virgin and spatial quotas
May 10th, 2005
quota
A maximum or minimum limit on quantity – from dictionary.com
But not according to Virgin Trains. They sell a number of ‘quota controlled’ advance tickets which offer substantial discounts on regular ‘open’ fares, making train travel feasable.
Having purchased 2 tickets via their rather tiresome telephone line (it is not possible to make cycle reservations online), I discovered that not only did they forget to include details of the cycle reservations, but they sent me 2 tickets at opposite ends of the same carriage, which is a bit frustrating for a 5 hour journey.
I phoned them to discuss this to be told (let’s not go into the detail of my first call where the rep told me that the ‘n’ on my ticket meant I have a cycle reservation, despite the clear label that it means ‘non-smoking’) that their quota controlled tickets allocate specific seats. There was me thinking that a quota meant a limit on the number of seats available, but in the world of Virgin it means an allocation of the exact seats.
Unfortunately they weren’t able to offer an explanation for this seemingly odd behaviour.
5 Responses to “virgin and spatial quotas”
1tom smith
May 10th, 2005 @ 22:07
gemma is currently trying to book tickets from leeds to oxford, for travel in three weeks time. the website is showing no advance-fare tickets available, so she called virgin’s ‘ticket hotline’. the boy with whom she spoke could ot tell her if the tickets had sold out, or (more likely) had not yet been released.
2tom
May 10th, 2005 @ 22:50
they haven’t been released past the end of May for travel at weekends.. I read in the Observer that, due to rail operators not knowing when repairs are going to take place, they are not accepting advance reservations until very near to the actual travel date.
So near that the 14 / 7 day advance tickets can no longer be purchased because it is only a few days prior to travel.
If you ask me it is just a money making scam.
3Not Responding
May 15th, 2005 @ 08:37
I agree there are some quirks about the whole system and that the quotas for the cheapest tickets appear to minute but, overall, the VV system is a great innovation. The whole quota concept, pioneered by the airlines, simply didn’t exist on UK railways until Virgin started it. And they are so, so outrageously cheap. OK, you can’t always get precisely what you want but I can live with that.
4tom
May 15th, 2005 @ 08:49
The rules upon which these tickets are available are crazy though.
If, as promised, rail operators move to a system of yield management, as pioneered by the low-cost airlines – we will see a real public transport paradigm shift.
5gemma &linda
June 8th, 2005 @ 00:19
I have just had the worst day of my life thanks to virgin trains, cleverley called virgin as they seem to have no experience with anything. Trains, fax machines, computers, telephones, speaking, listening, issueing tickets, none of this worked today and yet it does not seem to be any effort to take your money and that of any other member of your family or boyfriends. My advice to anyone thinking about traveling on any of their services would be to find any other possible company even if it seems to take twicw the time and cost more money, because in my experience this is inevitable anyway.
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