Travel Technology - Reporter seeks comments re online check-in

Hi all - I'm doing a story for an east coast AAA magazine and was wondering if you have any comments about online check-in:

Does it save you much time?

Is there a downside? For example have you ever had difficulty with a boarding pass printed before you got to the airport?

Any anecdotes or experiences you'd like to share would be most welcome.

Here's some info about me: Michael Shapiro writes for the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle and is the author of Internet Travel Planner. If you're interested in my writing, see: www.nettravel.com.

Though I don't post often, I read these boards frequently. I've been interviewing FT members since 1998 and they've all found my reporting fair and accurate. (Among those I've interviewed are Gary Leff and Rudy from Belgium, as well as Randy Petersen.)

AA online checkins don't work for a destination outside of the US. That is a real hassle!

NW online checkins work world-wide, and are great! Unless you have more than 3 or 4 flights.

I have never had a problem with online checkin. It saves a lot of time and inconvenience.

It'll be an improvement when online checkin is more standardized across airlines so the same things work more of the same way everywhere.

The best online checkin is at home on my own computer the night before a trip, rather than on the day of a trip in the airport.

The worst online checkin is where the airline tries to make online checkin the ONLY checkin.

TSA enforcing a 24 hour in advance online checkin limit is a hassle for out and back trips the same day. You used to be able to get checked in 36 hours in advance on some airlines. REAL NICE, and amazing what the additional 12 hours makes on business itineraries.

When you are already checked in before you reach the airport, you can enter the closest door and head directly to the gate. Saves five minutes and lots of frustration.

For the most part, online check-in makes life a lot easier. Especially to secure an emergency exit row seat when you are flying economy. It has gotten me in trouble a couple of times. Most recently, I was running late for a flight leaving JFK. I was on the subway and was stuck underground for an hour. Once above ground I called customer service to tell them I was late. I was only flying to LA and with 1 flight every hour I thought they would be able to put me on standby for another flight. But since I had already checked in, customer service could not do anything until I got to the airport. It was as if I was already at the airport and was just not getting on the plane, according to the cs rep. Oh well.

I use United Airline's Easy Checkin Online for domestic itineraries and love it. I take the bus to SEA so I can get there at T-60 minutes, head straight to Security, catch the train to the gates, and be present and ready for boarding right when they start at about T-30.

Prior to TSA requiring pax to show BPs to get to the gate, I used to check in at the gate for all flights.

Online checkin restores most advantages of gate checkin. It lets me ignore variabity in checkin lines, kiosks/counters/agents (non-)functioning at unpredictable levels, etc. With online checkin, the only line I have to wait in is at security, which means arrival at T minus 55-65 minutes is acceptable at most airports and arrival at T minus 40-50 is risky but not a disaster.

I've never had a real problem getting TSA or the contract-ID checkers to recognize the online BP, though even now with online checkin fairly mature, some agents think the BP is kind of weird looking. I always print out 2 copies of the online BP, so losing one is no big deal. It's kind of funny to just give the BP to the id-checker/screener and show no interest in taking it back from him.

Oddly enough I still "check in" at the gate. I keep BP stubs as records/souvenir of travel, and I hate the awkward full-page BPs, so I always get the gate agent to print real gold cardstock BPs for me.

I've had very good luck using online checkin to get seats that telephone agents can't open up. I'll book a last minute trip, call up and have the 1P desk say they can only assign me a terrible E- aisle, and go online 5 minutes later to check in and get the best exit-row window on the plane.

My only real complaint/wish is that UA would add a fax feature to online checkin. Let me checkin online and then fax the BP to a number of my choice. That way I could do online checkin as I am exiting a hotel, and pick up my BP at the front desk during checkout. :)

One odd thing I want to try: A while back, US had some computer disaster that blocked checkin at the airport. Chaos ensued. But online checkin was still working. I always wondered if I did online checkin on my laptop but had no printout--just the screen image of the BP--if TSA would let me use my laptop screen to get to the gate. Or if the airline would let me board based on that truly electronic BP. The barcode would be readable off my screen, so technically it should be OK.

I have used it, no big deal. What I have used and loved was telephone check in with Delta. If you are really cutting it close, or on an upgrade list, ^ ^

Mixed bag. UAs is fine, gets the job done.

HP can't do it if ticket bought via another travel agency (it says "you don't have an electronic ticket") - major :td:

WN is very bad - you have to stay up until past midnight day of flight just to get a good (Seating Section A) BP. :mad:

Yes, on-line checkin is great. If you've got no bags to check, it really can be a huge timesaver. If you're checking bags, there's not much point to it -- you still have to see the agent, and that means waiting in line most of the time.

My biggest complaint is that it doesn't work if you're upgrading with miles, because there's some typing the agents have to do at the airport (I'd say they're writing an essay or something going by the number of keystrokes).

My second biggest complaint about it is that not all airlines have figured out the sizing of the boarding passes vs. the sizing of the printed page. When you're on 1 flight, it's fine. When you're making connections, I've had cases where a boarding pass would get split across multiple pages. Not wanting to risk using that, I had to fiddle around with the system and print a few copies until I got it right.

No question that it saves time. How much depends on how long the lines are at the checkin machines at the airport.
The online checkin for United prints a boarding pass with a bar code. Not all United gates had bar code readers (not sure whether that's still the case), so sometimes they had to print you a regular boarding pass. But that's done at the gate, where time is usually not an issue.

Yes, on-line checkin is great. If you've got no bags to check, it really can be a huge timesaver. If you're checking bags, there's not much point to it -- you still have to see the agent, and that means waiting in line most of the time.

Are you sure about this? I thought you could print out your boarding pass and check your bags curbside if that's available.

I always use online checkin whenever I am travelling, even with bags. Here are my comments:

1) Can increase upgrade opportunities
2) Ensure preferred seat assignments
3) Reduces frustration with long checkin lines
4) It helps my preferred airline be more efficient

The Good:

Retain Boarding Pass Copy:
My company requires me to submit copies of my boarding passes in order to get reimbursed for the airfare. Online checkin lets me easily print two copies and keep one at home so I never worry about losing it and not getting my money back.
Straight to Security Line for carry-ons:
No need (usually) to get to the airport 60 minutes early if your only line is for security (YMMV at certain airports and at certain times).


The Bad:

If you're looking for a free upgrade on DL, you'll have to get on the standby list at the airport if they don't upgrade you by checkin time. This *really* sucks.
Some arilines' boarding passes don't render properly in all browsers. Since I've completely ditched IE (for a number of reasons), FireFox dooes a superb job on most sites. But UA's online checkin has given me printing problems in the past on FireFox.

I only use online check in - with the exeption of Intl Travel.

It obviously saves time.
Helps beat TSA check in deadlines at many airports - esp. LAX
I think you are less likely to get a seat involutarily re-assigned after check in.
You may be less likely to get SSS - not sure on that.

Of course there are times when traveling there is limited or no printer access- the airlines like CO that ofer to fax the BP to you after check in are great.

Maps

Helps beat TSA check in deadlines at many airports - esp. LAX
I think you are less likely to get a seat involutarily re-assigned after check in.
You may be less likely to get SSS - not sure on that.

SSS?

SSS?

It is actually meant to be SSSS -- Secondary Security Search Selectee.

Sounds suspiciously like stuff snakes say. :p

FewMiles..

I usually check in online for the outbound, but as a practical matter it is not always easy to do so on the return. I do not like asking friends if I can make printouts on their home computer. I do have the business version of Adobe Acrobat on my work laptop, so if I am traveling for work it is easy when I don't have access to a printer to check in online, "print" to a PDF file, and fax the PDF file to myself.

Something unusual I have noticed is that when I check in online but check bags at the counter, I have been re-issued traditional cardstock BPs consistently flying on UA out of IAD, BWI, and LAX (and maybe others). This has been the case both in domestic F and domestic economy as a Premier and as a Premier Exec. I don't know if any gate agents prefer the printouts, but I have encountered a few who clearly prefer the traditional boarding cards, perhaps because there is less potential for scanning problems. I prefer them too, to use as bookmarks and travel souvenirs, and because they are trimmer and less prone to tearing, but UA's cost reduction forecasts are going to be thrown off if this practice is common.

A few months ago I asked for comments for a brief story I was writing for AAA World about online checkin.

That story appeared in the July issue - here's the link:
www.aaaworld.com/pages/articles.asp?id=449

WN is very bad - you have to stay up until past midnight day of flight just to get a good (Seating Section A) BP. :mad:Yes, but I'll gladly stay up late for my A BP (usually numbered below 5, for what it's worth) rather than worry about getting to the airport early enough to beat a B.

Another thing is that you don't have to be able to print a boarding pass to get the coveted A-level pass. I've checked in using either my laptop or PDA/phone and then picked up the boarding pass at the airport - the "A" is based on checkin time but it can be printed later.

One minor drawback is that online boarding passes, which are a barcode printed on a standard sheet of paper, can get wrinkled and hard to read if damaged. And they don’t look as cool in the scrapbook as the cardstock issued at the airport. But that’s a small price to pay for the time they can save.Woo hoo! My comment made it in the article.