screeton

What is probably the most important bit of information on a just completed reservation? If not THE most important, one of the most critical bits of information is the six letter-numeral reservation number. With "real world" programming, this number would be BOLD and in a larger font size, for ease of reading and so that it would stand out on the page.

In the present warm-fuzzy world of SWA programmers, this critical bit of information is in a relatively small font size, in some odd shade of orange. On a monitor, its easy to miss if you aren't specifically looking for it, and even then, its necessary to look closely to get the right number. If you print out the reservation when the purchase confirmation comes back, on a black & white laser printer the res number prints as light grey on white -- almost unreadable.

Did anyone in the real world -- actual users -- look over this user-unfriendly, advertising overburdened web redesign before it was implemented? SWA in a few short years has gone from a simple, fast, functional website, to a classic FUBAR configuration. The higher fares we are all paying are no doubt helping to pay the consultants and IT people who designed and implemented this thing.

dlaue

+1 on this!

The OLD WN site used to print the reservation number in big, bold font.

Why, do you suppose, did they change this?

screeton

Change just for the sake of change is good. Change was suggested by consultants to make page look "cute". Change helps secure employment of otherwise "on the street" IT people. Kelley likes that shade of orange. Take your pick -- I choose all of the above.

fetchem

I haven't experienced any of the problems listed. I now fly AAnother AAirline.

schor662

The biggest thing that irks me is not being able to check in for a flight T-24 EWR-STL-DEN due to the fact that I hadn't completed the full outbound flight yet DEN-STL-EWR. Return flight started T-24 while I was waiting in STL for my leg to EWR. Spoke with customer service and they couldn't do anything to override check-in. Luckily I had paid for EBCI.

iansltx

...and that's why you book dual OW tickets... :/

texashoser

Hmm, are you sure about this? Granted, I'm AL+ and get auto-seat assignment at T-36, but I take many day trips and regardless, you can't check in until T-24. Usually, I have a 6:00 am flight to HOU and the return is at 5:00 pm the same day. I typically check in for *both* flights at 6:00 pm the day before the flight and never have had problems. I really don't think you have to complete an outbound leg prior to checking in for the inbound leg, but I've been wrong before...

DCEsquire

Is anyone else having trouble getting to the site today?

http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/southwest.com

says's it's down!

ftnoob

I notice nothing unusual.

I suspect SWA's web servers block access for the IP address(es) used by the downforeveryone... site; I have never seen it report that southwest.com is up.

schor662

It could be because it was a 1-stop flight that there was this issue and I was checking in between the two legs of the flight. I was just told by SW customer service, who was talking with IT for an hour to override that there was nothing they can do.

texashoser

That doesn't make sense. You can check in for any flight - whether the inbound or the outbound leg - regardless of if the outbound leg has been completed - at 24 hours before the scheduled flight departure. In the case of a multi-stop leg where you change flights one, two, three times, etc, you will get boarding passes for all segments even though the latter segments are scheduled to depart at a time that is greater than 24 hours from the initial segment of the leg.

albates

Southwest does not really offer all flights for the number of points the rules state? Per the rules all "want to get away" flights are available for 60 points x each dollar value of the flight. Today when attempting to book a flight from LAS to OKC the fare showed to be $139 or 8,340 points. When I tried to book it using points I got a message stating "OOPS the fare had changed to over 13,000 points. Just to test the system I went back and booked the flight for the $139 fare as advertised using cash purchase. I then tried this on several other days and times and the same issue arises.

texashoser

Yep, encountered this this evening. I've, for the most part, supported WN in this forum, but all the bugs that aren't getting fixed and the new ones that seemingly pop up about once a week are irritating the hell out of me... I realize airline systems are extremely complex and involve numerous huge databases, but man, you have to wonder what's going on in Dallas. They're simply trying to make too many changes too fast seemingly without any kind of adequate testing.

dlaue

Here's another bug:

Wife used her Droid to secure her companion boarding pass at T-24.

When I went to check-in my reservation and to reprint her boarding pass, there is no easy way to do that from the "future travel" screen (unless I am missing something).

I had to copy each PRN and paste them into the general boarding pass screen along with passenger names to reprint her pass and to secure and print mine.

Very clunky.

johnslloyd

I attempted to book a res online using only TTFs (3 of them). The process was proceeding normally, TTFs all looked applied properly, so I pulled the trigger to book it. I got an error message to the effect of "we were unable to complete the transaction due to an undefined error", "please try again". So I hit the back button and hit the submit button again. Reservation goes through, but when I check closely, it had booked using my Chase SW Visa for all except a few $$ left from one of the 3 TTFs I submitted the first time around.

Waited a bit and checked future res. Two reservations! What had happened was that the first error message was itself in error and the first attempt HAD booked successfully. Called the SW A+ line and had the agent cancel the 2nd res & refund my CC (It was a WGA fare and I couldn't have cancelled with a refund myself). The few $$ that should be left on one TTF haven't shown up yet, however.

If I hadn't been paying close attention I would have missed that it double-booked me. I would have picked it up later when viewing future res, but don't know when and it might have been more difficult to get the refund.

Man, what an unreliable POS booking engine! Cheers for the A+ reservation line. CSR picked up within about 30 seconds, knew who I was based on caller ID and no muss, no fuss did what was needed.