EL AL Matmid - El Al website - list of gripes

Sometimes it seems that the El Al website is one of the worst airlines websites out there. I know it's much better than it used to be just a few years ago, such as when the website limited you to buying a maximum of 4 tickets per reservation. But still, the annoyances astound me:

1. Remember my language selection - Why do you have a button on the language selection to remember my choice, when it doesn't actually work! I have to select English every single time I go to El Al's website when this should just be a simple persistent cookie to remember my selection. This is not rocket science El Al Web designers!

2. Manage my reservation uses the reservation PNR, but express checkin uses the E-ticket number. Come on, are you trying to make express checkin as hard as possible to use? Why can't you use the PNR for express checkin also?

3. Express checkin supposedly opens 27 hours before the flight takeoff, but when I tried today at 27 hours, I was able to get through the first screen to enter the passport info, but I get a technical error after that. After calling El Al reservations, they say it really opens 24 hours before the flight. So WHY do you say 27 hours on the website!!!

4. The pin+4 letter password for the Matmid website - who came up with this convoluted login scheme? And at least put the two fields on a different line so you can tell which one is supposed to be the 4-digit PIN and which one is the 4-letter alpha password.

5. Can't put American Airlines Frequent flyer # into reservations on the website.

I'm sure there are others that I've missed here - maybe we can come up with a master list.

1. you can not search for flight with partners, unless you use a special link that was posted here. for example, trying to find a flight to HKG on Thursdays results in nothing as there is no direct flight, but there are other options like via BKK etc
i found another way to get to this page :
login to your account, and on the left side (in the hebrew version) there is a button "HAZMANA BETASHLUM" click it, and you'll get the search page that can search for partner airlines too.
the search doesnt work good for C class tickets.

2. on the matmid pages, there is a list of current reservations. this gets updated nightly. which is not good if you just made reservations and like to see/update them and dont have the pnr with you

3. updating your madmid number on a reservations asks for your 6 digits number and not 7 (although mentioned on the page) why ? (as on the login page you need to enter 7)

4. the selection box for airports on the main elal page is sometimes soooo sloooww.

5. when you return to the main page, it doesnt remember your previous search. so if you just wanted to change the class of service or date, you have to re-enter all again

4. The pin+4 letter password for the Matmid website - who came up with this convoluted login scheme? And at least put the two fields on a different line so you can tell which one is supposed to be the 4-digit PIN and which one is the 4-letter alpha password.

I contacted LY when I still cared to tell them that there IT security consultants must be the worst in the world for coming up with that scheme.

Besides the absolutely pathetic implementation as you correctly pointed out, there is also no reason to require a frequent flyer password / pin change every 3 months.

I have had the same passwords / pins with BA and LH for more than 10 years now and never had a security breach. Requiring a change every 3 months introduces an increased security risk in that people are likely to choose easier to remember passwords and pins and may require it to be sent by email when forgotten which will happen often if you constantly have to change.

Add this:
- You can't "hold" a reservation - can only purchase (Yet, a travel agent can hold reservations on LY without a problem. Do they really want us to but tkts online?)
- You can't choose the class of ticket you want to buy - only the cabin.

Add this:
- You can't "hold" a reservation - can only purchaseThis is pretty standard with most airline websites.


- You can't choose the class of ticket you want to buy - only the cabin.Well you can choose the flexibility (albeit even that can be unclear sometimes with total and semi flexible fares often showing the same rules) not just class of travel, but not being able to choose a specific fare backet is once again hardly unique to LY's website.

4. the selection box for airports on the main elal page is sometimes soooo sloooww.

5. when you return to the main page, it doesnt remember your previous search. so if you just wanted to change the class of service or date, you have to re-enter all again

These two points drive me crazy.

Can't use airport codes

"Fare details" on the El Al website:


Fare type: Semi Flexible Economy
Classes Of Booking
to Israel: B/N/H/V/U
from Israel: U/V/K/Q/N/H


Cancellation
Before departure
If cancellation is permitted, a reduced cancellation charge applies according to the ticket fare conditions.
After departure
In most cases no refund is permitted according to the ticket fare conditions.

Changes
Before and after departure
If changes are permitted, then a reduced charge applies according to the ticket fare conditions.

Frequent traveler benefits

Tickets purchased in this fare type grant points based on the second leveled category compared to all other fare types in economy class
Tickets purchased in this fare type may not be upgraded in exchange of points to business or first class compartments


I do not see any fare details here.... I see only a list of questions.

Also, the absence of code shared flights is beyond me http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/el-al-matmid/1268597-flights-operated-codesharing-partners-not-available-lys-website-why.html

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Can't use airport codes

Indeed! I've mentioned that before in a previouse thread, and I think that has to be one of the most pathetic flaws with the current online booking engine.

By the way there are a few airport codes that the system does recognise, like TLV and a handful of others which makes it even worse and just goes to show how lazy someone has been by not feeding them into the system.

Add this:
- You can't "hold" a reservation - can only purchase (Yet, a travel agent can hold reservations on LY without a problem. Do they really want us to but tkts online?)
- You can't choose the class of ticket you want to buy - only the cabin.

Looks like your used to AA's website, were very far here from that!

Can't change/cancel reservations
Can't upgrade reservations using points
Can't check-in directly from reservations list
Can see list of past requests submitted through web site, can't see their content or their response, just their status ("closed")

Anyone have any success in success in partially redeeming with cash for a flight when they have those "promos"?

I tried, and the system told me I didnt have enough points, though I actually do.
:confused:

Hello,

Thank you for sharing your valuable opinions and ideas for improving our website. I'll pass all your requests forward to the staff handling the site.

Best
Liat Kaplan
Social Media Manager
EL AL

Shalom Liat!

I am very glad to see your name and very glad to know that El Al has a "Social Media Manager."

I (and I think all of us regulars here) are especially pleased that you have posted and look forward to your active involvement on the forum.

Thank you!

I (and I think all of us regulars here) are especially pleased that you have posted and look forward to your active involvement on the forum.
^

I have already sent Liat a PM. We shall see whether or not that bears any fruit

https://app.elal.co.il/clubs/registration/RegisterFlyer.aspx?lang=en&V_code=JRM96464854

"Campaign Code in not valid"

The typos and spelling on LY's website is just unbelievable! and now have a look at this one https://app.elal.co.il/clubs/registration/RegisterFlyer.aspx?lang=en&V_code=TEST

"Invalid campeign code"

So is it Campaign or campeign? :o

So, one year later, how many of the issues on the El Al website have been fixed?

As far as I can tell, none.

Hello,

Thank you for sharing your valuable opinions and ideas for improving our website. I'll pass all your requests forward to the staff handling the site.

Best
Liat Kaplan
Social Media Manager
EL AL

Liat,

Perhaps you find a way to pass all of the suggestions on to "Shkedy" as oppose to the very individuals who manage a shamefully inadequate site.

If you do make it to Shkedy's office, perhaps you could suggest to him to re-read the last paragraph of section 4(c) from the extensive business plan that Tami Borovich passed on to him written by me (he knows who I am and has a copy of that plan). In that plan I suggest that EL AL scour top Israeli universities and offer internships and part time positions to high tech students to come up with a user friendly website that has a lot of functionality and speed. You could even use that opportunity to copy and paste the suggestions the other posters on this thread made for features the new site ought to have.

Having Israeli high tech university students create a new site not only guarantees the new website will likely be cutting edge to the industry, but cost effective as well since EL AL would not have to pay them much, and these students would jump at the opportunity to put EL AL on their burgeoning resumes.

Oh, and while you are at it maybe you could ask him to re-read the "Hard Product Standardization" section of my business plan where I go into point by point detail of how and what needs to be standardized in the airlines long haul hard product.

Here is my Top issue with LY website:
AA awards automatically have the AAdvantage number (in the field of Matmid number). But LY "Manage your booking" considers this a kind of error.
A lot of personal info will transfer from the AA reservation, as date of birth, passport details, and more (if available on AA).
BUT the email-addr, tel and contact person info do Not transfer from AA to LY. They appear in the LY reservation as follows:
"Emergency contact: - /
Other Contact Point: TLV 972 3 9771133 - INTERNET EL AL MAIN BOOKING ENGINE - A "

The implication is that LY can NOT notify the passenger of last minute changes !!

If you click "Modify" you get a chance to enter email-addr*, Home-phone, Mobile phone* and Biz phone. (* being mandatory). BUT if you enter the info you get an error message "The frequent flyer number entered does not match the customer name".

I know... LY will blame AA for not transferring the info.... although it is probably a "software coordination problem". The fault could be of AA, LY or both !!

BUT when trying to enter the missing info on LY site... the real problem is of LY software not enabling to update personal info with non-Matmid frequent flyer number.

Perhaps Liat is more responsive on FB:

https://www.facebook.com/liatkaplan.elal?fref=ts

Perhaps Liat is more responsive on FB:

https://www.facebook.com/liatkaplan.elal?fref=ts

Wow! Only 9 friends!?! Quite the social media maven!

Here is my Top issue with LY website:
AA awards automatically have the AAdvantage number (in the field of Matmid number). But LY "Manage your booking" considers this a kind of error.
.....
BUT when trying to enter the missing info on LY site... the real problem is of LY software not enabling to update personal info with non-Matmid frequent flyer number.

I had seen this myself, so I just deleted the AA frequent flyer number from the reservation. After all, you're not going to earn any AA miles (or Matmid points) for an AA Award reservation, and El Al doesn't give you anything special even if you have AA status, so why bother to leave the AA # in the reservation if it's causing problems and you don't gain anything out of it.

(I agree this problem shouldn't happen, but for an award reservation, it's easily resolved).

Now I know why there has been no improvement in the website over the past year - LY just launched their 'killer app' which has no doubt been taking up much IT time.

It is.....

A machine in the KD lounge in Tel Aviv to automatically dispense newspaper vouchers!
Similar to the big automatic entry machine, this machine sits next to customer service desk. You scan your BP and it checks
i) if you are entitled to a newspaper (C class, PL/GL, or KD flying LY)
ii) that you haven't already got one!

If you pass these tests it will dispense a voucher - if it works...

This should give them a strong competitive advantage - BA hasn't got one of those!

This should give them a strong competitive advantage - BA hasn't got one of those!Indeed, sounds fascinating!

I can't believe they have actually spent money on that...

It is.....

A machine in the KD lounge in Tel Aviv to automatically dispense newspaper vouchers!


Someone should be fired for that. What an incredible waste of money.

Annoying: Only matmid FF numbers can be put in using the website, partner airlines numbers aren't possible.