Re: Travel Agent Booking Software

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From: Smylers
Subject: Re: Travel Agent Booking Software
Date: 09:22 on 17 Apr 2005
David H. Adler writes:

> On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 04:13:54PM +0000, Smylers wrote:
> 
> > I also wasn't impressed that when listing possible holidays all the
> > available actions are listed with 2-digit codes, but require
> > pressing Enter after them anyway -- so simply paging through the
> > list involves typing 5 0 Enter 5 0 Enter 5 0 Enter ...
> 
> I'm really curious as to what system they're using. Did you happen to
> ask?

No, sorry; at no point did either of us make any reference to the
software at all -- I just sat there quietly watching the travel agent
person trying to use it.

> > Apparently it doesn't matter how restrictive our constraints are --
> > if we don't know where we want to go, then the software won't let us
> > at the information it's hiding in the database.
> 
> I've never seen software used by agents that work without a
> destination, despite having spent my entire life in and around the
> industry.

Wow -- while many people do know where they want to go, there must be a
fair few who don't, and it isn't as though searching the database based
on other fields should be hard ...

> Of course, a *good* travel agent should be able to figure out where
> you should be going.

Well, I'd've thought so -- my reason for turning up to a real travel
agent with human beings was cos I hoped they'd be able to deal with
things like our "no mobs of lagered-up skinheads draped with Union
flags, and preferably not too many screaming toddlers either" criteria;
if we _knew_ where we wanted to go then we'd just've used a website.

The thing that got me was that I was made to feel I was being awkward
for having such inconvenient preferences; at no point were they in the
slightest bit apologetic for the fact that their system was hopeless at
being helpful in my circumstances.

> Then again, if I assume correctly that you're in the UK, the travel
> agents there, not to put too fine a point on it, suck.

I wouldn't like to generalize from a sample size of one, and anyway this
list is specifically for hating software -- so to get it back on topic
I'll just add that the travel agent was at least well-trained in how to
use the system.  In particular she was completely unfazed by the fact
that after she'd decided Lanzarote might be a suitable destination the
interface required her to indicate this by typing "ACE" into a textbox
that could fit exactly 3 characters into it.

Yup, no list to pick from; no autocompletion; no textual searching by
real-world names; no map to point at: the interface requires the person
using it to have memorized the 3-letter IATA code for all the
destinations' airports.

And a hateful side effect of this specification by airport rather than
location is that there's no easy way to request departures from 'any
London airport' -- you have to list "LGW", "LHR", etc separately.
Except that there are only 3 of these fields for providing acceptable
departure points, and London has more than 3 airports, so you have to
perform separate searches to check all of them.  And when you go back to
change the departure point all the other fields get reset too ...

Hate!

Smylers
-- 
May God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a
difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done.

There's stuff above here

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