New Qantas Award Booking System

[aus_flyer]

Qantas have a new award booking system online!!

And it looks fantastic!!

 

[Mal]

Yep, looks great to me. Love the 30 day calendar views too.

Now if only they could fix up the issue with Cathay flights not showing up!

 

[AviationNZ]

I did a few "dummy" bookings, looks great.

Also, is it just me or does it seem like there are more seats available, specifically Business Class on normally busy routes such as SYD - LAX???

 

[futaris]

Seems to have the hooks for Premium Economy in the New Calendar system.

 

[Mal]

Two differences I've noted regarding the new system.

1. has issues with displaying split class options. Eg Was offering me F class on BNE-LAX-SFO (which I assume meant Y or J for BNE-LAX and F for LAX-SFO.

2. You can no longer seem to be able to 'get a quote' for taxes/charges etc. Any attempt to use more points than you have returns an error.

 

[serfty]

Multi city is now along the lines of entering all your destinations rather than one at a time.

However, you can change selections with a box on the LHS.

 

[sr81]

Very interesting is that on the USA routes premium Y is included. The only problem are the colours used for Y and Y+. They are very similar. The Y+ seats currently shown are on BA via LHR.

It also now shows entire months and what type of seats are available. Makes finding seats really easy, chose the flexi date option.

Does look good though let's hope availability of award seats will also increase.

 

[Brettmcg]

192,000 points for MEL - LHR in Y+. Not bad, potentially a little on the steep side though?

 

[ANstar]

192,000 points for MEL - LHR in Y+. Not bad, potentially a little on the steep side though?

I presume they are using 1.5 of the Y points for this. (Is tis the same as WT+)?

 

[Va Bene]

Just did a dummy booking for Sept08 for MEL/LHR/FIU return in J for 2 seats. There are available J seats and 512,000 points. When I found the appropriate flights with J seats showing and then clicked on Review, it stated that QF29/30 for MEL/LHR LHR/MEL were in economy yet it was still quoting 512K points and $1,032 in taxes.

There certainly appeared to be more J seats than I have seen before.

 

[aus_flyer]

it stated that QF29/30 for MEL/LHR LHR/MEL were in economy yet it was still quoting 512K points and $1,032 in taxes.

This seems to be a widespread, common problem with the new booking tool.

Whereas in the past, you could only select Business if all legs were available.

 

[NM]

192,000 points for MEL - LHR in Y+. Not bad, potentially a little on the steep side though?

Of course for 160,000 AA miles you could go in First Class, but that is another story .

Or 190,000 AA miles gets a 35,000 mile business class OneWorld Award. And no fuel surcharges to pay!

So yes, I agree. Its a little on the steep side.

 

[serfty]

This new one is misleading if looking for travel in J or F. The punter has to be very careful.

If you select Flexible with Dates and then pick a J or F cabin class, it shows those days where one or more flights combinations have at least one F/J segment.

Pick that date and you see the options for F/J - pick one of those and you will see the segments including those in various classes.

It is only then that you see what is going on.

e.g. I selected Business class for a SYD-HKG one way.

After picking the flight options I was shown SYD-BNE in J and BNE-HKG in WHY!

All for the princely sum of 60K points & AUD151.13.

If I select a WHY option, I get the same flights all in WHY for 30K points & AUD151.13.

So, in this example it's effectively costing 30K points for the hour long flight SYD-BNE!

I can see a raft of complaints "hitting the fan" over this one!

 

[dajop]

After picking the flight options I was shown SYD-BNE in J and BNE-HKG in WHY!

All for the princely sum of 60K points & AUD151.13.

Yeh not good, the programming should pick up that these could be constructed for 46K.

 

[JohnK]

1. has issues with displaying split class options. Eg Was offering me F class on BNE-LAX-SFO (which I assume meant Y or J for BNE-LAX and F for LAX-SFO.

You are right. Unless this issue is fixed I can see some people getting caught out by not looking at the actual booking class for all flights. Could this be an intentional feature of the new award booking engine?

2. You can no longer seem to be able to 'get a quote' for taxes/charges etc. Any attempt to use more points than you have returns an error.

Deja vu! I think this was always the case. When I was planning a RTW in March I did not have enough FF points and could see the itinerary but not the taxes and charges until I had enough FF points in early April.

 

[serfty]

... I think this was always the case. When I was planning a RTW in March I did not have enough FF points and could see the itinerary but not the taxes and charges until I had enough FF points in early April.

For an extensive period leading up to either early this year or late last year, you could get a Tax quote even if you had insufficient points to complete the booking.

The ability to do that has been gone for at least 6 months.

 

[Platy]

I am trying to determine whether the minimum time between award booking and flight has changed. I seem to be able to bring up flights for tomorrow, less than 24 hours in advance. When I try backing up on the monthly calender to today's date, I get a minimum of 4 hours in advance warning.

Has the lead time come down to 4 hours from 24 hours!?

 

[Kendall Roy]

Can't say I'm a fan.

If you try and construct a OneWorld award and no flight is available on either of the legs, it knocks the whole thing back and doesn't specify what flight you need to change the dates for.

Also, is it just me or is there bugga all Y availability for SYD/LHR return. I'm talking around April-June next year.

 

[maninblack]

Unfortunately the new system doesn't work...in fact it's totally stuffed. Went on this arvo and lucky me. 3 BIZ seats MEL-LAX return (albeit via Sydney) for next year and on just the dates I wanted. YAY. Too good to be true, you bet. When I went to the review page, only the MEL-SYD-MEL sectors were in business, the SYD-LAX-SYD were in Economy, even though points to be charged were as business. Scrap that one :evil:

Rang Qantas who went through the system with me, they too concluded that it was stuffed. So Sorry. Back to the IT department I'm afraid.

PS. No business seats at all anywhere near my dates except one seat MEL-BNE-NRT-LAX and nothing coming back!

 

[aus_flyer]

PS. No business seats at all anywhere near my dates except one seat MEL-BNE-NRT-LAX and nothing coming back!

Try searching for one F seat HKG-SYD ANYTIME in 2008 !!!! Nothing!

Either there is a glitch - perhaps confusion with Z changing to P - or Qantas are getting very tight indeed!

(though I doubt it is confusion with booking code change as other flights are showing F availability)