TotallyOz Posted March 6, 2010 Posted March 6, 2010 Business traveler Mike Monroe no longer rummages through his bag at the airline counter fishing for his flight ticket or confirmation number. The consultant from Lakeland, Fla., has gone paperless, thanks to Continental Airlines' electronic boarding passes. Once he checks in online, the carrier e-mails a bar code to his phone. That code is scanned at security checkpoints and gates instead of a boarding pass. "It takes away a lot of annoyances." FLIGHT NEWS: Our Today in the Sky community Monroe also uses his BlackBerry for airlines' flight-change alerts, routing all calls into one number provided by Google Voice, turn-by-turn driving directions when he's behind the wheel and watching TV on Slingbox when he has downtime. He also carries an iPod Touch Quote
Guest fountainhall Posted March 7, 2010 Posted March 7, 2010 I somehow wonder if most of these innovations are available in Thailand. Are they likely to arrive before 3G is finally introduced here? I suppose it must be advancing years, but I like technology to work and it often seems not to do so with me. For example, airlines encourage you to book on line and then do things like seat selection and printing of boarding passes on your computer prior to leaving for the airport. As a top-tier loyalty club member of one major airline, I can select my seat at the time of booking. This I do. Yet on three occasions - three - when I have then tried to print out the boarding passes for flights to Europe, different seats pop up. At the airport each time I am told "but you must have changed your seat" which is bullshit! Being stubborn, I demand to see the duty manager, ask him to track every stage in my on-line booking process - and then finally they twice moved someone out of 'my' seat, and once they even upgraded me. I guess I'll eventually move to a phone with all those bells and whistles, but only when someone can convince me that the applications will work 100% of the time. Quote
Gaybutton Posted March 7, 2010 Posted March 7, 2010 only when someone can convince me that the applications will work 100% of the time. It isn't 100% of the time, but if the online screw-ups can result in an upgrade, that would be enough for me to at least continue booking online, smartphone or not. If the gate agent is going to move someone out of the seat you requested, ask where they're going to move him. Maybe he's the one who would end up with an upgrade, in which case I would tell them to let him stay there and move me instead. Quote
Guest fountainhall Posted March 7, 2010 Posted March 7, 2010 It isn't 100% of the time, but if the online screw-ups can result in an upgrade, that would be enough for me to at least continue booking online The problem is these flights originated in Australia and so Bangkok is a stop-over. Obviously someone in Sydney screwed up and the seats were switched. It's therefore not difficult to switch back - although if I were the passenger from Australia I'd not be pleased at having to move from a window seat to the middle of a row. I presume I got the upgrade because, the seat swap notwithstanding, they were overbooked and top-tier loyalty club members are the first to be bumped up. Or so it goes in theory . . . ! Quote
