JetStar – What are you thinking?
A couple of weeks ago, I was up at the Gold Coast for my brother’s 40th. For me, it was a whirlwind trip – and, like most interstate travelers, I went through the usual booking process, jumped online, compared a few prices, checked out the schedules and ended up booking the flight up and back with Jetstar.
My flight home was on Saturday afternoon, departing Gold Coast Airport. But there was one small snag. I got up really late (with obligatory hangover), waited ages for a taxi, and missed the flight check-in by 3 miserable minutes.
Despite my profuse apologizing, the check-in attendant wouldn’t budge.
As I walked away in a huff, he helpfully offered that there was another flight in a couple of hours time. I called back that I was probably going to book a flight home with another airline.
Bad day.
So I bought a coffee, sat down, and called my partner to let her know that I was going to be a little late home - with another apology attached.
So while I was sitting there with my cuppa, it suddenly dawned on me that I could book a flight with my iPhone. So (trying hard not to look like a complete ‘you-know-what’), I discretely looked up Virgin’s website. Cool, they had a flight in an hour’s time and it’s was cheap. Just in case, I thought I’d better also check Jetstar’s offering.
But instead of going to Jetstar’s normal website, they had (in their infinite wisdom) decided to create a new site solely dedicated to iPhone users.
And it’s hopeless…
1. You can’t book a flight
2. You have to download a 180kb PDF to see their flight schedules
3. You have to call them to see hear about their special deals!
So Virgin got the guernsey that Saturday afternoon. I booked the flight, saved the receipt and grabbed a booking pass in under 5 minutes.
Jetstar, please don’t try and fix something that’s not broken.
My flight home was on Saturday afternoon, departing Gold Coast Airport. But there was one small snag. I got up really late (with obligatory hangover), waited ages for a taxi, and missed the flight check-in by 3 miserable minutes.
Despite my profuse apologizing, the check-in attendant wouldn’t budge.
As I walked away in a huff, he helpfully offered that there was another flight in a couple of hours time. I called back that I was probably going to book a flight home with another airline.
Bad day.
So I bought a coffee, sat down, and called my partner to let her know that I was going to be a little late home - with another apology attached.
So while I was sitting there with my cuppa, it suddenly dawned on me that I could book a flight with my iPhone. So (trying hard not to look like a complete ‘you-know-what’), I discretely looked up Virgin’s website. Cool, they had a flight in an hour’s time and it’s was cheap. Just in case, I thought I’d better also check Jetstar’s offering.
But instead of going to Jetstar’s normal website, they had (in their infinite wisdom) decided to create a new site solely dedicated to iPhone users.
And it’s hopeless…
1. You can’t book a flight
2. You have to download a 180kb PDF to see their flight schedules
3. You have to call them to see hear about their special deals!
So Virgin got the guernsey that Saturday afternoon. I booked the flight, saved the receipt and grabbed a booking pass in under 5 minutes.
Jetstar, please don’t try and fix something that’s not broken.
posted by Chris Thomas - Reseo at
10:01 AM
3 Comments:
-
Hackpacker said...
-
- 16 August 2008 11:09 AM
-
Anonymous said...
-
- 9 October 2008 5:57 PM
-
Anonymous said...
-
- 6 May 2009 1:57 PM
Post a Comment Create a Link HomeAn amazingly stupid oversight by a company that's pushing itself to the young and early adapters. Hope they've seen this post and sought you out to convert them from the stone age.
A lot of things Jetstar do dosen't make much sense.
For instance they buy 30% share in Vietnam Pacific Airlines and re brand it with their Jetstat logo which creates a second hub for them in Asia (as well as Singapore) and access to the growing Vietnamese domestic market.
Great! But then they go and stop direct flights from sydney- Hcmc instead now flying to Darwin where you wait for 2 hours before continuing onto HCMC. Having a stop over in Darwin is not an option unless you book your journey as two one way fares (syd-drw,drw-sgn) which is more expensive.
Jetstar is creating a hub in Darwin from where you can fly to Bali, singapore or Vietnam.Why? I don't know-there are not a lot of people in Darwin and it is a nice place for a short visit but it's not the type of place that lures you to it or entices you to stay.
One would expect the fares from Darwin to Bali to be cheap considering that it's pretty close-well no.It is actually cheaper to fly to HCMC from Darwin than what it is to fly to Bali.
Oh and try to book a one way flight from Bali to Darwin on the Jetstar web site-you can't! it dosen't offer darwin as a destination from bali even though you can book it as a return itinerary from Darwin to Bali.
Jetstar is not cheap unless it has direct competition on the same route from another discount carrier.
Last year Tiger was flying from melbourne to Darwin for $99, so Jetstar matched their price.
This year Jetstar starts flying from Sydney to Darwin whith Qantas as it's only competitor and is charging $209 for the flight!
I welcome the true budget carriers into our Australin skies of which Air Asia is by far the best.This airline offers a true budjet experience with reliable aircraft and realistic prices.It is the only way to keep Jetstar honest.
Lets face it, Jetstar is really just Qantas pretending to be cheaper-after all they have already shown us that they will only offer cheap fares if they have direct competition on the same route.
Jetstar sent me an email tonight to invite me to participate in their fifth birthf=day celebrations where they were selling 5,00 seats for 5cents.
The email was received at 10:39pm.The sale started at 10pm to 11pm that smae day.
Are you serious Jetstar?
please forgive me for not participtating in your sale.......
Links to this post: