Earlier this week the Qantas website received a bit of a refresh. The functionality – at least for award searches – is pretty much the same as it was, though there are some minor details in the way it looks and the way the results are displayed. There are some definite downgrades to the search interface. You have to check a special box to get all the cities listed in the type-down and it doesn’t remember that you checked it the next time you do a search. Plus the cities it shows for arrival options (without that box checked) vary based on your departure location. At least the relatively comprehensive data is basically the same.
But that’s not really the whole story. At least not for me.
This change meant I had to revisit the award alerts I have for oneworld (plus Emirates) on the Wandering Aramean Travel Tools site. The new code exposes a few more details a bit easier, meaning that I can now indicate the different arrival day details better (it used to just be a ** warning you, not the actual day name).
The change – plus the growing number of people using the tools – also means that I needed to scale up the capacity of the alerting system. I’m a pretty good procrastinator and I had been avoiding that task like a champ. But since I had to update the systems anyways I finally tackled that task, too. The net result of all of this should be a more reliable, more robust system with better flight details and better alerts. And it should scale up well for the next few thousand users, too.
Change is always happening; may as well make the best of it.
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Nice! Time to dump experflyer, they don’t even support oneworld anymore.
EF and my tools are still quite different. We’re in the same general market but each offers its own advantages and disadvantages. Glad you’re enjoying the features I have.