tickets.uat-uk.webtis.net/vt/en/journeyplanning/faresview

The former VT entity used a Trainline white label site, whereas, this is the Worldline (Atos) WebTIS product.

Ironic that their first 'innovation' as a ticket seller is to abandon the product they created 20 years ago!

 

[DMU180]

Looks like a reskin of red spotted hanky, when signing up for an account it says "I have read and accept the redspottedhanky Terms and Conditions."

 

[mde]

Looks like a reskin of red spotted hanky, when signing up for an account it says "I have read and accept the redspottedhanky Terms and Conditions."

I suspect they maybe didn't intend for it to be 'in production' yet (hence the acronym 'uat' in the website address). The privacy policy on the main website is similarly unfinished, it contains a couple of elements which are 'TBC' (contact addresses).

Did someone press the publish button too early?

 

[Agent_Squash]

I suspect they maybe didn't intend for it to be 'in production' yet (hence the acronym 'uat' in the website address). The privacy policy on the main website is similarly unfinished, it contains a couple of elements which are 'TBC' (contact addresses).

Did someone press the publish button too early?

It's certainly a WIP. Only recommended destinations are on the West Coast (obviously!) but the First Class section still does a better sell on Virgin than Avanti!

 

[Royston Vasey]

New ways to save... Rail ticketing revolution? Surely not split ticketing as a big F you to the industry and their successors

 

[F Great Eastern]

Moderator note: Split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/avanti-website.196403/#post-4323483

What Virgin have done is quite bitter, normally when there is a franchise changeover the existing operator says so on their websites and directs passengers to the new operator, the Virgin trains site makes no mention of that.

Typical of a sore loser like Branson, his own ego comes before your average passenger who might not know about the change.

 

[Agent_Squash]

What Virgin have done is quite bitter, normally when there is a franchise changeover the existing operator says so on their websites and directs passengers to the new operator, the Virgin trains site makes no mention of that.

Typical of a sore loser like Branson, his own ego comes before your average passenger who might not know about the change.

Virgin are still very bitter with the DfT about the whole situation with WC. They’re not going to let their brand loyalty die out now - they’ll just keep it in hibernation if you will.

It’s a bit of a juxtaposition to Avanti’s website which keeps talking about building on the success of Virgin!

 

[Worldwide]

What Virgin have done is quite bitter, normally when there is a franchise changeover the existing operator says so on their websites and directs passengers to the new operator, the Virgin trains site makes no mention of that.

Typical of a sore loser like Branson, his own ego comes before your average passenger who might not know about the change.

looks like they are upto something watch this space.

 

[CeeJ]

Will be interesting to see if this is a Virgin-only brand now, or if the partnership with Stagecoach is still involved. I imagine they’re looking at a rival to Trainline with things like automatic delay repay, etc. Will be interesting to see!

Am a bit surprised there is no link whatsoever to Avanti - don’t think FT or DfT will be very happy.

 

[Agent_Squash]

Will be interesting to see if this is a Virgin-only brand now, or if the partnership with Stagecoach is still involved. I imagine they’re looking at a rival to Trainline with things like automatic delay repay, etc. Will be interesting to see!

Am a bit surprised there is no link whatsoever to Avanti - don’t think FT or DfT will be very happy.

As I said in the original thread, it’s a surprise that Virgin are now competing again with the system they originally set up.

 

[chrish2]

I believe this will be the automatic split ticketing system they had a press release a while back about.

 

[Mathew S]

What Virgin have done is quite bitter, normally when there is a franchise changeover the existing operator says so on their websites and directs passengers to the new operator, the Virgin trains site makes no mention of that.

Typical of a sore loser like Branson, his own ego comes before your average passenger who might not know about the change.

I don't think it's bitter or being a 'sore loser'. We all know they have plans to keep the brand going in another form, whether it's as an Open Access operator or - as it now seems - a third party ticker retailer. In either case, it would be daft to let a website which must receive a huge amount of traffic just die. Far better to keep the ball rolling in some form, and build on what they've got.

 

[Clip]

I don't think it's bitter or being a 'sore loser'. We all know they have plans to keep the brand going in another form, whether it's as an Open Access operator or - as it now seems - a third party ticker retailer. In either case, it would be daft to let a website which must receive a huge amount of traffic just die. Far better to keep the ball rolling in some form, and build on what they've got.

Yes but you have to be mightily confident that you can make enough money from the commission to keep it going

 

[tsr]

It would be interesting to know if this means a proportion of VT’s customer service staff have been retained by them (and not TUPEd to Avanti), which would surely mean Avanti were quite badly affected from the word “go”. And if the website maintenance staff have also all been retained by VT, this might explain the Avanti site issues today as well.

 

[Mathew S]

Yes but you have to be mightily confident that you can make enough money from the commission to keep it going

Doesn't cost that much to run a ticketing website, though, does it? I mean, I genuinely don't know, but plenty of others evidently make money out of it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It would be interesting to know if this means a proportion of VT’s customer service staff have been retained by them (and not TUPEd to Avanti), which would surely mean Avanti were quite badly affected from the word “go”. And if the website maintenance staff have also all been retained by VT, this might explain the Avanti site issues today as well.

If that was true Avanti would have known about it for a while, so it is no excuse.

 

[Starmill]

I believe this will be the automatic split ticketing system they had a press release a while back about.

I thought Trainline were behind that?

They've begun to launch it themselves, under the name "SplitSave".

 

[All Line Rover]

My impression is that Virgin partnered with ATOS around May, after losing the prospect of retaining the franchise around April, and once Virgin's ticketing announcement was released at the end of May (with Trainline not having any involvement in this announcement), Trainline developed SplitSave in response because they had to do "something" to remain competitive. All seems very knee-jerk / disjointed to me.

 

[Journeyman]

Same vomit-inducing childish nonsense in their marketing. This is exactly why I'm not going to miss them.

The complete lack of any mention of Avanti is potentially misleading. Loads of people think Virgin still run XC, at this rate it'll take them another decade to spot they don't run the WCML any more.

Not impressed.

 

[BuhSnarf]

Same vomit-inducing childish nonsense in their marketing. This is exactly why I'm not going to miss them.

The complete lack of any mention of Avanti is potentially misleading. Loads of people think Virgin still run XC, at this rate it'll take them another decade to spot they don't run the WCML any more.

Not impressed.

I guess it just proves how good they are at branding. Something the rest of the industry could sorely do with looking at. The public (the majority) love Virgin, no other end of franchise have I seen the public getting teary eyed about.

 

[Journeyman]

I guess it just proves how good they are at branding. Something the rest of the industry could sorely do with looking at. The public (the majority) love Virgin, no other end of franchise have I seen the public getting teary eyed about.

They might be good at branding, but I'm not convinced they were necessarily any better than anyone else at actually running services, and much of that branding was so tacky and cheesy it made me wince.

 

[BuhSnarf]

They might be good at branding, but I'm not convinced they were necessarily any better than anyone else at actually running services, and much of that branding was so tacky and cheesy it made me wince.

You can't win them all!

 

[Clip]

Doesn't cost that much to run a ticketing website, though, does it? I mean, I genuinely don't know, but plenty of others evidently make money out of it.

Not sure but the other sites are now well established and have had heavy advertising to keep the volume up - time will tell of course

 

[sprunt]

Is there any truth hidden in the "reinvented the way you buy train tickets" hyperbole? I mean, prior to their existence I had never bought them from a website whose domain was www.virgintrains.co.uk before, so there's that, but is there anything actually substantive behind that statement? Particularly anything substantially inventive, that wouldn't inevitably have happened with or without Virgin?

 

[JaJaWa]

Is there any truth hidden in the "reinvented the way you buy train tickets" hyperbole? I mean, prior to their existence I had never bought them from a website whose domain was www.virgintrains.co.uk before, so there's that, but is there anything actually substantive behind that statement? Particularly anything substantially inventive, that wouldn't inevitably have happened with or without Virgin?

Yes. Trainline (formerly Virgin Trainline) was the first ticket booking website.

 

[Mathew S]

Is there any truth hidden in the "reinvented the way you buy train tickets" hyperbole? I mean, prior to their existence I had never bought them from a website whose domain was www.virgintrains.co.uk before, so there's that, but is there anything actually substantive behind that statement? Particularly anything substantially inventive, that wouldn't inevitably have happened with or without Virgin?

Online booking. Online seat selector. And I'm pretty sure the first to offer Advance tickets. Also electronic reservation displays, if that counts. So yeah, they kind of did.

 

[mmh]

Also introduced the very useful online only off peak / saver single at half the return fare. Only sold with an accompanying advance ticket for the reverse journey. A great innovation.

 

[Journeyman]

Online booking. Online seat selector. And I'm pretty sure the first to offer Advance tickets. Also electronic reservation displays, if that counts. So yeah, they kind of did.

British Rail introduced Advance tickets in the early 90s.