When things go wrong

[codash1099]

Wednesday January 24, 09:00 AM

Free flight bonanza from Ryanair glitch

Hundreds of passengers have scored a free flight on budget European airline Ryanair because of a giveaway glitch.

The airline was offering a 'buy one, get one free' deal on flights, with passengers to punch in a six digit code on the airline website in order to claim their second flight.

But a gremlin in the system brought things unstuck, with anyone entering 123456 able to score a free flight without having to pay for one first.

Word of the glitch spread like wildfire via email.

The only cost was a two pence booking fee - no taxes, levies or charges, according to The Sun newspaper.

Ryanair has confirmed it will honour all free flights issued. - Travelpress travel news

 

[jakeseven7]

Thats about all I'd pay to fly Ryanair again lol - $0!!

 

[Soundguy]

Qantas could do that:

Free flights MEL - SYD!*

*Plus fuel fine of $149.99 per sucker

 

[JohnK]

But a gremlin in the system brought things unstuck, with anyone entering 123456 able to score a free flight without having to pay for one first.

Sounds like the testing code was not removed before installing changes in production environment.




Disclaimer: I have always removed testing code from a program before installing in production environment!

 

[Mal]

Sounds like the testing code was not removed before installing changes in production environment.

Actually the issue was that they had no validation of the data to ensure it was a valid booking reference, and no validation of the booking reference to make sure it was a booking that was able to be used for this promotion.

Great coding

 

[serfty]

Well there ya go; obviously the test coding worked very well and it was time to implement:

 

[bambbbam2]

Well the sort of same thing happened here a couple of years ago to DJ, they had a Myer promo where you could key in your docket number to get a 2 for 1 deal. However you could key in anything as the docket number, there was no checking!

 

[Altair]

That is what you get when you cut costs where ever possible. These are examples where they probably felt there was no need to add in a validator into the program that would require designing, coding and testing. I have actually seen this before and a business case that estimated how much the fraud would cost vs. development cost. This was before the the massive explosion of the internet and emails.
What I do wonder is how someone came across this or was it an inside job?

 

[cssaus]

You have to remember that this is an Irish Airline

Actually, despite all the stories about how ruthless RyanAir can be in recovering charges for just about anything to do with their flights, they can on the rare occasions be quite reasonable. My daughter flew last week on a RyanAir flt from Paris to Rome and made a concerted effort to reduce the weight of her checked-in luggage down to the near impossible weight of 15kg (stuffed as much as she could in her carry-on backpack). When she checked in her bag weighed 18.1kg and the CSR said to her very quietly something like "you do know there is a weight limit on checked-in luggage" and then allowed her to check the bag in with no excess baggage charges. Saved herself 24 Euros.

 

[codash1099]

Disclaimer: I have always removed testing code from a program before installing in production environment!

I always say a similar thing:- hand on heart (tongue in cheek)!

 

[pauly7]

You have to remember that this is an Irish Airline

Actually, despite all the stories about how ruthless RyanAir can be in recovering charges for just about anything to do with their flights, they can on the rare occasions be quite reasonable. My daughter flew last week on a RyanAir flt from Paris to Rome and made a concerted effort to reduce the weight of her checked-in luggage down to the near impossible weight of 15kg (stuffed as much as she could in her carry-on backpack). When she checked in her bag weighed 18.1kg and the CSR said to her very quietly something like "you do know there is a weight limit on checked-in luggage" and then allowed her to check the bag in with no excess baggage charges. Saved herself 24 Euros.

The only possible answer for this is that it was the check in agents last day and they did not care if they got fired...

I'm quite moderate and tolerant of different airline services but Ryanair is one airline I think has taken things waaaay too far!