"FIRST CLASS" on Luggage Routing Tags
 

If you are confirmed First Class and checking luggage, NW prints "FIRST CLASS" on the paper luggage (routing) tags and I think the agents assisting with check-in use this as an indication to attach the Yellow priority handling tags. Last week I went from GRB-GPT Wednesday and returned Thursday. There were three segments each way and I was upgraded to FC on all but MEM-GPT / GPT-MEM segments that were on a CRJ-200.

The bug: the 'system' did not recognize that I was upgraded to first class when I checked in at GRB and therefore the luggage tag printed for my bag in GRB did not have FIRST CLASS on it and accordingly the agent did not affix a yellow priority handling tag. I was flying in FC out of GRB. On the other hand FIRST CLASS was printed on the paper luggage tags put on my bag in GPT and the agent in GPT did affix the yellow priority handling tag on my bag. I was flying on a CRJ-200 on the GPT-MEM segment.

My bag came out almost last in Gulfport and almost first in Green Bay. The priority handling tags make a difference. :)

back in mid July I had posted a little thing I noticed that annoyed me about how your cursor moves when trying to type in the FF number and pin to log into World Perks mileage accounts at NWA.com

The repsonse from someone here was sort of the same type of thing you'd get from trying to call tech support at Microsoft or something... "It must be user error!"

Well, call it what you will, but this site is the ONLY place where something like this happens to me and it is consistent and kind of annoying no matter where I log into the NWA page.

Again, here's the BUG, and I think they could deal with trying improve this regardless of who's fault it is:

When you go to NWA.com and wish to see your mileage activity, all the graphics load up and there on the right top of the home page is a place to enter your account number, then a field for the last name, and then the pin. You hit enter and it should bring you to your account. Now sometimes, because we all get used to what we are typing so much we often may not look up, the thing kicks back saying to re enter everything--that was the incorrect number...

What happens, I have found, is that when you first put the cursor into the first field for your account number entry, it may actually JUMP out of there and start to try to enter those numbers--now only in part--into the first field of the "Manage My Reservations" section below!

I have waited a bit longer for NWA's page to "load" but in nearly every other home page I do any business on--especially the high powered ones that this is supposed to be like--the user knows the page is loaded once all graphics show up and are accounted for. It seems here, however, that these graphics do NOT tell us this page is ready and we need to wait one more moment but without knowing really if that's necessary. This moment is neglegable in the grand scheme of things, but to me it's sort of annoying in that it's different than any other website I visit and that little few seconds of guessed waiting time are enough to break the little "roll" you get on and begin feeling as you plow thru your daily little web site and online tasks of the day with the click and roll dance we all are doing right now!

NWAs page stops me... And like so many other places that you end up getting an account number wrong, when you go back to do it again, it's gone and you have to retype everything. That stinks too. I wish it would at least leave some of what you started with, but I bet that has to do with "security" or something.

I think, though, a solution is at hand. For one, if you can let the system know you are using the same computer you always do, then perhaps its internal workings can also try to remember what fields you use most, meaning in my case, that cursor would already BE in the first block for entering my mileage account number, waiting for me to type in the numbers. Secondly, I am certain that if the page is not loading as quickly as ANY other thing I do online, having tried this on at least 4 different high speed new PCs with cable connections or T1 or T3 lines in two countries in the world in the past month, but I can consistently reproduce the same error, then the bug is not my user error, but an honest to goodness bug that needs to be addressed.

Who knows if it ever will be, but right now I gotta do a short pause at NWA.com and frankly, it's driving me elsewhere!

chaning award flights
 

I'm not sure if this qualifies as a bug, or more as a desired add-on.

Making changes to an existing award reservation is almost impossible at nwa.com; I've always had to call. The reason for that is very limited search that is available. For example, when you try to change the inbound portion of a RT award ticket:
- the only options displayed are NW/KL flights (No CO, DL, AF...)
- the limited choices that are displayed have no indication of PerkSaver or PerkPass availability (you have to select the fligths and then see what the difference in miles is)
- this is purely anecdotal and it may not be the norm, but every single time I've tried to change a PerkSaver reservation, even though an award flight search showed perksaver availability, when trying to change the reservation selecting the same flights asked me to pay a difference in miles (basically only giving me the PerkPass option)

I just changed two reservations online this morning. Although, they were domestic NW-operated itineraries. But, they were PerkSavers and I changed to other PerkSaver seats (actually got a refund on the award due to the current award sales from the hubs). As for no indication of PerkSaver/PerkPass, I always do a regular award search to see where the cheap awards are, then use that to plug into modifying the itinerary.

It may be that awards booked on NW are much easier to change online, but I've changed awards that involved NW, CO, KL, and AS and they've worked OK. It's not bulletproof, though. You can't change all awards you can book online, at least not IME.

I never use miles for 'purely' domestic itins (I have used miles for flights to HI tho). It may work fine for a plain vanilla, domestic, NW-operated itin, but it didn't work for a 1 segment each way intra-EU RT on AF that I had booked at nwa.com, for example. The ones that are even more complicated... forget it!

I tried that. Not only does it display just a fraction of the fligths that you get when you do a regular award flight search, but it doesn't even give you the same availability. Besides the fact that I feel it should let you do a "regular" search and not make have 2 windows open (one for changing the reservation and one for searching award flights), that definitely didn't work for me. Granted, it was a HNL-OTP itin:cool:, I tried changing the exact flights that showed perskaver availability in the award flight search window and it asked for an additional 35k miles/person.

I love the ability to check for an UG using miles on nwa.com. I check for Hawaii flights. However, once on e of the ways become available and you book it, you can't search for the UG going the other way.

I booked an UG coming back (on a 330!), but now the feature has been disabled to check on the outbound.

I figured out a workaround, (using multicity with specific times and trying to "buy" a ticket), but the solution is to allow the current software to work for the second half of the ticket.

Do not like the new booking engine - way too slow and, I think confusing.

**NOTE** October 2, 2007

This thread should NOT be used to discuss problems related to the "updated" website. Please continue to use the other thread for discussion about the website.

As of the time of this posting, NWA.com has already been reverted back to the "old" search engine and functionality. When, and if, NWA.com is re-updated and it is decided that that website will stay, we can discuss bugs with it in this thread and I'll be happy to update the master thread.

Thanks!
-RM

This is a problem I've noticed in previous years with other promos...

If you check out your "Points Summary" under WorldPerks, Manage My Account, and are in one of the specific promos (say "Mystery Miles"), the link for additional details on the promotion takes you to an 'unavailable' page. This is the page the Mystery Miles page is linking you to: https://www.nwa.com/worldperks/pointhst/MYSGP.html

If you use the Wolrd Perks drop-down, select Manage My Account, select My Promotions Status and on that page click on Mystery Miles scroll down to the and click on the link, it takes you to the Points Summary log-in page, fill out the info and click on the "Show Points Balance" Link, on that Points Summary page click on the "Mystery Miles" Link it should take you to the "Mystery Miles Promotion Detail" page. It's a rather convoluted path but you can get there.

If you are GE or PE you can ask for the priority tags on NW, CO or Delta and they will afix them.

Customer Advisory : Flight(s) in your reservation have been impacted by a Schedule Ch
 

On the Reservation Details page:


"Customer Advisory : Flight(s) in your reservation have been impacted by a Schedule Change that may allow you to select alternate flights for your trip that same day. Select the "Schedule Change Flight" button next to your trip(s) to view alternate flight options which may better suit your needs. "

I don't see any new flight changes. The flights have been booked for about 3 months. I can search the rez. system and come up with the same shown flights.

They did change 2 months ago (NW dropped 2 flights) and the now present "Schedule Change Flight" button was NOT there then.

Do they only allow you to select / change flights within a week of departure when they changes the schedule a long time ago?

State Drop Down Box
 

Unable to cancel an award ticket online.

The final stage of that process is completing passenger info. Everything goes in but the drop down box for your state will not display the States.

And it refuses the cancellation because of incomplete info.

:(

Add to Calendar
 

The "Add to Calendar" option pops up correctly sporadically so I can't forward it to my Outlook. Annoying!

The option to change your flight due to schedule change impact of greater then 60 minutes has been available online for about a year. You needed to select "Northwest schedule changes" from the Change or Upgrade Reservation drop-down and then the reservation would be "checked" to see if you qualified on any of your trips.

Due to recent customer service initiatives, Northwest is proactively checking reservations if they meet certain criteria for the greater then 60 minute schedule change impact and offering alternate same day flights. The service is available up to 24 hours prior to the trip but it is subject to availability in your original booking class so if you see a flight that works better for you then it's in your best interest to change sooner rather then later. This service is a good thing and saves you from having to call in case the new flights don't work for you.