canadiancow

It was YVR transborder check-in (it was nearest to the Fairmont ).

P.S. to any AC lurkers who may want to tell me I suck. I'm going to write in about this, but if you want to PM me before I get around to it, I will be pleased

Thanks. I actually had a tattoo priced out for me with my Aeroplan barcode. It was reasonable, but I wasn't sure I wanted a barcode on my forehead.

It was fun chatting with you tonight

superangrypenguin

I had to double check the URL. We're posting on a website called.

FlyerTALK

The horror.

Nonetheless I will confirm what Mr. Peever posted upthread. I saw with my very eyes. Cow went to a kiosk to try and print his BP yesterday.

#epicfail.

zrh2yvr

I have to say that this is not a fair assessment. AC can not directly print the BP for LH. What happens is when you have a checkin where you connecting flight is known, the AC system requests a checkin through an EDIFACT message and if all the required parameters align, the LH system will respond with the information required to have AC print the BP. AC can not print it directly without first having one of their own flights being the inbound connection. Sometimes it may take 2-3 requests before it works (i.e. - if you are checking in quite early and for LH - more than 24 hours before their flight). It's not a very simple system. However - LH in MUC could clearly print your BP as it is their system.

Back to the original post - -- Although I agree that the agents can be a bit unwilling to do things or may not be trained in certain transactions, there is some truth to the fact they can not access the following day's flights. When you use Web Check-in - it works a little bit differently and this is setup to allow the checkin from 24 hours. I believe local station checkin is only setup for access from 12 hours. They are not used to seeing someone come for a reprint the day before so they probably had not seen this situation before. I am always amazed how the staff also are not willing to "experiment" or try new things. (Without going into detail - I've had the same agent in YYC 2 times in a row at the SE desk who was completely useless - - including not knowing how to put me on a different earlier standby than I was already on).

skybluesea

Well, your not being sufficiently forward-looking , you could always get tattoo on your arm.

Better idea though, you could be Bond, like in Casino Royale and get satellite-receiver implant and you'll be in business.

For more ideas, recently attended this conference...look forward to your innovations on entire departure process, esepcially given field your in.
http://www.futuretravelexperience.com/tag/biometrics/

Sean Peever

I have a real hard time taking seriously a group saying they are talking about the future of anything tech when they have a website design from the 1990's.

In fact, I don't take them seriously at all.

skybluesea

You should have made the YVR DO last night - you would take us even less seriously if you actually met some of the reprobates in attendance (refers to me only, as last night's company were most delightful and great people)

Although the story about a wireless mouse in an AC pillow cover went downhill very quickly, and now has many of us reconsidering bringing our own linen on board.

CZAMFlyer

Well to be fair, this site has deteriorated from a forum in which frequent flyers discussed the best ways to learn, compare and extract value from their respective loyalty programs into what we see today: a constant litany of perceived slights and some truly remarkable personal grievances. It should be renamed FlyerMOAN. If there is an opportunity to point out that an airline employee, executive or policy has in any way erred, no matter how minutely, there is no shortage of people willing to leap all over the issue. The more outrageous the circumstance, the better, as long as a good whinge isn't clouded by facts or perspective. Righteous indignation has become an art form for some.

Technically this thread relates to flying, but it offers no value to our collective knowledge of Aeroplan or Air Canada. I'd suggest that somebody creates an ongoing common-theme thread akin to the "Somewhat Scary One Near Winnipeg" in which contributors can post their most recent encounter with a rude or oblivious employee. Content will include any miniscule contradictions in official policy, conflicting advice given by more than one airline staffer or even momentary blank stares given in response to an obscure and convoluted itinerary or fare class query. It might serve to illustrate who amongst us are the most easily offended or slighted, and perhaps enlighten us to the possibility that it may not be the people on the other end of the unfortunate exchange after all...

What I understand from this truly egregious episode - apart from undermining the very foundation upon which civilized society is built - is that an employee didn't understand that her system could print a piece of paper the day before a flight. There is likely a bit of room for improvement in her response - granted. Customers should rarely be told they're wrong, even when they are. But terming this an "epicfail"? Come on. That doesn't leave much room for superlatives when something actually does go awry, now does it?

What's the issue with strolling up to the SE check in desk or MLL the following day (the day of the flight) to make the request? Why was printing the pass the day before so important? Can the flow of instant gratification be stemmed once opened?

I often think there are similarities between the jobs of airline employees and police officers: probably 90% of the workload and headaches are caused by 5% of the population.

ffsim

That describes the second employee. You should re-read the attitude and behaviour of the first employee.

CZAMFlyer

The OP indicates that both employees weren't aware that they could print the pass. The first one was stubborn and told the OP he was wrong. That was what I was referring to. The OP also stated the first employee "came over and continued being a douche" but in the absence of any context to support that claim, I ignored that comment.

The employee's attitude seems less than stellar as per the OP's version of the exchange. My post was in reply to the idea that because this is a forum about frequent flying, we are entirely justified in venting our every frustration publicly and online. Personally I believe there are more successful ways in effecting change with a large corporation, but evidence suggests plenty of FT members feel differently.

mkjr

start out with the assumption that what AC agents at check in tell you are lies and you will be much further ahead at the end of most days when you know what is right. then you need to consider that AC agents are down right lazy...lazy lazy lazy....then you would be able to understand your experience and not be so stressed about it.

karachi

The agent should have been open to ideas, and should have used a differetn choice of words. this is a bit like my doctors problem with patients who come in claiming stuff because they Googled it.

skybluesea

Let's give the OP the benefit of the doubt here, having met this individual recently I'm humbly of the view as an SE he clearly understands how the process should work very well. OP Should not have been ttreated this way.

And let's not forget, properly trained customer service people in this international business, are going to need to learn with to deal with travelers who are jetlagged, scared, tired or a whole bunch of other maladies that accompany global travel. I for one admit I can be remarkably unpleasant when trying to deal with any minor matter after 24 hours on the road, and I'm not saying this applies to OP in this situation, but in all cases AC people need to be respectful to the global circumstances that customers bring to them each and every day.

And 0P is absolutely right to raise this issue up the line, but I would suggest, the issue is not the individuals at the counter. But instead the bigger issue is the willingness of AC to delegate staff responsibility to customers which obviously occurred here.

MB24

In my situation, however, all these criteria were met. I'd say it was about 12 hours before the LH flight and the inbound was AC--all on the same PNR. To be fair to AC and its employees, I've had AC agents print boarding passes at check in nearly 24 hours in the future including all three passes for LAX-YYZ-IST-BEY, where the final segment was on TK and a separate PNR. What this thread illustrates to me is that some AC employees are familiar with the intricacies of the system, and are willing to be proactive, while others aren't.

And as my post tried to convey, I was less annoyed than amused by the whole situation. I wasn't stranded in MUC, made my onward flight in plenty of time, and all was well.

skybluesea

And your post reinforces my point this is all about improper supervision and unwillingness to train to ensure that the customer (OP in this case) is not training the agent - this is called improper delegation, and doing it effectively downwards in an organization will get you promoted, doing it upwards in an organization will get you fired - and doing it to your customers means you really don't understand your own business (and no wonder ROI is poor for AC over long periods, and only good now with world awash with oil)

dyzs

I had a very similar experience the other day. The mobile app and OLCI wouldn't let me check in and I knew I wouldn't be able to be at the airport more than 40 minutes before departure. Most likely this had something to do with two departures from the same airport. I'm not sure why this is an issue as other airlines can do this - or is this another AC IT fail?

So, I went to the airport late in the evening (after the 24 hours out from three of my flights) so they could check me in and give me at least three of the BP's I needed. First response was they can't check me in since it isn't 12 hours prior, only online. After showing the agent that the app wasn't working, I was pleased to see they took the initiative to call support to see how to "check me in early". After a little back and forth the agent only gave me the boarding pass for my first flight stating they couldn't do more than that.

While this was quite helpful to me, it would have made my life easier with my schedule to have the three BP's I requested. I'm curious if others have had similar issues with the app failing on them or other issues from two departures in the same day from the same point of origin.