QIK /SHARES migration

[DrBeth]

I am not sure if this is a QIK/SHARES problem, but I flew US on March 8 on an award ticket. One of my flights was canceled and I was confirmed on a later evening flight. A GA put me on the standby list for an earlier flight. I did not get on that flight. The list was (eventually) rolled over to the next flight and I got on that flight.

On March 14, I went online to check my return flights and they had been canceled. The online chat agent never told me why my itinerary had been canceled, but I assume it was because of the aforementioned date and the fact that I was on standby for a couple of flights before my confirmed one?

If this was a system problem, how could I have prevented the cancellation of the rest of my itinerary?

 

[US1YFARE]

How hard is it to fix the flifo screen so one can see where an aircraft is coming from and that status of it???

This is one of the reasons I ended up leaving US for AA and CO. How can they not know where their aircraft are?? :blink:

 

[US1YFARE]

If this was a system problem, how could I have prevented the cancellation of the rest of my itinerary?

I thought we went through this. You need to either make sure the agent remove the flights you aren't going to take or have them put them at the end of your reservation so that it doen't cancel the rest of your itinerary.

 

[tadjr]

I am not sure if this is a QIK/SHARES problem,

It is. When a flight is gone, the agent is supposed to go back and "clean up" the standby list to canx out any segments no longer needed (confirmed on later flights, etc) or it will canx when the later flight is closed and you arent showing on board. It sucks. The agents are very often trying to finish up their last flight when the next one is arriving. It is a stupid system and they need to program it to clean up the other flights when you're cleared on the earlier flight. It will take your seat away on the later flight I'm told, but it wont canx the segment. There are 1000s of problems with this system. We're still waiting (I thought the ease of programming changes was one reason we kept this system) on being able to check a bag for 4 legs, clear specific standbys with a specific seat number, not having to divide a PNR to put someone on the standby list, etc. There are just way too many things that dont work or dont work right (or are very cumbersome and hard to do), but somehow the agents have managed to get flights out. Imagine what it would be like if it worked like it should and could with a real program! Too bad the programmers dont work the counter or gate. I bet things would be a lot different then.

 

[DrBeth]

Thank you tadjr for the explanation why it happened. And USY1FARE, I remembered you telling me what to do for the next time I fly, but I wanted an explanation as to why it happened in the first place. When I did online chat and wrote customer relations, neither could or would give me an answer. Thanks again to both of you!

 

[crusher]

Remenber the good old Sabre days when you cleared standby your PNR simply adjusted itself upon flight departure and if you didn't clear nothing changed . As long as the entry was correct everything worked, a far cry from the present reality of the morass of qik/shares. Oh how I miss a REAL res system.

 

[REACC1]

I can't imagine the man hours lost due to the inefficiency of this system. The constant repeat of entries, having to do a separate entry to get the connecting boarding pass, as mentioned before, you have to move to a different computer sometimes to get the entry to work. It's a good thing there are very few agents now, or else there wouldn't be a vacant computer to switch to. :blink:
We've actually had the system print bag tags for the day before and on another occasion the day after the current day. Another example is that you pull up someones record to do an overweight bag on an SST and it issues the SST in someone elses name. (not related or even in the record that you pulled up)(don't know where this persons name came from, it is just stupid)
If the agent infront of you is abrupt and cursing under their breath, please understand.

 

[DrBeth]

It is. When a flight is gone, the agent is supposed to go back and "clean up" the standby list to canx out any segments no longer needed (confirmed on later flights, etc) or it will canx when the later flight is closed and you arent showing on board. It sucks. The agents are very often trying to finish up their last flight when the next one is arriving. It is a stupid system and they need to program it to clean up the other flights when you're cleared on the earlier flight. It will take your seat away on the later flight I'm told, but it wont canx the segment. There are 1000s of problems with this system. We're still waiting (I thought the ease of programming changes was one reason we kept this system) on being able to check a bag for 4 legs, clear specific standbys with a specific seat number, not having to divide a PNR to put someone on the standby list, etc. There are just way too many things that dont work or dont work right (or are very cumbersome and hard to do), but somehow the agents have managed to get flights out. Imagine what it would be like if it worked like it should and could with a real program! Too bad the programmers dont work the counter or gate. I bet things would be a lot different then.

This was the explanation I received from the Executive Office, so I thought I would share this with the experts in the field. My favorite part is the last line, which is interesting, because it appears to shift some of the blame to me, when in fact, I always confirm my travel and set flightstats.com alerts before traveling!

I apologize for the delay in a response in not addressing your issues as presented in your initial email. I have completed the research in locating the reasoning in your return flights having cancelled out of the system. When you were accommodated on Flight 1624 in First Class from Charlotte to LaGuardia on March 8, our system reissued a ticket as a confirmed flight. Unfortunately, the system does not permit agents to list passengers on flights prior to the confirmed flight to be placed on a standby basis if seats are not available. However, there is a standby list that is separate from your confirmed reservation that is available at the airport for each individual flight. As you were placed by request on the first possible flight, when you aren’t boarded on that flight the agent rolls you to the next flight as you experienced on March 8. When they had a seat available and boarded you on Flight 1202 and scanned your boarding pass the system checked you in on that flight in your record; however, the system was still holding the seat for you on Flight 1624 and when you didn’t board on that flight because you were already checked in the system automatically cancelled out the return flights due to a no show status.

Due to these types of occurrences, flight operation changes, and unforeseen system glitches, we advise passengers to call to confirm their travel arrangements prior to their departure.

 

[tadjr]

Huh? Like I said, you got cleared on the flight and the agent DID NOT go back and REWORK the standby list. Not only do we have to deal with the cr$p system the first time to get you on the list, we have to go back and deal with it again to take you off another list.
According to the latest Beta test report, there are 126 enhancements identified for review and implementation (who knows when) and 254 fixes logged. This means that the agents are still working with A CR$P SYSTEM AND A YEAR LATER IT STILL S*CKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[DrBeth]

Huh? Like I said, you got cleared on the flight and the agent DID NOT go back and REWORK the standby list. Not only do we have to deal with the cr$p system the first time to get you on the list, we have to go back and deal with it again to take you off another list.
According to the latest Beta test report, there are 126 enhancements identified for review and implementation (who knows when) and 254 fixes logged. This means that the agents are still working with A CR$P SYSTEM AND A YEAR LATER IT STILL S*CKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My thoughts exactly. The standby process should really be automatic once someone is on it and it should not require human manipulation every step of the way. And it should recognize someone by their PNR and/or DM number and remove them automatically once the person gets on a flight for their destination!

 

[Dont call me Shirley]

I can't imagine the man hours lost due to the inefficiency of this system. The constant repeat of entries, having to do a separate entry to get the connecting boarding pass, as mentioned before, you have to move to a different computer sometimes to get the entry to work.

I wonder how much time is spent just re-associating flight coupons when there is a change to the PNR
(segment number, old flt nbr, old flight date have to be entered for each leg). This was automatic in SABRE (as was so musch else). This was on the QIK fix list quite a while back, but was going to cost some ungodly number of programing hours from EDS.

One of my "favorites" is the inability to partially reissue an invol (W:EXCH:INVOL:C1:S1 in Sabre); in "QIK" the entire ticket has to be reissued. True, the Ctl F8, F8 function will do this. (most of the time). But it becomes a real problem when the ticket is issued by an OAL and one of return/downline legs is on a carrier that does not have interline e-ticketing with US. The entire ticket - including return - has to go to paper. Try telling that to someone going to Africa for three months.
"I hope you enjoy climbing Mt Kilimanjaro, just make sure you hang on the this ticket, since it's paper now."

Even something as minor as printing the state code for Charleston, SC and Charleston, WV on boarding passes is beyond the capacity of this rinky dink system. The funny thing is how many things CO SHARES can do that US QIK/SHARES can't. Not to mention that CO actually lets it people choose between native SHARES and their "gooey" overlay.

One year later, it is still a piece of junk!

 

[atoguy]

Well I thought I would reply to some of your problems. But first most of the people I find out that complain do not report any problems either. Yes there are some underlining issues like when SSTs do not work on one computer but do on others. What happens here is the computer you are at got stuck or hung up on a previous entry. What entry is hard to determine. Could have happened 20 customers ago. So it is hard to nail down. IT is aware of the problem. But when you have the problem you need to send them a Qik Fix with the PNR RLOC. It may have been that PNR that caused the problem. The more PNRs they have to compare they can hopefully find the common cause.

FLIFO...The upline flight info is coming. The info comes from DECS/FOS and there is a link problem there. Once resovled we will have it.
NOT CANCELING LATER FLIGHT WHEN CLEARED ON EARLIER....If you use the TO/FROM option the later flight should cancel once customer is on board and flight departs. I have seen alot of people just ad a PD segment then ad customer to standby list. Yes then you would have to go back and clean RES up because the later flight will not cancel out.
4LEG BAGTAG....Be out soon.
CLEAR SPECFIC STANDBY....Has been in testing for quite sometime. They have some problems with it working correctly sometimes. Hope to be out soon.
NOT HAVE TO DIVIDE PNR FOR SOME THINGS....This is an EDS issue with SHARES. On the top of the wish list to have done.
PARTIAL REISSUE..Not sure what problem you are having here, but for INVOL Reroute it is rare that I have had to reissue whole ticket.

IT is working hard to get us what we need. The wish list is pretty big. Qik can do what ever SHARES can. So there are some things we need EDS to do before Qik can do it. Just remember, Qik is only taking the long string entries from you so you do not have to memorize them. You know what the ALT J is? Take a look sometime and you can see the SHARES long string entries.

Hope this helps alittle. But please report your problems so they can be looked at.

 

[Dont call me Shirley]

Upline flifo: "coming soon" for a year now.
4 leg bag tags: The QIK fix page (always good for laugh or two) says "sometime this year".
(BTW, CO SHARES cna handle this)
Partail Reissue: OK here is one stituation. E-tkt issue by DL (006 stock) from, say, BDL-PHL on US PHL-CDG-CKY on AF CKY-CDG on AF CDG-JFK-BDL on DL. US flight to PHL is cancelled. Reroute is
BDL-AMS-CDG-CKY (NW and AF) In Sabre only the affected coupons would be re-issued.BDL-PHL-CDG for BDL-AMS-CDG
Transaction time --- about 15 seconds once OAL space is confirmed.
Return is on AF metal. No interline e-tkt with AF. . QIK/SHARES requires entire ticket to be reissue, inlcluding return. Only way to this - per calls to help desk and rates is to reissue the entire ticket to paper. Customer now has to hang to paper ticket while trekking aorund Guinea.
Revenue SB The to/from key doesn't work when changing hubs.
Clear specific SB it's nice has been tested for some tim. Too bad it doesn't work

"Qik can do what ever SHARES can." Err... no it can't. It can only what it's programmed to do. Native SHARES can do many thing QIK can't. In may cases, with fewer keysrokes. IF GUI overlays are so great, why do vey few peopel at CO use theirs?

As for not reporting problems to Help Desk or QIK fix, there are some who have just given up reporting the same thing over and over.

The first time someone at help desk said, "what you are doing is right. Now try the same thing from another set" I thought it was a joke.

 

[tadjr]

True, most agents dont report problems. They havent seen any major changes in the system so they say why bother. Also, we dont usually have the time to send a QIKFIX at the moment it happens since we are trying to clean up whatever mess we have that we cant do. I send in everything (I have the personal phone number/emails for several people there) and I'm sure they recognize my id and email by now. I've asked agents to give me examples to send in. Its been a year. They are tired of waiting for things to improve. I'm not talking one new entry being a major event, I'm talking getting a system that will work and do what we need it to do. Training would also be another bonus. There are many things we can do, that no one knows about because their training was QIK/SABRE and a 2 day QIK/Shares class have at it. Maybe some training update classes would be beneficial for those who started out behind and have never caught up?

 

[InternationalShannon]

I know the West might get intimidated by long string entries, but they're not as long as the ones in Sabre were...

Hmmm...
w=exch=reval=s1/2=n1.1

looks like a load of crap but it worked a lot better than this control F , control U stuff for reissues....half the people are giving up and writing FIMs to other airlines....basically a blank check...and they arent being taught how to fill them out either, again, nice way to waste money

It isn't hard to figure out Qik/SHARES , but it is hard to figure out why it has to be so difficult for IT to fix.......