How useless is the Qantas website?

[Peregrine]

I was wondering whether it was me or the Qantas website.

Over a couple of days of building an mult-trip intinerary to London, via Singapore and back from Dublin via Dubai, the Qantas site would take me through the whole booking process, even past seat selection and each time the site would crash, saying a ''generic error"had occurred. This happened with different attempts using different days and flight times.

I contacted the Qantas called centre who advised that a generic error occurred when flights seemingly available on the website were not in fact available. They gave me a vague promise that the site would be fixed by the following morning (Thursday 15 August).

I explained to the call centre person that this made the Qantas unusable, as it required me to try and guess which flights are in fact available to enable me to make a booking. They didn't seem to appreciate the absurdity of this. I also said that the problem had occurred over a number of weeks and doubted their promise of the site being fixed anytime soon. There was no offer of assistance or other suggestion, other than that I should "wait.'

I take from this that the multi-trip facility on the Qantas website is unusable. The site gives the impression that Qantas has many flights available when in fact there is a much more limited range of options. A check with my travel agent indicated that the flight at the price quoted to me on the Qantas site was not in fact available.

While I prefer to book direct with airlines, I haven't had similar problems booking with any other airline I have tried, or the other booking sites like Expedia.

In a properly competitive market, an airline's website would have to work properly otherwise the airline would lose business, but I did say a properly competitive market.

 

[UP4014]

The QF website is becoming more and more cluttered and annoying. If you search there are a couple of other threads on the QF IT dept.

 

[RooFlyer]

It's not you. It's the web site; it's been bad for a long time.

There's a running joke here that is done by work experience kids.

 

[Franky]

Feel your pain too. Have just finished doing a multi-city for my wife in her WP account to get to China (PER/HKG/XIY and return NKG/HKG/PER), initially tried on QF but as we were trying to get her a PE where possible, it couldn't cope and gave us an error message number. As with other bookings I have tried recently, it then takes you back to the booking page where there is a clear red tag saying 'clear search'. Unfortunately, all the booking data previously entered has already been cleared! Tried the option with only PER/XIY and NKG/PER entered but no joy, back to the 'clear searched' page again. Eventually went on the the CX web site and it was a breeze by comparison, all sorts of options offered, booked, paid for, seats selected on all 4 legs in about 15 minutes. It obviously can be done, I don't know why the QF web site is so non-friendly and there have been enough gripes about it for them not to notice. Tried for alternative options on SkyScanner, forward journey suggested on the QF option was PER/SYD/PVG/XIY in 40 hours, return slightly better at 32 hours NKG/HKG/PER for a lazy $5300 compared to that with CX for $2700.

 

[travellerqff]

Yes it’s a bit of a joke at times. You should be able to find a flight anywhere in the ‘bookable’ network from the website, but usually it can’t find a fare, or can’t find the originating city.

It’s not even loading the ‘search flight’ page on my iPhone, several weeks in a row.

 

[travellerqff]

And yes if you want to edit the routing on a multicity search, it clears it! Never used to -_-

 

[Pleb Status]

And yes if you want to edit the routing on a multicity search, it clears it! Never used to -_-

I have found this 'enhancement' particularly annoying...

 

[wandering_fred]

Sometimes access to a friendly TA is quite useful.

Happy wandering
Fred

 

[Happy Trails]

Just an extra $1890 .
I'd better book it now before someone else snaffles it.


Edit: Shouldn't need to say it here, but please don't spoil this offer by reposting on the blogs.

 

[Franky]

Sometimes access to a friendly TA is quite useful.

Happy wandering
Fred

I take your point fred, but if a OneWorld airline such as CX can give me what I was looking for in 15 minutes, with free seat selection and a wide range of payment options including PayPal, then why cant Qantas do the same?

 

[Mistress]

Try a different web browser. There is internet explorer, firefox, chrome, safari, edge.. just to name a few. I know that using safari on mac is hit and miss and when i swap over to firefox it works. It will be with the version of the web browser verse their back end tech causing some of the issues. I find there are few different websites with issues. Accor plus is another we have issues with. It just will not work in safari. It may also be that your web browser is blocking cookies or java script or popups.

 

[Franky]

Try a different web browser. There is internet explorer, firefox, chrome, safari, edge.. just to name a few. I know that using safari on mac is hit and miss and when i swap over to firefox it works. It will be with the version of the web browser verse their back end tech causing some of the issues. I find there are few different websites with issues. Accor plus is another we have issues with. It just will not work in safari. It may also be that your web browser is blocking cookies or java script or popups.

I use Firefox...

 

[wandering_fred]

Because of the various blockers I have on Firefox (Win 8.1) occasionally one or more of the standard web sites refuses to accept "clicks" on what I assume are "smart" buttons (controlled by scripts on the page rather than standard html links). Jetstar has been a regular offender and Malaysia Airlines is "guilty" at the moment. I keep a relatively plain copy of Chrome which generally works in the exceptional cases. I don't use Chrome regularly because of the lack of blockers.

Just wandering
Fred

 

[Gonetroppo]

+1 for horrendously unusable and time-wasting. Specific award seats showing last night and now as available for SYD-PEK, just spent hours waiting/talking with the call centre to find out that they are fake seats and can't be added to our RTW booking. WHY??!

 

[DC3]

Trying unsuccessfully to search for award flights on points, on google and safari (iPad) tonight. The site just hangs at the point of entering the first city name, and is not recognising any names.

 

[DC3]

Trying unsuccessfully to search for award flights on points, on google and safari (iPad) tonight. The site just hangs at the point of entering the first city name, and is not recognising any names.

The update is that things now seem back to normal for some reason?

 

[Franky]

The update is that things now seem back to normal for some reason?

And ‘normal’ is not that flash either as many would agree...

 

[Cognac]

Yes it’s a bit of a joke at times. You should be able to find a flight anywhere in the ‘bookable’ network from the website, but usually it can’t find a fare, or can’t find the originating city.

It’s not even loading the ‘search flight’ page on my iPhone, several weeks in a row.

I have also found this in the past. Even when just making a simple return booking that requires stops it doesn't allow you see all of the possible routes to your destination.

Another thing that bugs me is that the points calculators don't give you routing options. For example when searching for Perth - London in F it would tell me "The requested cabin is not offered, the next available cabin has been displayed". I know that I can find this information elsewhere, but I really feel like Qantas is maliciously not upgrading its website sometimes.

 

[ozflier]

One improvement i have noticed is the ability to go "back" from the 30 day flight availability screen and choose another date to the one I have just be viewing. This is very useful when looking for award seats.

 

[ajw373]

I had a similar issue a few years back. I made contact via the online chat and they booked the flights I wanted without additional charge. In fact for one leg they were able to offer better flights for slightly cheaper.