May 12, 2009

American Airlines Email Error

My friend Kevin recently received this lovely email from American Airlines.







Now, Kevin manages a team of folks testing a Test Automation Tool Suite for a global software vendor.  He knows his way around testing.  And he knows a bug when it hits him in the inbox.

Imagine receiving an email with a Subject line that starts off with <ERROR>.

Would you think:
  • Gee, why do they have me confused with this ERROR guy?
  • That's just American Airlines doing what they do best.
  • It would be an Error to look at this mail.
  • Perhaps they should have tested more.
  • In what language does "Error" mean "Hello"?
  • Must be a bug in Vista.
  • Did they crowd-source the testing of this email campaign?
  • Hmm, maybe I should Google the <ERROR> HTML tag.
  • If I read this email using Chrome, will it still say Error?
  • I gotta get me some of those low-cost ERRORs while I still can.
  • Those wacky, wacky marketers are drunk again!
Thanks, Kevin!  Did you take them up on their Error (er Offer)?