make the usairways.com agents have a freakin' clue as to what they are doing.

Even the normal US agents think the .com agents have a huge knowledge gap.

For crissakes, just have them log onto just about any other airline's site and see how it's done. They're all better. Aeroflot is easier to book. More features, easier to use, flight notifications, see avail seats before committing (the ONE thing I like about Delta), an interface from the year 2000 or later, no "an error has occured - try again" messages, less than four steps to see DM balance.

They have to make it so you can click "back." Otherwise, pricing different dates and/or cities can take forever, since you have to go back to front page to begin again.

No other booking engine is doesn't allow one to go "BACK."

Allow one to make codeshare/partner award reservations on USairways.com.

OK, this won't sell more tickets, but it would be helpful.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by haveric:
They have to make it so you can click "back."

No other booking engine is doesn't allow one to go "BACK."</font>

This and changing seats online would be my two biggest requests.

But really, I use the website all the time to buy tickets, check mileage balance, make awared reservations, etc, etc. I would like to be able to go "back" when making reservations, but I generally don't see the big problem with the website.

Have the same ticket prices as other booking sites.

JC's wishlist for usairways.com:

- ability to view/change seat assignments (prior to sale AND on existing reservations.

- Ability to place reservations on hold *

* I know this skews fare class availability but I know a short window of time (&lt;1hr) would allow people to contact res via phone or ticket office to make any type of manual adjustments (vouchers, coupons, etc)

Show flights flights available from alternate airports within a certain number of miles.

What about just copying the AA site. I hate using the US site. Not being able to go back, not being able to check seats, gack. Its awful. Oh yea, and then making you click all the way through before finding out no seats at a given fare are available on that day. What is the point of that....

Maybe the US management should be forced to book their own **** seats for holiday travel on US.com.

*being able to go back would be key
*seeing/switching seats at any time before or after purchase
*being able to apply US20 upgrade, etc and not just e-upgrades without having to then call
*not going six steps only to find seats not available


------------------
--Wishing for you safe travels and for me Row 1.

As of now, when you book a ticket online, but then want to see a change made by phone or confirm your upgrade status on virtually there, you are $hit out of luck. They need to make virtually there and the website work together better.

If BBB and co. read these boards (which we know they do), I think this thread is perfect example of how it can be helpful to them. No wasted time with surveys. Just plain and simple stuff that NEEDS to be fixed.

it has to allow you to pull up your usairways reservations booked over the phone. I have an award ticket, and a ticket I booked with a voucher, yet I can't bring those up when I click existing reservations on the website. Yet they were booked directly with USAirways.

* Back button that works

* Open jaw at origin or destination

* Ability to use vouchers (perhaps by holding a res for 24 hrs until you could redeem voucher at ATO/CTO/club)

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by catwood:
it has to allow you to pull up your usairways reservations booked over the phone. I have an award ticket, and a ticket I booked with a voucher, yet I can't bring those up when I click existing reservations on the website. Yet they were booked directly with USAirways.</font>

Me, too. I booked with US Res, and got my number. I can bring it up on Virtually There and it shows the US logo and everything, but "show existing reservations" says I have none. Weird.

Recognize my status when selecting seats. The preferred seats do not show up on the web, so I wind up booking the "cheap" seats and then calling the CP Desk to get them changed to better seats. I book every flight through the web site and I have to call the CP desk EVERYTIME.

It's been said already, but just show me the dates when seats are actually available when I am searching by fare. It's maddening to sometimes have a whole month appear available, and then click, click, click to find out there's really nothing available.

Also, make it clearer which flights are codeshares (with a larger symbol, or perhaps a different color). And maybe display them at the bottom of the list.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by mbmbbost:
It's been said already, but just show me the dates when seats are actually available when I am searching by fare. It's maddening to sometimes have a whole month appear available, and then click, click, click to find out there's really nothing available.
</font>

I get a chuckle out of that now, it's like going to the casinos. "Come on lucky 15, come on 15. D'oh! It busted out red. Oh, well, one more time, come on lucky 22!" http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

A pet peeve of mine is that the search by price function doesn't really work. A good example is the recent LH grand opening special. If you searched by price, you got one price. If you knew which flights to actually pick, you got fares that were $200-$300 less.

The current system is like going to a store and picking up something that's on sale. When you get to the check-out, they insist on charging you full price.

It would be a great help if they would use ITA Software (http://www.itasoftware.com/demos/).

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by nawlinsdoc:
If BBB and co. read these boards (which we know they do), I think this thread is perfect example of how it can be helpful to them. No wasted time with surveys. Just plain and simple stuff that NEEDS to be fixed.</font>

Ain't that the truth. Most companies would be in hog heaven to get such candid, specific, free feedback from their biggest volume customers on how to serve them better.

Let me see ALL my reservations, no matter where booked, once I log in with my FF#. Gee, DL and AA have no problem showing me that data...

If US wants to sell more tickets on usairways.com, it has to...

1) quit playing games with Expedia and 2) just give up trying to do anything right w.r.t the website. USairways.com should be replaced with a simple menu on the screen (hopefully they can't screw this up) that says "please click one:"

www.Expedia.com (http://www.Expedia.com)
www.ITN.net (http://www.ITN.net)
www.Travelocity.com (http://www.Travelocity.com)
www.Orbitz.com (http://www.Orbitz.com)

You have to admit this would be a lot cheaper than re-designing the web site to a useful level, at least in the short term (20 years or so)! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

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"The minute a Bundy has good luck he immediately starts building up an equal amount of bad luck." -- Al Bundy, Married With Children

[This message has been edited by JS (edited Dec 17, 2003).]

For all the problems with US' site (and there are many), it does do some things. At least when you say "search by price" it really gives you a list of price options. Try that on United's site -- you still have to specify dates when you say "by price". That kind of defeats the "Gee, I'd like to go to Orlando sometime next month, let's see what I can find..." approach.

Of course, US' take on it would be even better if it actually FOUND all the low fares http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

I too find the US "search by price" option to be very useful & easy to use, a feature not found on all airline sites.

It takes a couple of tries to learn how to use the option to best advantage, but it is powerful and useful, especially for a traveler with flexibility.

Barry

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by GregLeg:
At least when you say "search by price" it really gives you a list of price options.

Of course, US' take on it would be even better if it actually FOUND all the low fares http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif</font>

This is one of US's best features, IMHO. I do a fair amount of leisure traveling and being able to search by price was a godsend for finding cheap fare classes and then I would pick my dates that I needed. Granted it can involve going back and forth to find applicaple dates but I don't mind at all!

I also like the "search by price" feature because it would return more accurate pricing for what I was looking for. Before I would use the search by date feature, select flights, and then be given a grand total. The catch with that was that it wouldn't necessarily list the absolute lowest fare for that day and since my travel is flexible cheaper is typically better.

Searching by price does have its drawbacks, which can be seen by these hidden fares for the LH Anniversary, but any other time its worked spectacular for me.

Kudos for US. Orbitz and a couple other websites have started searching by price but I don't remember anyone before US.

-JC

How can US sell more tickets on its website? Simple... just copy the capabilities of this one (http://www.southwest.com).

Another issue (booked a flight today):

Allow online upgrades when the reservation has more than one traveler. How hard can it be?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by jcooke:


Kudos for US. Orbitz and a couple other websites have started searching by price but I don't remember anyone before US.

-JC</font>

I am pretty sure the US search by price showed up the same time it showed up on travelocity. There's no mystery that the US site is basically a front end for travelocity.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by hscottm:
I am pretty sure the US search by price showed up the same time it showed up on travelocity. There's no mystery that the US site is basically a front end for travelocity.</font>

Hmm...I never noticed travelocity's search by price feature until recent, more/less when I started playing around with Dream Maps. Anyways, both are definitely nice to have and I like how they work!

-JC

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Arrzee:
How can US sell more tickets on its website? Simple... just copy the capabilities of this one (http://www.southwest.com).</font>

Surely you jest. Let's see...

You can't request an upgrade on southwest.com

You can't choose a seat assignment on southwest.com

You can't book an open jaw at roundtrip fares on southwest.com

You can't book an A to B, returning from C type of open jaw at all on southwest.com

You can't book a circle trip on southwest.com at all, let alone at roundtrip fares

You can't book a partner award ticket at southwest.com


------------------
"The minute a Bundy has good luck he immediately starts building up an equal amount of bad luck." -- Al Bundy, Married With Children

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JS:
Surely you jest. Let's see...</font>

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">You can't request an upgrade on southwest.com</font>

Surely, you're aware that Southwest doesn't provide that capability because they offer only one class of service. By the way, If you trust the upgrade request process on US.com to come through and work every time... you're in trouble, my friend.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">
You can't choose a seat assignment on southwest.com</font>

At least on WN, you know that to be the case before you even attempt to buy the ticket. And, BTW, as a Dividend Miles Chairman's Preferred flyer, I've never been able to choose preferred seats on US.com, have you?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">
You can't book an open jaw at roundtrip fares on southwest.com</font>

Because you don't have to buy the ticket at "roundtrip fares"... Most tickets sold by Southwest are priced per one-way segment, so you can combine them every way you wish to come up with your itinerary. The difference between those fares that do require roundtrip purchase and the ones that do not is not that great. Not so for US or any other legacy carrier, for that matter.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">
You can't book an A to B, returning from C type of open jaw at all on southwest.com
</font>

See my answer above.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">
You can't book a circle trip on southwest.com at all, let alone at roundtrip fares</font>

Just book individual segments...

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">
You can't book a partner award ticket at southwest.com</font>

Agreed. On the other hand, they've never pretended that you could.

By the way, my main point is not to compare and contrast the benefits of one airline over the other. Believe me, I'm no huge fan of Southwest either. But the fact is, that their booking engine is king when it comes to simplicity and display of available fares (which, by the way, are shown from high to low, giving you the option of choosing a fare based on the restrictions you're willing to live with). That alone convinces plenty a traveler to use it (and from the statistics I've read about, to buy a larger proportion of the more expensive fares than the rest of the majors). Finally, let's not forget that if your travel plans change, you can simply go to Southwest's website, cancel your ticket and apply those funds toward the purchase of another ticket, without having to pay any penalty...

Arrzee, you have missed my point. Southwest doesn't have to program all those nice things like upgrades and seat assignments because they don't exist!

Would US Airways fans want a Southwest-style web site with a Southwest-style product? I would assume the answer is a big "no".

Regarding pricing: look at Southwest again. There are only two fares that do not require roundtrip travel -- full fare and Internet special. If your city pair has an Internet special, great. If not (which is pretty likely), that's not good if you have advance purchase and are not flying on Monday or Friday.

Regardless of the flights you choose, you always see the "one way" fares on the following page. This is true for any airline. It doesn't mean roundtrip travel is not required; it's merely half the roundtrip fare.

For example, price out MDW-HOU returning to IND, leaving January 17 and returning January 24. Only $524! Expedia.com quotes $279 (including the $5 booking fee) for the same itinerary on Delta; that's almost 50% off solely due to open jaw pricing.

On Southwest, MDW-HOU roundtrip for the same dates is $202, and HOU-IND roundtrip is $317.50. By buying two roundtrips rather than one open jaw, you could double your Rapid Rewards credits and save $4.50. That is just illogical, and it takes the idea of simplicity=good too far.

------------------
"The minute a Bundy has good luck he immediately starts building up an equal amount of bad luck." -- Al Bundy, Married With Children

[This message has been edited by JS (edited Dec 18, 2003).]

Show me the price and all options. The way I use USAir.com for ticketing:

1. Go to www.orbitz.com. (http://www.orbitz.com.)
2. Find the flights you want.
3. Go to www.usair.com. (http://www.usair.com.)
4. Book it.
5. Call CP line and change my seats.

About 70% of the time I just pick up the phone after #2 and tell them the exact flight numbers I want.

Use of the 'back' button would be nice as well.

Defaulting to my last set of dates/city pairs (assuming that I haven't left the site or closed the browser) would be another...Hilton does a good job of this. This saves you from having to wait for the entire page (graphics) to load again.

Opening up better seats to those w/ status. It seems I almost always get middle seat options or back of the bus which forces me to call for seat changes.

Finally, I love the ability that Travelocity has where I can enter city pairs and see all rates between now and say six months out. For example, I know that US is running some sales to Europe now, but to find them on their site I have to hunt and peck.

That's it for me...I guess I had more than when I first read this topic title the other day.

Dingo,

Your #1-#5 is also my normal routine. Except, of course, when USAir.com won't match the fares on Orbitz. Then, it's #1, #2, and then #5.

The ability to see all my reservations in one place is 'nice' as is the 1,000 miles bonus. But, 'nice' stops when the fare difference is more than $20.

BTW, the inability to see an intinerary on USAir.com is quite strange (could be due to the Travelocity tie-in). You can book a trip elsewhere (Orbitz, et al) and call US for their record locator for the trip. Even with that record locator, you still won't be able to see it on USAir.com. Dumb!

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JS:
Arrzee, you have missed my point.</font>

You might try a little harder to see his.

The SWA website is a wonder of simplicity and effectiveness. US would do well to study it, emulate it and if need be extend it while preserving what makes it simple and effective.

When searching by price, it would be nice to have the fare codes displayed next to the fare prices, instead of having to click back and forth to find the fare code you're seeking.

1. Show me all reservations associated with my DM number regardless of how they were booked;
2. Allow booking using corporate or meeting Gold File discounts;
3. Allow passenger to upgrade flights regardless of booking source;
4. Allow seat assignment selection for all reservations;
5. Set up phone and email notification for gates and iregular operations, upgrade clearance, etc;
6. Fix the ticket reissue function which has several glitches. for example, it will not allow you to use a past date e-ticket, and it gets stuck on Gold File issued tickets. This would really save on the number of calls to res especially during ireg ops.

ok- I just realized this (perhaps I am dense). I can not look up a ticket booked by my corporate travel department? I wanted to see what seat assignments etc so I logged in with my user id and it says no itineraries found. Is this because none of them were booked on line even though they all have my dividend #in them? Lord knows, I can't stand Delta but it is nice to put in you skymiles # and have everything pop up.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by TomBascom:
You might try a little harder to see his.

The SWA website is a wonder of simplicity and effectiveness. US would do well to study it, emulate it and if need be extend it while preserving what makes it simple and effective.</font>

The design of the Southwest website is a direct reflection on the airline itself. Actually, if you think about it, this is true for all the airlines. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

If you took the Southwest website and added seat assignments, upgrades, open jaw/circle trip pricing, on-the-fly routing construction (that's another one I forgot about earlier), etc., the result will be a horrible mess.

------------------
"The minute a Bundy has good luck he immediately starts building up an equal amount of bad luck." -- Al Bundy, Married With Children

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JS:
The design of the Southwest website is a direct reflection on the airline itself. Actually, if you think about it, this is true for all the airlines. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

If you took the Southwest website and added seat assignments, upgrades, open jaw/circle trip pricing, on-the-fly routing construction (that's another one I forgot about earlier), etc., the result will be a horrible mess.
</font>

You miss the forest for the trees.

TomBascom, do you write computer programs or related for a living? If not, you will just have to trust me that saying, in effect, "We want usairways.com to operate just like southwest.com but with no change in the US Airways product; now make it so" is just flat-out not possible.

Delta.com is an airline website that US should strive to be. Forget about Southwest; it's apples and oranges.

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"The minute a Bundy has good luck he immediately starts building up an equal amount of bad luck." -- Al Bundy, Married With Children

[This message has been edited by JS (edited Dec 19, 2003).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JS:
TomBascom, do you write computer programs or related for a living? If not, you will just have to trust me that saying, in effect, "We want usairways.com to operate just like southwest.com but with no change in the US Airways product; now make it so" is just flat-out not possible.

Delta.com is an airline website that US should strive to be. Forget about Southwest; it's apples and oranges.

</font>
I don't see this as such a huge leap. What most people seem to like about southwest.com is that it shows all fares for a particular date you have in mind. Usairways.com makes you pick a date, shows you the fares for flights you pick, and then ALSO shows you other fares/flights for the same dates. The ability to show multiple fare options for a particular date is something both do, just not in the same logical order.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by jcooke:
Hmm...I never noticed travelocity's search by price feature until recent, more/less when I started playing around with Dream Maps. Anyways, both are definitely nice to have and I like how they work!

-JC</font>

I seem to remember (years ago now) using the Travelocity search by price feature for quite a while before being able to use it on US. I would find the flights on Travelocity, and then go book them on US typically. It wouldn't always work though, sometimes cheaper flights would only show up on Travelocity. (Could this have been around the time that Priority Travelworks went away?)

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JS:
TomBascom, do you write computer programs or related for a living?</font>

Yes.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">If not, you will just have to trust me that saying, in effect, "We want usairways.com to operate just like southwest.com but with no change in the US Airways product; now make it so" is just flat-out not possible.</font>

You've put words in my mouth (and Arrzee's too). That is not what we're saying.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Delta.com is an airline website that US should strive to be. Forget about Southwest; it's apples and oranges.
</font>

Like I said -- you aren't seeing the forest for the trees. The issue is design philosophy. The SWA site is clean, simple, focused and elegant. The nicest thing that can be said about US' site is that it is very baroque and that it usually sort of mostly works for simple things once you get used to it if you have enough patience.

There is no valid technical reason nor are there business reasons why US' site could not adopt significant aspects of SWA's design and benefit from those lessons. It does require a willingness to think outside the box and learn from others. If it happens maybe we'll get lucky and that will turn out to be contagious...

They might want to have the website's booking engine working on the day when they send out an email about a fare sale.

"US Airways' Booking Product is currently unavailable. Please try again later.

To purchase a ticket online:
Please check back later today.

All other inquiries:
Other fare and reservation information is available by calling US Airways Reservations at 800-428-4322. To ensure online Dividend Miles bonus miles are credited, please wait until the site is available later today.

US Airways apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Thank you for visiting usairways.com."

http://usairways.com/index_bpd_message.htm

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by goldstj2:
They might want to have the website's booking engine working on the day when they send out an email about a fare sale.

http://usairways.com/index_bpd_message.htm</font>

Harsh. Suggest the rhetoric be saved for well-deserved gibes (e.g., the Milanos, or glassware in F http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/tongue.gif )

Sure, it's a pain, hopefully short-lived, but can you post a link to the airline website (or other website) that's never down?

[This message has been edited by US_Usually (edited Jan 07, 2004).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by US_Usually:
... but can you post a link to the airline website (or other website) that's never down?</font>

For a real challenge try posting a link to one that is down more often than US. Good luck!

I very rarely book tickets on usairways.com. Virtually all of my AA tickets are bought from their web site. It is a stunning difference between the sites.

[This message has been edited by GadgetFreak (edited Jan 07, 2004).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by GadgetFreak:
I very rarely book tickets on usairways.com. Virtually all of my AA tickets are bought from their web site. It is a stunning difference between the sites.</font>

And the sad thing is that it's all sabre on both backends.


------------------
Don't feed the trolls.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ClueByFour:
And the sad thing is that it's all sabre on both backends.


</font>

Youre exactly right, the difference is what, some thought to the design elements and CGI scripts or something, gag...

I can book flights, select seats, request upgrades and it is all really nice. As an example of the problems, I cant even upgrade a companion on the same PNR at the kiosk at the airport. I mean how hard can that be to do. I request the upgrade, it checks to see if DM status equal US1, if yes next, if no, blah, blah blah. Hell I could probably program that in the fortran I dont remember from 30 years ago.