Originally Posted by
evoG
Is this true of all partners? i've noticed widespread inventory discrepancies between AS.com and partner desk when looking for 7H flights, as recently as May. I've also been able to ticket things over the phone that the website would not allow, so the restrictions don't appear to be the same.
Is the partner desk's back-end the same but the res agents have a more flexible interface? Fell free to remove or redirect if this is too O/T...
and thanks for the info Missy.
I haven't been over there to see what their interface looks like, so I can't give you accurate information about that.
I do know that agents are now using the same shopping platform as the web, (rather than how they were doing it before, which was a mish-mash of technologies based on who the other carriers GDS was).
Originally Posted by
evoG
cost of maintaining QF-gds trained employees does sound like a plausible explanation. wonder if the idea is to eventually phase out the partner desk and roll their function into the regular res agents.
The roles have been morphing for quite some time now. We no longer advertise the partner desk number, and the only distinction on the voice recording when you call the regular 800 number is "award travel". If you actually dial the old Partner Desk number, it reroutes you to the same recording as the 800 number.