Airline web site pet peeves?
 

Hello and thanks for reading,

I am a user interface designer.

I have the chance to design an airline web site from top to bottom.

- What are the things that always bug you when using airline booking engines online?

- What are the best user interface experiences you've had?

- This is your chance to shape your future! What do you want in your airline web site? What should we get rid of?

As you would expect, I can't tell you who I am or who I'm working for but please . . how often do you really get asked what you want?! : )

Thanks very much,

Gryphon

I dont want to see yet another useless pop up calendar for choosing dates.

I want to be able to retry a reservation without the web site forgetting how many passengers and what dates I selected last time

I want to see availability of nearby destinations and dates. e.g. If I want London to Las Vegas I would also consider Manchester Las Vegas or London Phoenix - show me all of them.

Let me book out to one place and back from another

Support Firefox

Load quickly with minimal eye candy and really think about giving me information

Dont make me step through hundreds of pages of wizards.

Ive got hundreds more. email me if you want to discuss specific examples.

mysteryflyer

I want to be able to book multiple tix as a combination of award and paid fares, not just one or the other. I always have to do this via phone.

- Allow me to query by fare bucket. If you are going to attach so many promotions and upgrade rules to specific fares, then let me search by category (as least the first letter - Q, K, W, T, etc.)

- Remember my search parameters if I have to go back. For example, if I need to go back to change time of day or date, don't make me reenter everything. Just let me change the fields I want to change.

- Allow me to query partner award availability seamlessly in all cases where an actual agent-to-agent phone call is not needed. I understand that for certain partners, that can't be avoided. But for most, I can't book online, yet I call an agent and he/she can query it online. (Corollary to this: don't change me an insulting phone booking fee on an itinerary that I can't book online.)

In the "like to have" category (as opposed to a pet peeve), how about an airline-specific "dream map"? Let me input a starting point, a date range, and an all-in R/T price point, and show me where I can go. Some of the portal sites have pieces of a nice user interfact - for example, Travelocity's Dream Maps, Orbitz's weekend search tool, etc. But if one of my primary airlines had a good tool like this, I'd be more apt to use it than anything else in cyberspace.

I also dislike the pop-up calenders and think an airline specific dream map would be great.

Along the lines of fare brackets I would like to be able to search for the cheapest flight and have the fare bracket come up with the flight details. It is a pain to click through a ton of stuff to find what bracket it is in but it would also be a pain to search each bracket induvidually. Just show it to me with the details.

Support Safari

No matrix like Alaskaair.com. It just bugs me.

Ability to book award flights online, even if one segment is on a partner. I hate calling agents and then being charged because I want to fly into a smaller city.

. . keep 'em coming!
 

awesome info . . thank you!

Don't be afraid to repeat what others have said . .the more people clammer for a feature or to be rid of one the stronger the argument I have with my client.

What a fun way to do research . . I can tell you mean what your say.

Thanks again,

Gryphon Dart

As a start, I'd even take a simple Southwest-style matrix. They show all of their buckets for an entire day's flights on one page.

Granted, legacy carriers have more buckets. (Maybe this is a hint that they should dump half of them.) Maybe a better solution would be to show the WN-style matrix, but show only the most meaningful levels per that airline's promotions/bonus/upgrade structure. So you'd have maybe six fares or so per flight.

On United, for example, all of my current promotions are tied to Q fares. So, a pet peeve of mine is that United.com doesn't make it easy to find the best available Q-fares in all situations.

Sometimes I can find 'em by tweaking the drop-down box with the upgrade rules in it, but not always. Sometimes I can find 'em by typing in a specific promo code, but not always. Sometimes I can find 'em by selecting and buying a refundable coach ticket (which books in QRA) and then immediately re-pricing the itin which drops it down to a lower nonrefundable Q and kicks a refund back to my CC. But sometimes none of these methods work well...

Oh, one more big one...how could I forget it?

I always want to be able to view and edit my seat assignment. This starts before I buy the ticket: I want to be able to view and select seats before purchase, as well as go back and pick a different flight if I don't like what I see. Then, after purchase, I want to be able to access my itin and view/change seats at any time. Agents can do this today. I should be able to do it online without calling an agent. It's not that I like changing seats: it's just that sometimes when I am willing to buy a seat on a flight without optimal seating available, I want to go back and look at it from time to time to see what's opened up.

I want to be able to see all available fares on the same page. Southwest Airlines does this very well.

I want to be able to search for award tickets on the airline and its partners, and be confident that all available tickets are shown. I want to be able to do this over a range of dates that I provide, to multiple nearby destination options (i.e., anywhere in central Europe), and to be able to book open jaw and stopover award tickets online. (Same for paid tickets, I guess, though I never pay.)

I want to be able to see my seat options before a book a paid or award ticket. The seat may be the deal breaker.

I would like a page that lists probable saver award tickets available from my home airports, the list showing up to a year out. (O.K., 330 or 333 days - whatever the airline allows.) Such a list would motivate me to use my miles to go places I hadn't considered before. It would also motivate me to use those miles for last minute trips. I am retired. My time is very flexible. I can go when the opportunity presents itself.

I would like to see a clear statement of rules for booking award tickets before I go searching for the one I want. How long will you hold a reservation before taking the miles out of my account? (Important for tickets 330 days out needing a return ticket.) Do you allow open jaw tickets? Stopovers? Both? What are the rules for how long a stopover can be? If I see the rules first, I won't be wasting my time searching for impossible tickets.

I want to be able to see a very good system map of the airline and its partners, so I can see at a glance where I can go on my miles. A list of destinations by continent, country, and/or state would also be nice. (Drill down from one to the next?)

Wouldn't it be cool if the website we help design here gets the Fredie Award for best airline website? That would surely motivate other airlines to actually ask their best customers what they want before acting.

I do hope you will be able to tell us which airline website you are designing after it is up an running.

...I think remembering the search criteria I used in an earlier search is the most important thing to me

(Thinking of AA here)

Normal people use the back button on their browser. Support this and don't have it generate an error.

For the love of God, if it is April and I choose a flight in November, HAVE THE RETURN DATE SELECTION DIALOG BE SET TO NOVEMBER.

Allow me to book an award flight on all carriers in an alliance, not just the host airline.

Please don't let it "assume" a return date on a round trip ticket. Make me enter the return date so I don't miss noticing when the system has made a wrong guess.

I'd like to be able to upgrade my reservations using miles without having to call the airline. I'd also like the ability to change my seats at any time after booking and have easy access to detailed and accurate seatmaps at any time.

A few desires and/or pet peeves:

-- Allow an expert search box that'd accept ITA-style queries. I often want to find lots of connections when searching for mileage runs, but the AA site makes it very difficult to choose those specific routings because it only accepts a maximum of four segments in the multicity boxes. That's far too few -- there should be no limit, ideally!

-- re what not to do, look at Elal's website. It is absolutely disastrous.

-- allow timetable searches without having to specify the specific date but rather, put in the routing only

Hey, great! Thanks for this opportunity.

My thing is the ROUTE MAP. A hyper-link to the ROUTE MAP should be front and center, very obvious. I HATE it being buried under some vague thing like "About Us" or when someone THINKS they are being smart by dumbing-down the way it's referred to as "where we fly."

ALSO, along the same lines, it is very frustrating to click on "destinations" and find out it is a "featured" spot of the week. Oy!

"Destinations" are the very things that are to be shown on a ROUTE MAP.

Do not hide the ROUTE MAP under another heading like "Customer Service" or "Travel Planning." Doing that just makes us GUESS as to where the REAL route map is hidden. It should have a special, click-able link all its own.

THANK YOU FOR THIS CHANCE. ---"Ook."

Hey, great! Thanks for this opportunity.

My thing is the ROUTE MAP. A hyper-link to the ROUTE MAP should be front and center, very obvious. I HATE it being buried under some vague thing like "About Us" or when someone THINKS they are being smart by dumbing-down the way it's referred to as "where we fly."

ALSO, along the same lines, it is very frustrating to click on "destinations" and find out it is a "featured" spot of the week. Oy!

"Destinations" are the very things that are to be shown on a ROUTE MAP.

Do not hide the ROUTE MAP under another heading like "Customer Service" or "Travel Planning." Doing that just makes us GUESS as to where the REAL route map is hidden. It should have a special, click-able link all its own.

THANK YOU FOR THIS CHANCE. ---"Ook."

My biggest request is the ability to change dates, times, cities, etc. by going back--and not be forced to enter the rest of the information every single time.

My second request is that I not have to choose early morning, morning, afternoon, late afternoon, early evening, evening--each in a separate request. Often my flight time is somewhat flexible, and it would be very helpful to see the flights and fares for the entire day on the first pass.

Thinking of AA:

Give me email confirmation for tickets cancelled as well as for tickets held and purchased.

Me too
 

Sptite nailed it "For the love of God, if it is April and I choose a flight in November, HAVE THE RETURN DATE SELECTION DIALOG BE SET TO NOVEMBER."

Please add my vote for that.

Read books on usability.

Let me use the back button on the browser.

Try to get everything on one page

Wishful thinking
 

I'd like to redeem a voucher you gave me for volunteering my seat without being charged to do so. Let me use it on the webpage and not have to involve an agent and then take away the value of the voucher.

I would really like to be able to book openjaw reward tickets online a la Aeroplan. That's about it. I like CO.com's booking engine, but this is the one exception to that (other than crappy reward availabilty).

Anything i can do at a travel agent I want to be able to do myself online. Multiple segments (with alliance/codeshare options) for points and revenue bookings, per segement.

Have an `advanced` version of booking flights for super mega l337 g33ks like us and a basic version for the other 99.8% of travellers ;)

I dont want to have to call the airline for ANY reason - EVER. 100% online. Automate everything from upgrades to cancellations to missing points to partner/award flights to whatever. Less human more computer.

Make certain elements of it work on cell phone/PDAs. That means a low-speed connection and a tiny little screen. Could require an alternative site to do this.
This would include things such as checking flight status, checking reservation and upgrade status, setting up flight status notifications, finding contact phone numbers, checking in (realizing that you cannot print a boarding pass). The kinds of things one might do while traveling and lacking access to a PC and a high-speed connection.

Checking in via cell/PDA would be huge!

This is more a general gripe than a suggestion, but my latest flight's arrival time changed by seven hours LATER than booking. I never got a flight change email. I changed my itinerary and schedule around enough so the impact overall will be minimal, but hey....how about a little heads-up just in case I didn't check up on the flight in advance?

....and I'll jump on the no pop-up calendar dog-pile.

how about a 'non flyers' interface and a EXPERT FT interface where we can choose more advanced modes. Yes having a grid of all prices and seats avlb would be great, why not upgrade to a higher fare where you get immediate F seats for only $30 more than the lowest class fare.

Don't tell me that I can't do something and make me call in, if they can do it at the call center, why can't we do it online? I know that when you call a bank most of the time they are using the web based interface that we use to check our account, I am sure that airlines are somewhat similar but just a diff interface.

I agree with the above. Also, always having the ability to view the seatmap.

my 2 cents
 

I concur, do not make me reenter information when I hit the back button, or want to change a date or airport.

Another pet peeve, (thinking of NWA here) dont make me log in multiple times, i.e. one login for WP, then prompted for a second login for reservation or itinerary manager, especially since I use the the same login info for both!

Allow me to search for promos that I can actually use - Not many of the advertised promo fares apply to OMA!

One other one:

If I change my address (or anything else) in my profile, please use that new information whenever anything is autopopulated on the site.

On United.com, for example, when I buy a ticket it still autopopulates my address from 1999 or so. I have to change it every time, even though I have already changed my profile long ago.

And I should never have to type the same credit card number into a site twice - unless I've decided to not allow the airline to store it.

If I tell a site to "remember me", then remember me anywhere I might have to log into the site. Don't remember me on the home-page login, but forget me when I go to use Online Checkin.

MilesBuzz?
 

Having a hard time determining how this is MilesBuzz?

Yes I agree with you, Aeroplan needs to enhance their site for Star Alliance awards. That would avoid us paying $50! :mad:

dream maps

memory of inputs when re-search for flights so dont have to enter them all again

flight search (and allowable destinations) includes all partners (or even better all airlines)

advanced routing options including ability to choose from multiple routes, able to choose which of many flights for each leg to tailor the transits/stopovers

bring up full rules not some useless summary that doesnt include all the info you need

manage my booking function (yup some airlines still don't have this grrrr)

List partner award availability

Dream maps!!

"Flexible date search" is SO key. And being able to do an extended flexible date search, over multiple months, is great (like travelocity and zuji). I don't like how some search sites will only let you do a flexible search over one month, or worse over just a few days. It's really helpful when planning when to take a trip. I won't use sites that don't have flexible date searches.

In terms of interface, ITA's "graphical" view is wonderful... by far the best way of displaying fares I've seen. It's much better than just having the times as text. You could maybe have a different coloured bar for each fare type (in addition to writing out the fare type, of course)

would be nice for the website to remember certain details (a la expedia) such as trip origin, if u use this site often. also i dont like how some sites make u sign in while searching, as if you sign in youll get a better deal. Would also be nice if this sites recognizes airport codes as well as city codes i.e. mil = every airport in milan, italy...(instead of mxp, lin, bgo) (some web sites want u to choose specific airport)

When you list all of the prices I can pay for the same flight (please do), also please list the fare bucket for those prices (Q, K, W, T, etc.). Many promos depend on that letter. I can never find it on my ticket.

Bring Back eAAsySabre !!!!!!!!!!
 

- What are the best user interface experiences you've had?

- This is your chance to shape your future! What do you want in your airline web site? What should we get rid of?

If you want the best b ooking interface, Bring Back eAAsySabre!!!!!!!!

AAmerican had the best and simplest information-packed website EVER in eAAsySabre. Why in the world did they eliminate it? You could very simply and efficiently search a trip by including routing (such as, through ORD or DFW), fare basis, and many more criteria if you wanted. It probably gave too much information that AAmerican did NOT want customers to know. It was beautiful!

Yeah, I used EasySabre through an online service prior to the WWW. It was a text command line. Once nice feature was that it showed which flights had which fare buckets available.

It was available 1986-1999.