Another QF IT letdown

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RooFlyer

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OK, small one, but just symptomatic of how bloody irritating QF's e-mail/web site functions are.

I get an e-mail which, amongst other things, tells me about new evening departures from SYD or MEL to USA.

QF to USA.JPG


Now this interests me, so I follow the link "Find out more" ...

And all it gives me is the USA 'destinations' page; nothing at all about the new flights, not even on any of the links on that page.

USA.jpg


Arrrggh! Was it too difficult for the Work Experience kiddles to link to a page which tells me about the new flights?

[/rant over]
 
Even tried a dummy booking and only came up with the normal two direct flights, 1 on the 747 and the other on the 380. No mention of flights on 330's
 
Even tried a dummy booking and only came up with the normal two direct flights, 1 on the 747 and the other on the 380. No mention of flights on 330's

I tried dates over Easter and found QF93/94 and QF95/96 between MEL and LAX, and QF11/12 and QF17/18 between SYD and LAX...
 
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And all it gives me is the USA 'destinations' page; nothing at all about the new flights, not even on any of the links on that page.

View attachment 37196

The "Los Angeles" page contains some information on "Your flight to L.A. with Qantas" but it does not include any schedules. In fact, it still refers to "Chauffeur Drive for Business and First" which I thought is no longer offered for US flights?
 
This whole IT thing is a bit of a joke I recently did a trip in J and F to NZ and back and from the MMB page I, had I not known better, expected to have CD available on these flights.

It is misleading at best and down right false advertising at worst.

8 days to go
Here’s where you can manage your flight booking from Auckland to Melbourne departing on Monday 11 August 2014 at 05:30 PM.


Chauffeur Drive
Organise your complimentary chauffeur drive to the airport



Carbon
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Passengers
Manage passenger and contact details.
Passenger details ENTER APIS EDIT
Click edit to update your booking with meal requests and contact details. We may notify you of any updates by email and mobile phone, so ensure both are updated.
Passengers
Mr Ansett
QF 068xx_x
Ms Ansett
QF 943xx_x

Flight
Details of your flights, including your departure and arrival times, seat selections, baggage allowance and check-in.
Flight details Change Cancel
Flight details hidden. collapsed expanded
Aug 11
Auckland to Melbourne Departs 17:30 Arrives 19:40 Duration: 4h 10min

EK407 Auckland to Melbourne Departs17:30 (Mon) Arrives19:40 (Mon) Duration:4h 10min
EK407 Auckland to Melbourne
Departure Terminal
International
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2
Check in closes
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Confirmed
Travel Class
First
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-
Flying on
Airbus Industrie A380-800 Flight Operated by Emirates
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First
Your trip includes flights operated by another airline. You can manage options for your trip, such as seat selection or check in, at the Emirates website using their booking reference . Go to Emirates website


Chauffeur drive
Organise your complimentary chauffeur drive to the airport


Twice on the MMB it refers me to organise my CD.

Pretty poor IMHO.

And well how the hell can they still show LA as having CD?
 
OK, small one, but just symptomatic of how bloody irritating QF's e-mail/web site functions are.

As a person that works in IT software development I wish to state how annoying it is that IT people are often blamed for what is out of their control and explain why the thread heading is incorrect.

Please do not confuse "function" with "content".


IT people build the systems (e.g. a web content management system) or the models to fetch and display data but do not decide on nor enter the content or data. In this example, IT provided the mechanism to display a page but the content of it - the sentences, images, hyperlinks in the paragraphs - is entered by someone else who is generally in Marketing, Sales or some other non-IT role. Same goes for the email; IT people provide an emailing mechanism but I can sure as heck tell you that IT didn't write it, Marketing did. The content of the email you were sent and the page it linked to is without a doubt "Another QF Marketing letdown" so please give (dis)credit where it is due. This is a failure for Marketing to connect the email content to the web page content and it is really the content that irritates you and not the function (which actually works from an IT perspective!).

As to Ansett's post above about the chauffeur drive booking link I see it on *every* booking even when it is not available (e.g. domestic flights) and its appearance has no bearing on the context of the booking. Though this is an IT function for the page to use context on whether such content is displayed, it is not IT's decision to add or change such things, it would be some other department (and here I assume Marketing) as the business owner/stakeholder/sponsor of that function to make this decision. So Marketing would have said "please put a link to CD on every booking in MMB" and IT did so as requested. IT could have said "adding the link will take N effort, but we could make it better by only displaying the link if it is relevant to the booking but that would require NxM effort" for which Marketing could have said no just put the link as it will be much quicker and cheaper. So IT don't have a say in work that gets done only on what other business owners in the company think is the best to be done for money/time/function and then get blamed for not giving people useful and context-rich functionality.

We use a saying in IT: "good, fast, cheap - pick two". So if you want it good and fast (i.e. want it in 3 days rather than 3 months) then it won't be cheap, if you want it fast and cheap then it won't be good (seems like the decision for CD on MMB), and if you want it good and cheap then be prepared to wait.

Thank you.
 
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I stand corrected astrosly and that's a useful summary.

I guess blaming the 'work experience kids' has become a bit of shorthand here and I'll try to be more accurate in future.

Its definitely QF management that should be named and shamed when this happens. They decide the level of skill and oversight that goes into their public IT interface.
 
astrosly

Thank you for your reply to the thread it certainly makes sense and it seems we may be blaming the wrong person at times. Perhaps we should be referring the issue to the marketing and or loyalty team.

I have since sent an email to QF Loyalty and marketing contacts that I have.
 
I stand corrected astrosly and that's a useful summary.

I guess blaming the 'work experience kids' has become a bit of shorthand here and I'll try to be more accurate in future.

Its definitely QF management that should be named and shamed when this happens. They decide the level of skill and oversight that goes into their public IT interface.

No. It is just that the work experience kids are in marketing rather than IT. If I recall correctly IT was mostly outsourced recently. If so, that should have gained experience within the group at lower costs :mrgreen: to the client.

Happy wandering

Fred
 
We use a saying in IT: "good, fast, cheap - pick two". So if you want it good and fast (i.e. want it in 3 days rather than 3 months) then it won't be cheap, if you want it fast and cheap then it won't be good (seems like the decision for CD on MMB), and if you want it good and cheap then be prepared to wait.
What a fabulous saying. I wonder if I should use it on my boss. :mrgreen:
 
We use a saying in IT: "good, fast, cheap - pick two". So if you want it good and fast (i.e. want it in 3 days rather than 3 months) then it won't be cheap, if you want it fast and cheap then it won't be good (seems like the decision for CD on MMB), and if you want it good and cheap then be prepared to wait.
We used to be able to deliver all 3 quite easily. Now management thinks hiring cheap labour will do the trick and when that doesn't work hire more cheap labour....
 
As a person that works in IT software development I wish to state how annoying it is that IT people are often blamed for what is out of their control and explain why the thread heading is incorrect.

Please do not confuse "function" with "content".

...
Having worked professionionlly in IT since 1980 much of what you write is correct ... however -

The main issue here is that Qantas seemed to have made change for change sake; with that much existing and useful functionality has been destroyed.

Stupid stuff ... stupid changes ... lost functions.

Not withstanding that, I was doing some seaches to tonight on business class fares - do a query, see the result and then go back to modify the search parameters; Ha?! the selection box resets to economy. Of course with the newer bloated white screen style I have to scroll down to see this box.

That's just poor functionality and simple basic stuff that as a programmer for the last 34 years I am simply aghast at. It used to be worse when this new tool was first released with origins, destinations and dates needing rechecking every time.

Such issues are not marketing's fault - they are simply poor development on behalf of the IT team.
 
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Having worked professionionlly in IT since 1980 much of what you write is correct ... however -
..
Such issues are not marketing's fault - they are simply poor development on behalf of the IT team.

Having worked in IT from 1969 until recently, the issue is that someone had to make the request, approve the design, (and hopefully the functionality), review the deliverables and TEST what was going to be placed into production.

Now I have my own opinions on current IT methodologies, programming environments and team structures. But user management still has the FINAL responsibility of approving the final go live commitment.

Happy wandering

Fred
 
Agreed RooFlyer, this is just another example of the 5 year olds at work in QF IT. You would have thought some of these threads would have been noticed and the feedback passed on!!
 
Having worked in IT from 1969 until recently, the issue is that someone had to make the request, approve the design, (and hopefully the functionality), review the deliverables and TEST what was going to be placed into production.
...
Sure, and not all are aware of what they sign off on.

However, to create a "Modify" facility and have it effectively work only as a "Re-Enter" or "New Search" type of option should not get past UNIT testing, let alone System testing. For such to reach UAT shows contempt for the Customer (Qantas in this case).
Now I have my own opinions on current IT methodologies, programming environments and team structures. But user management still has the FINAL responsibility of approving the final go live commitment. ...
I have my opinions too - mainly the way contemporary developers merely 'paint' new stuff and call it 'coding'.

My point is that such blatant mistakes should never reach the stage that 'user management' has to sign off on systems containing them.
 
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