TalkBoard Member/Moderator: Southwest and JetBlue forums
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: California
Programs: WN CP & A-list, Interstate BBQ at MEM B17, CO Lifetime Presidents Club
Posts: 9,242
Official website suggestion thread
Please post your suggestions for the Southwest website in this thread. SWAVictor can subscribe to this thread (under Thread Tools above on the right) and get instant notification of your ideas.
1. PNRs never contain "1" or "0" so just tell the user that it's a typo
when they enter one of these or any other character that is not used in PNRs.
2. When you buy a ticket within the check-in window, offer the option to print the BP immediately. I recently bought a ticket 1:01 ahead of flight time and missed the check-in window by dawdling.
3. Include an OLCI link (like the one in our FAQ) with email confirmations. That way people who use the email box to store reservations can save a step or two.
* Confirmation emails for RR Award flights should include the confirmation number in the subject, just like non-Award flights' emails.
* When I'm logged in and go to book a saved trip, then click on "Rapid Rewards Reservation", it should remember what saved trip I'm trying to book, rather than making me re-select the airports
* Combine the searches for Award and non-Award flights. Five columns in the fare selection screen - BS, Anytime, Wanna Get Away, Freedom Reward available, Standard award available. That way I don't have to do two different searches to find out if it makes sense for me to use an award for this flight, or if I could get a WGA fare for $79.
* Extend the session expiration time, so I don't have to enter my RR number and password multiple times in a day.
* Provide a listing of our TTF rather than making us do it ourselves in a separate spreadsheet.
* Eliminate the difference between unused Tickets and Ticketless Travel Funds, so that I can use a couple $5 TTF that's expiring in a month before a whole $200 Ticket that's expiring in 11 months.
* Eliminate the restriction on the number of TTFs we can use - since there really *isn't* a limit anyway - it's just that Southwest gets charged more by making us do multiple credit card bookings and cancellations to combine funds.
Last edited by mritty; Jan 4, 09 at 3:01 pm.
Reason: various typos
* Tighten up the pages, especially in the booking process, to reduce/eliminate the need to scroll down/up. I'm sure the current screens work great on large desktop screens but I'm usually booking from my notebook.
* Make information on the through station available. i.e. If I have a BNA-SLC one-stop through flight I want to know the intermediate city and the scheduled in/out times. (I may want to avoid MDW in January) Make that info easier to find for those of us who want it.
* I'll second the idea for combining the regular and RR booking engines.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mritty
* Confirmation emails for RR Award flights should include the confirmation number in the subject, just like non-Award flights' emails.
Yeah, and how about more useful information in the subject line? I always edit the subject lines of my confirmation emails to the following format.
2009-01-04 - BNA-LAX - QWERTY
Makes it easy to pick the reservation that I want from the subject line. Also lets me sort the messages by Subject and get them ordered by travel date.
* I always edit the subject lines of my confirmation emails to the following format.
2009-01-04 - BNA-LAX - QWERTY
Makes it easy to pick the reservation that I want from the subject line. Also lets me sort the messages by Subject and get them ordered by travel date.
Sound of slapping myself on the forehead. Sometimes, someone has to say the obvious before it occurs to you.
This one doesn't apply if I am doing something wrong:
Allow my PNR and my Companion-Pass-son's PNR to come up linked for OLCI, so we get contiguous numbers.
Also, am I mistaken, or do DING fares not appear on my "Upcoming Travel Purchased through this Account" page? I always try to log in before buying, but I'm not sure I've seen my DING fares appear there. Maybe I have to add them manually and am doing it wrong or something.
I strongly second the requests for more descriptive ticketless confirmation email subject lines (include city pairs), to include RR availability alongside the paid fares, and for automatic recordkeeping for ticketless funds.
If you were logged into your account when you made the ding purchase, then it will be on that page. It may be that if you manually put in your RR # when making the Ding purchase then it would not show up.
All itineraries, regardless of where booked, should show up under Next Scheduled Flight. I book my WN flights through a travel agent and it's slightly annoying only flights booked through southwest.com are displayed.
TalkBoard Member/Moderator: Southwest and JetBlue forums
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: California
Programs: WN CP & A-list, Interstate BBQ at MEM B17, CO Lifetime Presidents Club
Posts: 9,242
I was going to ask for the browser to remember my cities and dates when I switch between regular and RR reservations, but I think that may have been implemented already.
Also, am I mistaken, or do DING fares not appear on my "Upcoming Travel Purchased through this Account" page?
That's a good one.
* Add the ability to add reservations to the "Next Scheduled Flight" section of the Account Snapshot page even if they weren't purchased while logged in.
Programs: AA Lifetime Plat, WN CP, Latin Pass Bonus
Posts: 3,283
On the email notification subject line, I would like to see pax name also. I often book (buy or Award) travel for family or friends and would like to know "who" also.
As I have said in past, WN should use a focus group (from Flyertalk members?) to develop ideas and prioritize for improvements. Probably would cost nothing and get best bang for buck. After all, how many WN employees are "working" the Web site as much as freq. flyers?
I'm not sure if this is an error or a new thing, but the 7 day, 14 day, and 21 day advance purchase fares seem to disappear at 12:00 am Central not 12:00 am Pacific. If I book a "web only" fare between 12:00 am Central and 2:00 am Central, I get a "the reservation system cannot price the flight you selected" message.
I first saw this pop up right after Christmas. This really would be nice to get fixed. I had to call and book a few flights (these don't show up in My Southwest either). The agent on the phone said this has been a pain for them since a lot of people are calling.
* Allow A-Listers to check their boarding slot 36 hours (instead of 24) before the flight. I understand that the boarding reservation is done at T-36, but it would be nice to know where my slot will be in line.
* Allow A-Listers to print/re-print their A-List membership card (for Fly By Lanes) in case they lose it or have to wait a week+ for snail mail after qualifying for the status.
Great thread btw! It finally brought me out of lurking.
Location: Westchester Co, NY or Rio Grande Valley, TX or ???
Programs: CO 1Pass since '88, WN RR, FL A+ Elite, UA M+ 2P, HH (D), BD*G
Posts: 487
The above have mostly covered my wishes. Most importantly (but not in any particular order):
(from NRX) 1. PNRs never contain "1" or "0" so just tell the user that it's a typo when they enter one of these or any other character that is not used in PNRs.
(from mritty) * Combine the searches for Award and non-Award flights. Five columns in the fare selection screen - BS, Anytime, Wanna Get Away, Freedom Reward available, Standard award available. That way I don't have to do two different searches to find out if it makes sense for me to use an award for this flight, or if I could get a WGA fare for $79.
(also from mritty) * Provide a listing of our TTF rather than making us do it ourselves in a separate spreadsheet.
(and again from mritty) * Eliminate the difference between unused Tickets and Ticketless Travel Funds, so that I can use a couple $5 TTF that's expiring in a month before a whole $200 Ticket that's expiring in 11 months.
Although, I would be happy enough if we could easily use Ticketless Travel Funds first, regardless of whether there is a difference between TTF & unused tickets.
I also like the "improve the subject line" ideas, but I wonder about security issues.
Finally, before the WGA/AT/BS matrix was created, we used to be able to more easily paste together "unpublished" connections. I would very much like to see at least as much as we used to be able to - I've tried to do this a couple of times with the new system without success.
