As I've mentioned before, I usually have to end up calling the NWA Elite line to upgrade my CO flights. I have noticed each time this occurs, I'm unable to use the check-in kiosk "due to my ticket has changed and must be reviewed by reservation agent (blah blah of some sort)". Well today, I attempt to fly standby for an earlier flight so I use the CO kiosk to see if I can elect standby. Get the same message, so I ask the CO ticket counter to assist me. This encounter was hilarious (to me at least...)

Me: Can you help me check-in? I'd like to take standby for an earlier flight.
Her: (typing) Hmm, well there's too many people with your last name. Are you on an e-ticket? Wait...(typing)...(confused/angry look on her face)....there's too many of you. What the...looks like MSP changed your record...
Me: (playing dumb) what, that's strange? (knowing full well that they upgraded me)
Her: Looks like someone wants to lose their job (remarks in quick manner). Than she mumbles something about clearing my upgrade on the return leg.

This gets me worried b/c they upgraded me for the return and I thought she was booting me back to coach for that leg. Arghh#$%#$@

Anyway, to make a long story short, this agent was p'ed off that NWA upgraded me and stated that this activity could warrant someone losing a job. This true..?

No big complaints against her b/c she did clear me standby at the ticket counter and put me on the 1st class standby list. I've had NWA agents screw my standby status (long story...). I can take the attitude if they perform their job correctly.

Well, I had to run to the Prez Club and check my res to make sure I was still upgraded on the return. Phew, sure enough it was. The prospect of 4 hours in coach...

I had a recent CO-operated series of flights where I'd been rerouted due to weather. I tried to check in on-line, got boarding passes printed but they said gate check-in required and as one leg was still economy I wanted to ask for upgrade standby at the airport. So at the baggage check-in/ticket counter for elites I tried to get boarding passes and ask for an upgrade. About 20 minutes of typing, clicking and dumbfounded looks on the rep's face ensued during which the rep completely ignored me and did not explain what was going on , followed by her checking with another rep. The rep had a strong accent and poor grammar and though I kept repeating and asking what was going on, I got no reply. I was afraid she did not understand the issues I was asking about and was going to mess up the upgrades on 3/4 legs that had been computer upgraded. Finally when I asked if she needed to check with a supervisor she insisted that a supervisor would not help, that she was trying to find my reservation which had been made on nwa.com and that it was normal to have this sort of thing go on (makes you wonder what the point of on-line check-in is).

Finally boarding passes were given to me. At the gate I checked again about upgrade standby for the economy leg, and the grumpy agent there told me F had checked in full. I thanked her for checking. Then when I was boarding, she directed me (with a bit of a satisfied smile) aside to have a hand-search of carry-on luggage, wanding etc. (Perhaps that was just coincidence).

[This message has been edited by ermdjdsj (edited Dec 11, 2003).]

This is why I always try to use e-checkin or NWA.com. The agents are great at helping out with stuf but if you ask a specific question regarding a complex itinerary you can get them too involved.

The immediately preceding post brings to mind an unanswered question of mine. Why does the agent at the ticket counter have to review everything on the itinerary? Usually the last entry (often an upgrade) is all that I am concerned with. Are they required by the airline to check up on what other fellow employee's have done? I agree they can get way TOO involved. Just solve my immediate issue, that is all!

Often there are significant issues interfacing between NW and CO on codeshare flights. I had a problem once at BWI flying CO metal on a NW ticket that exasperated the CO agents to the point that they actually summoned the NW supervisor over. It took a half hour to get boarding passes.

I called NW this morning to check in on for a CO flight departing tomorrow booked through NW. I was unable to check in through the NW website, so I was doing so by phone. The NW rep told me that I had to contact CO service representative to check in that she could not check me in for a CO flight. I was confused, but did call CO and get checked in for the flights.

Guess that I am still behind the learning curve of the NW-CO-DL relationship since I left DL and started flying NW. I did a search to see of ways to check in an easier way when booked on a NW flight flying on CO metal. Any suggestions or links to a previous discussion?

Thanks

Ok, there are quite a few different issues in this thread and I will try to add my input on the ones that I remember.

First, the interface between NW and CO computer systems is not seemless. They are on two different systems and when one company changes something, it is not necessarily automatically updated in the record of the other system.

Here is how I understand it works. You buy a ticket from NWA on CO metal. NW builds you a record, than when it is transfered over to CO they build you a record. The record locator you were given when you bought the ticket from NW is not the record locator in the CO system since they built a new record and hence gave the same reservation a new record locator so that their agents could access the system. The reservation stays accessible in both systems, but under two different record locators. That is why agents ask you for the flight number and your last name instead of the record locator. They then have to pull up the flight number and look at the last names to find your actual booking. This is especially true if you are standing at the CO counter since they can not access the locator number NW gave you and you do not generally know the locator # that CO assigned to it.

Here is where it gets really sticky. As a NW elite you can call the elite line and be manually upgraded, even on a CO flight. NW will upgrade you in the NW record, but it takes time for it to get over into your CO record. How long, I have no idea. CO elite line agents could loose their job for manually upgrading a CO elite over the phone, hence the Gate Agents comments. (No, one airlines employee generally does not know the policy of the other airline, most of the time they are doing good if they know their own policies.) So, depending on how long it had been since you called NW, the CO agent may not actually "see" the changes, and apparently any changes is enough to boot you to an agent versus the kiosk.

So, I think generally the gate agent understands what you are aksing, there is just alot of things they need to read on the screen and they are not purposefully ignoring you, they are just trying to understand the itenerary as it was bought on one airline and flown on the other.

So, in addition to the computers not intergrating very well, the ailines policies as to what an employee can do and not do in regards to upgrades, etc are not the same from one airline to the next and the individual employee may not understand how a res agent upgraded you on a leg when normally for CO it must be done by the computer.

The only instance I have ever heard of when an agent would take away your upgrade was if you are flying on CO and you are a CO elite and you were upgraded as a CO elite and then you asked the CO agent to change your FF# to a non-elite NW WP #. They realy are not to fond of you leaving their program and earning status on another program while flying their plane.

My favorite exchange has been (repeatedly):

Me: Can you help me check in? The kiosk said to see you.
TA: Give me that (taking my OP Plat card & walking around to the kiosk).

They *never* believe that I might have actually tried to use their silly kiosk before hitting the counter. heh