haa

Most of the airlines I use mainly in Northern Europe support passbook (AY, AB, BA, etc and AA in US), I use it often.

With the Apple Watch passbook I have gotten the "wow that's so cool" response around here at the airport when I've tried it (Apple watch is not on sale or commonly seen in most European countries yet).

Scanner placement usually makes it more convenient to use the phone as you need to hand your boarding pass to the staff for scanning at their counter. I hope this may change soon when more users appear.

When the scanner placement is OK for using the watch, it is really cool and easy, though.

Sometimes I also print the boarding pass, as the passbook version usually doesn't show clearly enough priority boarding, lounge invitation etc.

IslesFan

I just got my watch on Thursday, and I have a DL flight on Monday. Does the passbook on the watch behave the same where the boarding pass will be on the home or lockscreen right before the flight?

wcj1

Not exactly.

When you raise your watch, it will show the clock face. Drag down from the top with your finger, and it will show notifications and you can tap your boarding pass there. Then scroll with your finger or wheel to get to the barcode on the pass.

skofarrell

The BP on the Apple Watch worked like a charm on Southwest as their scanner points down. The GA was pretty impressed.

TSA, was not so easy as their scanner faces up...it looked like it would involve some contortions to get it to read. Couple with having to take the watch off to avoid setting off the metal detector, I elected to use the phone.

Going to try Delta this afternoon (can't remember if they are up or down, despite 100's of flights ).

wcj1

If you slide your watch around your wrist so the face is on the bottom of your wrist, it improves scanning ease a lot.

I have the Sport version and it does not set off the metal detector.

IslesFan

I'm 1 for 3 on using it this morning at LGA:

TSA: Had the barcode open for about two minutes before the TDC. Looks like passbook has a timeout of some sorts? Lesson learned, access the barcode right before.

SkyClub: "Our scanner isnt set up for the barcode to be raised that high" (The reader was facing down)

Gate: Success!

JohnnyColombia

Do you people not think that Passbook is a bit of a fuss due to the apps that will not remember your itinerary without being logged in? UA is the only app that I have found to be useful, it saves your flights to your "home page"

Examples

Book a BA flight, I credit to BAEC, I am logged into my BAEC account, all good

Book an IB flight on iberia.com, credit it to my BAEC account. IB app will not remember the PNR and I am not logging in to my IB account because a) I do not have one and b) I am crediting the flights to BA

Same as above goes for most airlines I find, AA, CX flights I have coming up, have to manually tap in my PNR each time. Might as well just print a regular boarding pass.

Would be really nice if myflightapp or similar could access PNRs in both Amadeus and Sabre and then add the boarding passes to Passbook, even if it meant having all of the apps in a folder and myflightapp having access to the airline app. Unless something is going to remember all my PNRs then it is not worthwhile.

Of course if you are 100% one airline and credit those miles to that airline and log into your account via the app then I am sure this is ideal.

If I am being an idiot and there is a glaringly obvious solution to this problem then please set me straight and share it.

dkjb3t4

Isn't that more of a airline app issue though?
Airlines have a pretty complicated ticketing system with partner awards, internal awards, cash tickets, award upgrades, internal booking number, internal booking number, partner code, partner ticket number, etc etc.

The only thing I'd like to see is for Passbook to be able to scan more boarding passes.

JohnnyColombia

Well yes it's an app issue, unless I am misunderstanding a nuance in what you say. But it is an issue that UA can overcome. AV reward tickets on UA, no log in, saved to the home screen, works just fine. All airlines are able to access their own reservations and I'd happily download all of them and stick them in a folder if only they'd save the PNR without a log in. So long as I have to reenter my PNR and surname, it's too clunky to be of much any use.

dkjb3t4

I think it's still a little nicer than printing out boarding passes though. Too many valuable things to track when you're at the airport: passport, boarding pass, wallet, phone, luggage, etc.
Being able to forget about boarding pass since it's there electronically is pretty awesome.

Most airline apps are pretty horrible (AA is ok, BA is ok, Delta was good, Korean air is garbage, cathay garbage, air china among the worst, JAL among the worst) so I'm not surprised they have a hard time dealing with passbook.

quick_dry

NZ uses passbook now - only for airports you can do online checkin with (ie not SYD)

S c 0 TT y

Count Emirates in. They have dedicated apps for iPhone, iPad and now more recently the Apple Watch.

deniah

my passbook* boarding passes are completely disparate from the sourced apps. each digital BP can be loaded directly from the apps, or via weblink, or email attachment. once their, it is independent to the source... can be accessible anytime with security layer native to the phone (passcode, touchID, etc)

typically i check in on a computer, get boarding passes emailed (this way i have copy for future purposes), and email has an attachment that i open on the phone that will generate a passbook BP......

never deal with the PNR to pull up this BP again



*apple is rebranding passbook into Wallet

JohnnyColombia

This sounds ideal. Which airlines are doing this?

deniah

all the major carriers ive used attach .pkpass to email confirm automatically or has email link to .pkpass file (*): MH, LX*, LH*, OS*, TAP, etc

no visibile .pkpass:
AB, TK, UA