Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan - Airside App for Alaska Mobile Boarding Pass

Hi,

A few of us FT'ers have been building an app to make it easier to download and display mobile boarding passes.

We just released a new, much improved version, and it works for Alaska's MBPs (along with CO, AA, and DL).

It's a free app, and we would love some feedback.

Here's the iTunes link:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/airside-express/id345202561?mt=8

Thanks!
-Hans

Here's a bit of feedback:

I downloaded the App and it asked for my AS Mileage Plan # and my password/pin number.

Whoa, I'm going to give a bunch of strangers my AS password so you can access my account?

Don't think so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah I know you need the info to access my reservation and display my BP. But I'm not a trusting enough person to blindly give out my AS password even though I barely have enough miles for a free ticket.

I actually agree with Cholula.

I'm a pretty trusting person, and I've outsourced my online life to dozens of companies and have never been bitten. However, I do at least partially vet the companies I give personal information to, and it's kind of hard to do that with a small start-up company.

That said, this sounds like a very useful idea, especially given the inability of AS's own app and website to properly handle such a simple thing as saving a mobile boarding pass barcode. Perhaps you can make it a manual process for now (confirmation number and last name) but keep the automatic process available as an option that people can use as they become more comfortable with your service and/or your business grows to the point where it is a known commodity.

Maybe rather than us giving you the info, you could redirect us to a secure off-site server where we can enter our access information manually and then save the info on our cookies or something so we don't have to do it every time?

I will be all over this if there were an app for Android. Alaska does not have one for Android users :td: Hopefully, soon though.

I don't really know to what extent they do, but I know Apple does do some vetting before allowing the application to appear in their app store. There has been a fair amount of controversy over other apps that other companies have submitted to the store. Based on what little of the controversy I've read about, I'd say apple does a reasonable job of vetting...

I was a bit turned off when i loaded the app and immediately was asked for my full name and a password. I really couldn't even evaluate the features of the app without providing random personal information.

Also, i don't feel comfortable giving out my mileage plan number and password. someone could book some very nice vacations from my account and frankly its not really worth the risk.

Thanks for the feedback. Point taken!

For background, we do not download your account info to our servers. The information is encrypted in the iPhone keychain and is stored on your iPhone and only on your iPhone. We ask for your last name and a valid email to prevent trolls from fouling up both our app and the airlines systems with bogus check-in requests.

Now before you start throwing rocks, I fully realize that there is no way for you to confirm that process. We've taken a look at how TripTracker, TripIt, WorldMate and others have set up their apps and tried to conform to the "standard" approach.

I suppose we could change the app so that you could just enter the confirmation number, but I think that it might defeat the purpose -- not sure how many folks have that info handy. I usually have no idea (fwiw I fly about 150k annually).

We could also change it so that you enter your Mileage Plan password each time you check-in and not in your Memberships profile. Would that help?

We really appreciate the feedback and hope that we can provide an app for you that is useful.

It's highly unlikely that I would download or use an app like this. The only way I would ever get a tiny sliver of functionality like this is if it were integrated somehow into either the Alaska iPhone app or TripIt.

I travel every week and a separate app for just boarding passes is too much. I already use ExpertFlyer, TripIt, and Alaska to manage my travel. I don't think I would be willing to add another app into that arsenal.

I would make an effort to inform people (in the app description) where the authentication information is stored. I'm okay with the app remembering my authentication information on my iphone, just as long as that is where it is stored.

Are the requests to carriers then proxied, or are they somehow deep linked into the authentication process?

I hope Alaska sees this thread and comes up with their own solution to this problem.

It should be a no-brainer to allow you to save the image locally to the device natively within the app.

Maybe it could give users the option of entering the MP# and departure city for those who don't want to their info stored?

I'm waiting for a carrier to take the lead and create some sort of API ... and let others spearhead innovation :p

I'm waiting for a carrier to take the lead and create some sort of API ... and let others spearhead innovation :p
Does anyone in any airline IT department even know the meaning of "open" and "API"? My guess is not. :p

Maybe it could give users the option of entering the MP# and departure city for those who don't want to their info stored?


Good idea.