johan rebel

Oh boy.

- Right off the bat, and directly under the orange check-in button on the Android app, I was told that an e-boarding card was not available. They did say they were sorry.

- KL have had my cell phone number for ages, so the relevant field was pre-filled on the next screen. I glanced at it anyway, and noticed that they had somehow changed the country prefix to 31 (the Netherlands). Huh??? What??? OK, I corrected that.

- Next, I was told that seat selection was not available. What a surprise.

- Then I was informed that "(extra) baggage for this flight can only be arranged at the airport". Lucky that I travel HBO.

- I went for the option to receive the boarding pass by SMS (text) message. Not that this has ever worked before (never, not once), but since I could not expect any e-boarding card . . . The number in the phone field was now correct, country prefix and all, but I nevertheless got an error message, claiming the format was incorrect? Reentered the number, only to get another error message. This time it claimed that my e-ticket number was incorrect, and proceded to lecture me on the number of digits required, etc. My e-ticket number??? I've never tried phoning an e-ticket number, or sending a text message to one, but perhaps I should.

- Well, even though I could not pick a seat, arrange for any (extra) hold baggage or get an e-boarding card, at least I was checked in. Right? Just to be on the safe side, I decided to switch on my PC and check on klm.com

"It is not yet possible to check in for this flight. Please try again later. You can check in on Tue 01 Jul 2014 11:50"

No, that's not 30 hours before departure!

On the bright side, they will let me book a room at the Student Hotel Amsterdam. I can also rent a car. Despite seat selection not being available, I can even still bid for an upgrade. KL can apparently do all sorts of things for me, except check me in quickly, properly and effciently.



At least I have a sense of humor (perhaps because I'm not a soccer fan).

Johan

Canada freak

We've been getting this message so often in the past few months, that it's been getting very hard to stay friendly with the person on the phone when I call them to have it sorted.... I know the problem is not caused by the individual, but $&#@#$$%@ KLM IT......

johan rebel

The hilarious thing is that when I went back to the app, it offered me the opportunity to cancel check-in for the very flight for which the website claims I cannot yet check in. Go figure!

The app now also displayed a seat change button, but when I clicked on that it simply crashed. At least I got the option of sending them an error report.

On the website I also see under the heading "Make the most of your trip" that I can purchase insurance that will allow me to "enjoy carefree travel". How about carefree OLCI instead?

Johan

johan rebel

Well, the website now at least says that I'm checked in. Seat change still not allowed, of course.

It also encourages me to "check in online and receive a discount of 20% or more on our excess baggage fees" even though it at the same time insists that "for this flight you can arrange (extra) baggage at the airport only" and lists permitted baggage as "1 hand baggage + 1 accessory"

KL's online services deserve their own chapter in the next edition of Alice in Wonderland.

Johan

Grouchy

oooh the joys of OLCI with KLM.

Checked in earlier today, had some similar erros/messages.

First try..no e-boarding card available blah blah..
2nd try oooh it's possible now...clickerdeclick.
Ooh well, see i have lost my selected seat and was put into Economy comfort seat 5C. KLM, no thank you, i will change it back to 11C... an EER seat with more legroom.

Well according to KLM i have to pay 0 EUR for this pref. seat, okiedokie no problema...click.
Ooh oops ooh dear now KLM app wants me to enter all my personal data and creditcard data to pay that 0 EUR to KLM. Entering all my data and leave my creditcard data open as last. So i lay down my phone to pick up my card and again a oooh dear moment. The screen of my phone rotated and back to the start screen...i have to do it all over again.
Press checkin...select seat again...ok 0 EUR again and fill in all personall/CC data again...ooh crap no. The app says my E ticket number is not correct.

Next try..press checkin..select seat...pay 0 EUR..fill in CC data..oooh joy success.

PS i got the popup for the KLM app survey during this session

johan rebel

Forgot to mention that the website did allow me to download my boarding card. This opened in a new window, which indeed displayed said boarding card, and then froze. I could not print the BC, I could not save it, I could not even close the window.

OLCI is really convenient, but it must work every single time. All I want is to check in, get a boarding card in one way or another, and choose from all seats that are still available.

How difficult can it be?

Johan

JulienMSP

I always use the "get boarding card by email" option. It always works. If your phone has wifi and can get emails ..then that works well as an e-pass.

johan rebel

Yes, sure, I use that as a fallback option, and it works. The point is, though, that all the options should work all the time. If KL see it fit to offer me an e-boarding card, then it should pop up immediately. Every time. If I request one by text message, then this message should arrive within seconds. Every time.

Same with seat selection. I was stuck in row 6, and could not change my seat. As usual, all the "unavailable" EC seats were filled with pax who for some reason only checked in at the airport. A bunch of people traveling together were given middle seats in consecutive rows; couples and pairs were split up, and other "frequent" flyers were so clueless that they ended up sitting in the wrong seats. Business as usual, in other words. The non-revs were seated in EB, of course.

Johan

JohnnyDoe

Hello Johan,

Could you please tell me your itinerary when the Android app said there was no e-boarding pass available?

I am interested in your experience with the mobile app so it would be great if you could detail the steps you've taken and where you've encountered issues.

If you're willing to assist I will take a closer look to see if I can reproduce your problems.

johan rebel

Why does the website insist that I can only OCLI 24 hours before departure? (No, it is not a US flight).

It was never a problem before, so what's up?

How difficult can it be to get it right?

Edited to clarify: it is perfectly possible to OCLI, of course, it is just that I'm told "It is not yet possible to check in for this flight". I know better, but others may be put off. That might explain why there are so many empty seats available on a flight completely zeroed out in economy. Nobody seems interested in paying for an EC or EER seat either, for some funny reason. Despite still showing J5, they are not offering any paid OLCI upgrades either.

Johan

florin

I'm having the same issue. I have an intra-EU itin and I've imported it into my Outlook calendar. Besides the flights themselves and the layovers, KL also created an OLCI event, which is 24 hours before the first flight instead of 30.

irishguy28

Presumably because it's easier to create an event at 24 hours, at which time check in for ALL KL flights will have opened, rather than h aving to first determine what type of KLM flight it is and therefore whether the 30 or 24 hour rule applies.

The average flier is not, perhaps, particularly bothered about checking themselves in at the very instant that OLCI is open, so alerting all at T-24 is an acceptable solution. Those that are bothered about this will know themselves when to check in and will not need a prompt or a link sent to them to accomplish the task.

Of course, that is no excuse for giving an "OLCI is not yet open" message when, in fact, it is.

florin

I guess they just skipped a clause there when creating that event. Not nice, but certainly the end of the world, so I fully agree with irishguy28 there. The main issue is indeed not being able to OLCI at the promised time. Earlier I got an email from KL about T-29 hours and at that time I was able to do OLCI, which had not been available T-30. I clicked on the link and completed OLCI quickly (perhaps just a brief pause to laugh at the silly UG offer - €199 for a ~3 hour intra-EU flight), and at that point 5 people had already checked in ahead of me.

Concerto

I just checked in for GVA-AMS-DUS tomorrow without any problems. For the first segment of this trip, I was assigned a middle seat in the middle of the cabin (around row 9 as far as I remember). I have no problem with a middle seat from time to time, but it was easy enough to change it to a window seat further back (row 21). I really don't understand why the system allocates middle seats to elites, when that obviously would what they least wish for.

I only did OLCI because I have an early-ish start tomorrow, and I am going to risk the CFF (Swiss train company) not planting me in the middle of nowhere on the way to the airport (will arrive 08h07, flight leaves at 09h10). Otherwise, for the 20 or so flights I have done during the last month, I have reverted to airport check-in because that has always yielded a better seat.

johan rebel

On my way to the gate at AMS I occasionally use one of the blue self-service machines to check whether the seat adjacent to mine is vacant, and to move myself if warranted and possible.

I usually do this at the last minute, so sometimes the flight has already closed. That was the case yesterday. It was 27 minutes before departure, so I was not surprised. As I turned away to proceed to the gate the printer spat out what looked like a boarding card. Although it superficially resembled one, it was actually a printed message telling me that my flight had already departed, and that I should report to a transfer center forthwith.

When I got to the gate I asked the gate agent whether she would like to see something really funny. Upon receiving an affirmative answer I handed her the slip. She had never seen one before, and was utterly amazed.

Although I found it funny, the message could have caused an inexperienced pax to panic, or at least follow instructions and go to a transfer center instead of to the gate, thus missing their flight quite unnecessarily.

Johan