More fares, More flights, More Choice - Booking engine improvements

[medhead]

I noticed this earlier today on the Qantas website. Seems to be talking about an upgraded international multi-city booking engine. The listed features seem to deal with a number of recurring complaints.

Plan your Qantas flight | Book stopovers and multiple cities

More fares, more flights, more choice
There's not much in life that is point to point.
That's why we have updated our booking engine at qantas.com so you can book complex itineraries with unprecedented ease.
The new functionality allows you to:

• Compare a wide range of fares and itineraries for flights with multiple stopovers or destinations.
• Search for other scheduled flights on a particular day and see price difference in one screen for the entire itinerary.
• Identify flight segments that are eligible for frequent flyer upgrades.
• View up to 50 alternative flights for each segment.
• Book premium economy class online.

 

[tuppaware]

The same improvements that stop us booking the Fiji sc run?

 

[medhead]

I had a bit of a play this morning. It seems much better and more flexible. It also states the cabin class against each flight. I tried a NAN run for January 2012 and it was possible to get for ~$2000. Another ~$500 would get a return via all 3 cities for a NAN-MEL sector search. So the flights are still, not sure about the value due to the time of year.

I didn't get a chance to check the upgrade notification properly. That only seemed to involve a notice to say the fare can be upgrade if an upgrade award is available. So it only really gives an indication of booking class (not NOQE).

I think I is a big improvement. But then I rarely do international multicity bookings and usually only to dream of possibilities.

 

[LiamR]

Ahh yes, I saw this yesterday when I was looking on Qantas.com for changes to Jetstar.

Haven't had a chance to book it yet, but I've got a specific multi sector booking for flights to ZRH soon. So I hope its an improvement over the old one.