The definitive thread on Qantas IT gripes

[Pom-DownUnder]

I have been keeping an eye on flights from CBR to DOH but as of last night any search I do that has a path through DOH seems to fail outside of the veryyyyyyy occasional date, mostly they jsut fail staight to error 400 though. Any idea if there is some drama between Qatar and Qantas?

 

[tdimdad]

Alternatively, book the lot with JAL, or throw in another OW carrier and book it as a revenue oneworld explorer fare.

Thanks, Sudoer, for a comprehensive response!

My aim is to add a stopover someplace new every time I go see my family. I usually book cash fares so that's not a problem, and use whichever airline offers what I want at a reasonable price (e.g. JL recently). But I have QF credit vourchers to burn and I'd like to force the routing with them. The QF multi-city engine would have been a planning tool so that I can then call them with an obscure booking request. I also have couple of DSC GV's waiting for a good use...

Though, it's not the end of the world to spend the vouchers on simple routes (like QF1/2 and a connection) and find other ways to add the sidetrips. It's a pity a TA can't book my vouchers for me (or can they???).

 

[sudoer]

My aim is to add a stopover someplace new every time I go see my family. I usually book cash fares so that's not a problem, and use whichever airline offers what I want at a reasonable price (e.g. JL recently). But I have QF credit vourchers to burn and I'd like to force the routing with them. The QF multi-city engine would have been a planning tool so that I can then call them with an obscure booking request. I also have couple of DSC GV's waiting for a good use...

If you use the QF multi-city tool and force a DXB 'stop' (effectively a transit) on the way from HND to LHR, the booking engine will give a valid itinerary with QF codeshares (JL/EK) the whole way, and you should be able to book this with a voucher.

It's a pity a TA can't book my vouchers for me (or can they???).

Not to my knowledge but happy to be corrected on this.

 

[Guvner]

Not to my knowledge but happy to be corrected on this.

I received an email/newsletter from firstclass.com.au (an OTA) which suggests they can:

 

[RooFlyer]

It's a pity a TA can't book my vouchers for me (or can they???).

I think they could, but as Qantas has slashed their commissions (again?), I don't think they'd be keen to!! (My bricks and mortar TA says its not so much the low commission, but the time they have to spend re-booking and cleaning up the mess that is current QF scheduling.)

 

[flyingfan]

I know it's silly but I couldnt help but think that perhaps the system is designed to discriminate...

As the QF CEO is in a same-sex relationship I’d attribute it to incompetence rather than malice. Maybe their system is using some antiquated templates from another vendor?

 

[Vic]

I have been keeping an eye on flights from CBR to DOH but as of last night any search I do that has a path through DOH seems to fail outside of the veryyyyyyy occasional date, mostly they jsut fail staight to error 400 though. Any idea if there is some drama between Qatar and Qantas?

pretty much the gossip is much drama between Qantas and Qatar...

 

[RichardMEL]

pretty much the gossip is much drama between Qantas and Qatar...

Well QR were NEVER happy with QF/EK. Now sure, QF/EK predated QR's entry to oneworld by a little bit (a year or so? IIRC) but once joined of course QF was far more in bed with EK - major competition for QR - so they had no incentive to be particularly nice to QF because QF were pushing so much traffic through DXB had major codeshare agreements etc, so the chances of QF feed to QR were minimal.

Even though QF/EK is still a thing, but far less than it was in some respects (eg: QF PER-LHR bypassing the ME, QF pulling out of DXB what 5 or so years ago, and so on) there's probably still no love lost... and QR's CEO, Akbar Al Baker, is certainly no shrinking violet in the aviation industry when it comes to what he wants (just look at the ongoing stoush with Airbus as example)

I'm reminded a bit of the QF/MH relationship which seemed to go south raipidly after that failed "Red"(iirc? was that the name?) co-venture for an intra-asian airline went nowhere, and QF poured much into JQ Asia (which then competed against MH in some markets) so while alliance "partners" there's definitely some history between the two.

Back to QR - like EK - they have ambitions to be what SQ seemed to be back in the 90's and 2000's - THE connecting airline in their own right that serves everywhere with a well positioned hub, huge fleet, etc... I suspect QF is an irritation to them in the grand scheme of things.

Their recent partnership with VA though is most interesting and clearly has sent a message. It seems a direct message to QF. It doesn't appear to be one to oneworld per se - after all their recent move to Avois and 25% holding in IAG - at least is definitely backing fellow members , and they've upped the ante with AA too. Very curious as to how the VA/QR link up pans out and just what's really behind that. After all QR serve most major Oz cities as is so a local partner (QF or VA) offers limited feed from smaller places that probably don't mean a lot revenue wise (with no offence intended to your cities in Tassie, NT and the regions intended). So it is a very interesting move imo.

 

[CMA222]

Attempting to log in to Qantas Business Rewards this afternoon. The log-in can be accessed directly or through the QF site but it either sits doing nothing and not moving to the log-in screen (wheels spinning) or on one and only one occasion, after entering the log in details and password, entered the choice to authenticate the log-in then the two digits of the phone number, it will not allow me to enter the code that is sent or it times out. Total waste of time and effort and this is the site to facilitate business customers. The extra security is great as it excludes everyone successfully. What a joke QF is these days.

 

[Daver6]

Attempting to log in to Qantas Business Rewards this afternoon. The log-in can be accessed directly or through the QF site but it either sits doing nothing and not moving to the log-in screen (wheels spinning) or on one and only one occasion, after entering the log in details and password, entered the choice to authenticate the log-in then the two digits of the phone number, it will not allow me to enter the code that is sent or it times out. Total waste of time and effort and this is the site to facilitate business customers. The extra security is great as it excludes everyone successfully. What a joke QF is these days.

This is posted on the landing page


And maybe related to this email being sent out...

 

[sudoer]

Good way to DDoS yourself.

 

[Daver6]

Good way to DDoS yourself.

You'd truly hope their web servers would simply auto scale based on demand.

 

[TheRealTMA]

You'd truly hope their web servers would simply auto scale based on demand.

My attempt to login also went to server heaven…

And, isn’t it Qantas we are talking about here? Why would IT plan ahead unlike the rest of the organisation? Or to put it another way, why would marketing managers inform IT that they p,Anne’s to run a promo?

 

[bussyboy]

For past month (since windows decided to upgrade itself to 11), I've had constant weird errors re the header exceeding maximum length when using Qantas site in Chrome and clicking on links. Also can never view lounge passes in Chrome.

However no such issues on Edge.

I'm suffering the same issue since July - wasn't back in March. Qantas website unusable in Chrome for me now.

 

[JohnM]

Another weird one has cropped up.

I have a two fairly long-standing bookings where my PNR is separate from my partner's owing to booking at different times for a trip she was not initially certain of going on. The trip had two separately booked elements: a return PER-DRW and a one-way DRW-GOV (going overland back to DRW).

Immediately after making her bookings, I phoned and had them linked. Sweet: hers appeared with mine when I logged in to my account and I could seat us together and so on.

This week, I decided to change one of the bookings to bring the departure date forward one day (to avoid a sparrow's departure and give a day's leeway for lost bags).

This entailed cancelling PJM's redemption outbound leg and substituting a revenue fare. Phoned, answered immediately, got Hobart , all smoothly done, confirmation of PJM's booking emailed to me as Travel Organiser.

Next day, I noticed the links between our bookings were gone when I logged into my account. I could no longer see PJM's bookings. Phoned, answered immediately, got Hobart and Christie assured me the links are not broken and that we are seated together. The seating allocation has clearly happened automatically as there was a bird change from an all-whY QF-Associate Alliance A320 to a QF B738 so, as me being WP, we defaulted from 3A,B to 6A,B on whY bookings. She was at a loss to explain why I can't see PJM's booking.

On the face of it, it would seem that my initiation of changes had seemingly broken the links.

However, the link in the DRW-GOV booking, which is separate from the PER-DRW-PER booking for both of us, and which was not subject to any change, has also vanished.

That makes me think that the vanished links are an underlying IT issue, not something triggered by making a change to one booking.

Has anyone else recently seen similar?

 

[Quickstatus]

hope their web servers would simply auto scale based on demand

The only thing that seems to autoscale at the airline is executive remuneration

 

[SydneySwan]

The only thing that seems to autoscale at the airline is executive remuneration

Yes .... no sign of executive remuneration being ''enhanced'' using the Qantas definition of the word.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Weren't they (QF) execs asked to do baggage handling for a day?

 

[Daver6]

Weren't they (QF) execs asked to do baggage handling for a day?

I believe it was middle and upper management. I don't think the execs will be getting their hands dirty.

 

[nutwood]

Price per head works out well as long as you don't mind a bit of crowding