Request(s) for the next CO.com
 

At DO III, it was mentioned that an update to co.com would be coming along at some point. I thought we all might post our wishes and desires here, beyond what was already talked about at the DO.

1 - List all non-CO-metal codeshare flights. - Earlier this year, I was travelling to Bozeman for a weekend trip to see a friend’s new home about an hour from there. I went onto co.com, and the only listed flight returning on the Sunday to EWR or LGA departed from Bozeman at about 6:30 AM, which meant I would be waking up no later than 4 AM to make the flight. Not thinking there were any alternatives, I booked the itinerary. Only later did I stop to check on another web site to see if there was a later flight combination. Sure enough, there was a 1PM departure, but it was all on code-shared NWA metal, while the early flights had a CO connection to take me to NYC. I was really ticked. I phoned CO, and had to pay $100 to switch to the later flights; I couldn’t talk the agent or her supervisor out of it. That ticked me off more since the new flights all had CO flight numbers. If a flight has a CO flight number, put it up on CO.com! CO is getting some of the revenue from the sale, so why not do this?!

2 - Have one confirmation number across all flights, even codeshares. - As a corollary to the above, though not really a CO.com issue. On the Bozeman itinerary above, when I went to the NW lounges and showed them my tickets, it turned out that NW had a different confirmation number for my flights, and it took the desk agent about 10 minutes to sort through it all to find it and give me new and upgraded boarding passes. If this hasn’t changed yet, it should, although I recognize this requires coordination with the partner airlines - a whole separate issue in itself.

I leave the rest up to all of you.

Amen and Amen. Did I mention Amen to #1? This seems like a no-brainer to me. I know that DL website does a much better job of this....

Accurate Reward Charts :p:p:D:D

I want accurate and interactive route maps, badly. The PDF is hard to read, and huge, just replace it with a flash map that uses some server side code to tie into the booking system.

CO used to show this. This functionality was removed a few years ago, presumably to push you towards CO metal flights.

It sucks because sometimes the full codeshare will have the better price or schedule one way, while CO is the best on the other. In order to get this online, you have to go through a bunch of hoops of holding part of what you want, calling, getting them to change it, then going back to purchase. The alternate would be to use Expedia or Travelocity, but then you run into the 50% EQM on the CO metal issue. It used to be so easy at co.com. :(

CO does get the other carriers' confirmation number kicked back to them. They just don't display it on the website like NW and AS do. It would be a nice feature to have.


As for what I'd like to see, is more options on TripAlert. At the DO, I learned that CO has triggers for most of the events we'd like to see, but doesn't email everything so as to prevent bombarding you with too much information. A few settings in this area (as opposed to CO deciding for me what I want), would be useful.

Accurate, Less Confusing Reward Charts, to be precise.

It would also be nice to book online partner reward flights that aren't codeshares.

At the DO, they have indicated that the reward charts will be totally redone, starting from scratch. I think the timetable is end of year or early next year.

Yes I remember when CO used to do #1 and agree that CO should do this again. It really makes scheduling flights difficult. Also, on #2, YES, CO should do this, I have had several times to have to make a call to CO, get the NW number, then call NW to get a seat assignment. A big pain. And on trip alert, yes, more options would be most helpful!

This is not going to be possible. Continental made the booking in their RES system (Shares) since it is on a partner carrier made a duplicate booking with a different locator on Northwest's System (PARS). They are linked in the record so I'm not sure where the confusion is from the NW side. If you give the agents your last name and flight number it should be easy to find your booking. No different if you checked in on line or through the kiosks at the airport.

It's the same issue if you booked through a travel agent. If they have a Sabre terminal, but booked on CO flights you're going to get a Sabre locator and a CO locator. They should be synced in real time so any change to either booking should be reflected in the copy version.

The RES systems between CO and NW are unique and very different. CO is running a IBM mainframe and Northwest is using Unisys. Northwest has a completely unique inventory control mechanism compared to Continental. I don't know that this is still true, but the International and Domestic inventory management systems at NW aren't even the same. NW still thinks it's two airlines, (Northwest Orient and Republic), in the head office in certain departments.

That being said it would be virtually impossible for CO and NW to create identical locators for every codeshare booking.

I totally agree with the posts about making (at least) codeshares available on co.com. If CO wants to push us to their metal, fine. Just say that a particular flight gets 50% EQM on the site, but don't make us go to Orbitz to make bookings, you just lose the revenue.

Also, how about giving us all possible flight combinations? I KNOW I can connect in CLE and EWR from DCA. Stop forcing me to connect through IAH. I can't tell you how many times I've had to go to Orbitz and piece together a CO itin connecting in CLE simply because CO.com won't give me a connection I know exisits. If I have to pay more, I have to pay more, but at least give me the option.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry8100/4.2.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

I'd be thrilled if TripAlert worked for Chautauqua flights!

I second this... but COInsider tells me this won't be operational until December... just in time for snow at ORD!

I had a similar issue going from New Orleans to Newark. I wanted to take a late afternoon flight on a Sunday. I got nothing online. But I knew that I could go through IAH. So using the multiple destinations feature I was able to work that out. I shouldn't have to do that, this should show up as an option.

Dates
 

I'd just be happy to get the d&^m calendar to work properly. I'm still bitten by the bug where if you go to the basic search enter in your info and then go to an advanced search, it flips the day/month between screens and then you end up having to fix the dates, it does it in a couple of other places as well, just can't remember where (I've got my own software to fix rather than remembering everything about theirs).....

As my handle suggests, I spend most of my time here answering questions or providing advice on traveling with children. I think a revised and dedicated section on kid travel would be well received with simple tips that are difficult to find on the current co.com like: you can order kid meals (which are really great!) 24 hours in advance, most car seats won't fit into bulkhead seats due to the armrests, and that the big PCs do have kid rooms with double paned glass separating them from the rest of the PC.

Also, we often find ourselves on a Friday thinking "I wonder where we could fly for $200." How about a cheap last minute ticket search option where I would input departure city, maximum price per ticket, and maximum flight time? Then i would click enter and see what co.com spits back as options.