Online sale failure help

dilby

Hi all -

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but...

QANTAS are currently running a birthday sale, and advertised 20 super cheap seats to australia. I was primed and ready for the launch time and as soon as the sale started and i was able to grab a ticket and get all the way to checkout. At that point their site hit numerous errors and I was unable to continue with the purchase and therefore lost it.

In all honesty I'm dubious about the whole sale which seems to be a huge publicity stunt. For one, it was th payment portion which was seeing issues which shouldn't be the part of the site that's experiencing high traffic. At either rate I'm sure if I complain they'll simply state it's a sale with high demand.

But I was hoping if someone could confirm or deny my recollection that there are some consumer laws covering this. I work as an ecommerce developer and I'm sure I've had to cover this before in regards to building a sufficient system for the sale that is advertised. If my memory serves me correctly a large chain was done for it but unfortunately I can't remember much more than that. From a technical point of view, it's poorly done; queuing systems and better session management & error screens at the very least would make the experience more fair and user friendly, but I'm wondering if I have grounds to complain.

At the end of the day I followed their instructions to get a product that was advertised, got it, got to the cart only for the site to give me 'technical error' messages at the final hurdle.

Many thanks for any thoughts!

Neil49

If there were only 20 seats available but say 200 people trying to buy them then I would argue that the point of payment is where the log jam would occur.

Regrettably I don't think there is anything you can do.

dilby

Thanks Neil - I fear that might be the case, but in regards to the log jam, only if the site isn't fit for purpose from at least a technical point of view. It's my day job so probably another conversation, but I'm struggling to find any cases so perhaps im mixing old anecdotes.

novelty-socks

You'll be out of luck on this one I'm afraid. I expect demand for these seats will have massively exceeded supply (never mind 200 people trying - I can imagine 20,000 or even 200,000 quite easily).

It's true that there are ways to mitigate (to some extent) the issues you hit, but airlines have notoriously archaic back-end booking systems, and it's hard to imagine any business making a substantial investment to address an issue caused by a one-off promotion.

From 15 years' experience of buying Glastonbury tickets online, I understand your frustrations. The issues there are very similar!

gettingtheresometime

Having flown Quantas I'd want to be paid by them rather than pay them 1p

Westin

Did you call Qantas to report the problem?

In the situation you describe there is a chance that the actual reservation was created but in airline terms not completed or ticketed. A payment failure can be one reason the booking will ‘hang’ with the seat held but the sale not completed. The booking might hang in that status for up to 24hrs or set to midnight of the day of the transaction taking part. Whilst you may not have a PNR to quote the airline should be able to locate the reservation from your name, flight date and flight number. If located the airline sales team can take the payment manually from you.

BTW, I believe QF released 200 of these LHR SYD LHR tickets each of the promotion booking dates.

Ganga

gettingtheresometime wrote: »

Having flown Quantas I'd want to be paid by them rather than pay them 1p

Can you elaborate for the benefit of others

gettingtheresometime

Ganga wrote: »

Can you elaborate for the benefit of others

Suffered rude stewardesses both on the outgoing and return flights, not to mention the inedible food (even for airline food) offered - even our beagle would have turned its noise up at the offerings....in fact we decided it was better to go without food for 24 hrs than eat what was being offered.


Flew again to Australia with BA and it was a totally different experience.

sazaccount

Ganga wrote: »

Can you elaborate for the benefit of others

Personally I quite like Quantas, they are not my favorite (Air NZ) but they are not the worse (Virgin Atlantic) I did have a really enjoyable Melbourne to London flight a couple of years ago with a refueling stop in Dubai (got off the plane and re boarded the same plane in the same seat) lots of space and my favorite part they had a mini stock station at the back where you could help yourself to cans, muesli bars and amenities :rotfl. Yes I have had a !!!! flight from melbourne to wellington but some of that was on me and having a migraine.

Ganga

gettingtheresometime wrote: »

Suffered rude stewardesses both on the outgoing and return flights, not to mention the inedible food (even for airline food) offered - even our beagle would have turned its noise up at the offerings....in fact we decided it was better to go without food for 24 hrs than eat what was being offered.


Flew again to Australia with BA and it was a totally different experience.

Thanks for the info,long time without food but as you say if inedible why make yourself ill just because its included,hopefully the alcohol was drinkable :rotfl::rotfl:

Jumblebumble

dilby wrote: »

Hi all -

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but...

QANTAS are currently running a birthday sale, and advertised 20 super cheap seats to australia. I was primed and ready for the launch time and as soon as the sale started and i was able to grab a ticket and get all the way to checkout. At that point their site hit numerous errors and I was unable to continue with the purchase and therefore lost it.

In all honesty I'm dubious about the whole sale which seems to be a huge publicity stunt. For one, it was th payment portion which was seeing issues which shouldn't be the part of the site that's experiencing high traffic. At either rate I'm sure if I complain they'll simply state it's a sale with high demand.

But I was hoping if someone could confirm or deny my recollection that there are some consumer laws covering this. I work as an ecommerce developer and I'm sure I've had to cover this before in regards to building a sufficient system for the sale that is advertised. If my memory serves me correctly a large chain was done for it but unfortunately I can't remember much more than that. From a technical point of view, it's poorly done; queuing systems and better session management & error screens at the very least would make the experience more fair and user friendly, but I'm wondering if I have grounds to complain.

At the end of the day I followed their instructions to get a product that was advertised, got it, got to the cart only for the site to give me 'technical error' messages at the final hurdle.

Many thanks for any thoughts!

30 seconds thought will come to the conclusion that Qantas cannot possibly know how many people will try and log in at the same time and therefore it could be every browser in the world and it is ludicrous to suggest that legislation be put in place to mandate that they cater for this possibility