Wednesday, March 03, 2010

The BOOT is perfect for Qantas Affiliate Program....really??????

I received an email this morning from Affiliate Future. A company providing marketing services to help companies generate affiliate sales. They are pitching an affiliate relationship between the BOOT and Qantas. The offer is for $15 a sale. The email invite contained this sentence as the big hook to draw me in

"I’m reaching out [to you] as I think Qantas is highly relevant for your site and traffic"
Why is that people write to me (to anyone) to pitch a business without have spent a moment to read the source material. Here are some quote from the BOOT about Qantas.

re relationship with Amadeus
"Unlike the PR love-ins of the previous announcements, Qantas was very happy to very publicly blame the whole thing on Amadeus. Newly appointed Qantas spokesman David Epstein used all of the tact that his former Labour party bosses are famous for by being very polite in his finger pointing but stating clearly and cleanly" [full post]

re service on the A380
"More and more this [service] becomes Qantas' weak point. It is provided to their schedule not the passengers'." [full post]

re the outrageous prices on the AU-US route
"
Right now Qantas is gouging me and every other customer on the Pacific Route (East Coast Australia to West coast USA). " [full post]

re changes to frequent flyer program
"I have been fuming about the recent changes to the Qantas Frequent Flyer program." [full post]

re a VOD system that did not work for two years
"Shame on you Mr Cox and shame on you Qantas. Your customers are telling you the system is busted, your staff are telling you the system is busted and the best solution you can come up with is moving seats. This is completely useless advice" [full post]

re Price fixing in air cargo
"Aaah Qantas - the "spirit of Australia". So long as you mean old fashioned pre-colonial convict spirit of Australia to steal as much as you can from anyone you can." [full post]

And this is just a sample. It is not all negative for Qantas here on the BOOT. There are some high praise/positive posts including these three:
But this is not a site that (if I was Qantas) I would want to be sending to cheques to or having my booking engine on. Clearly Affiliate Future have just printed out a list of top ranked or trafficked sites in travel - especially those generating links for seat reviews - and not bothered to actually look at the site to see if the content would suit the partner.

Let this be my version of the warning post to PR companies and marketing people. Take a moment - just 5 mins will be enough- to look at my site before you write to me. How embarrassing.

1 comment:

Steve Sherlock said...

i can tell you enjoyed writing that one Tim.

i had a good chuckle..