Valid US zip code requested when booking online from overseas
I've made an online booking from the Continental Airlines Japanese website. When choosing to book online, the site redirects you to the US online booking website in English, with the country name set to Japan. Everything proceeded normally. Chose my flight, seat, filled in all the details. And when I clicked on purchase, I get "We could not process your request. Please see the message below and make revisions". Huh?
I scroll down and find: "Please enter a valid U.S. zip code (ZIP or ZIP plus 4)". The country name still shows Japan. The Japanese ZIP code is 7 digits (like 123-4567). Scratching head. Trying again taking away the hyphen. Still does not work. I am not familiar with the U.S. zip code so go and check the number of digits. While searching, I hope the booking time limit will be OK. In the meantime, upon retrying, it somewhat resets the month of my credit card expiry date. So I have to do it again.
I decide to take away the first two digits because it will be an e-tkt and they won't be sending me anything anyway, besides, the whole address is correct together with the country name. After reducing the zip code to 5 digits, it finally works! I still haven't received my e-tkt receipt but the booking looks OK on the website.
I think some features are great, such as the possibility to change your seat. But I don't know why this kind of problem is not fixed; maybe not a lot of Japanese venture booking anything in English and maybe people who got cross or who couldn't understand the problem simply decided to call reservation or maybe they did bring their business elsewhere.
Anyhow, hope this will help anyone who will encounter the same problem.