FLYLOW22
Advanced
- Sep 8, 2002
- 101
- 2
Unveiled new US Airways website!
- Thread starter Diamondbacks2004
- Start date
Add me to the list of people that are unhappy with the new site. I tried to log in using my DM # and PIN. Error message so I called web support. They verified that I was using the correct PIN. Tried to walk me through changing it and continued to get error messages. Finally told me to wait until sometime in early JUNE! Was told that I would have to call CP desk to book tickets as the new system won't recognize me.... :down:
But not to worry all my miles and segments would post......
But not to worry all my miles and segments would post......
jerseyfinn
Senior
I'm not suprpised that there are some issues as US transitions to a new web site design. I'm still feeling my way areound the site, but aside from figuring out how to navigate, most things appear in order.
I'm able to log-in into my DM account as well as the accounts I set up for my wife and son. The miles are all there and the past flt info is current thru April as well as the travel profiles I've set for each of us. Reservations are not listed, but in terms of functionality, things are working.
I haven't had a java script issues ( yet ). I'm not ready to pass final judgement on the site as I need time to work with it and get the feel of things. But at this stage, it's a qualified "OK".
Barry
I'm able to log-in into my DM account as well as the accounts I set up for my wife and son. The miles are all there and the past flt info is current thru April as well as the travel profiles I've set for each of us. Reservations are not listed, but in terms of functionality, things are working.
I haven't had a java script issues ( yet ). I'm not ready to pass final judgement on the site as I need time to work with it and get the feel of things. But at this stage, it's a qualified "OK".
Barry
Travels2mch
Veteran
I am able to log on, but when I try to go to my account, (since 5/21), I get the following error:
We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request.
Here's what happened:
This portion of our site is temporarily unavailable.
Here's how to fix it:
Please wait a few moments and then try again.
If you need help, please call our 24-hour Internet Help Desk at 1-800-327-7810.
Reference Code: 0 (1.8.800000.100001)
Try again in a few moments? I have been trying for 6 days. I called the help desk and busy busy busy busy!! What a joke....but then again, it's par.........
We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request.
Here's what happened:
This portion of our site is temporarily unavailable.
Here's how to fix it:
Please wait a few moments and then try again.
If you need help, please call our 24-hour Internet Help Desk at 1-800-327-7810.
Reference Code: 0 (1.8.800000.100001)
Try again in a few moments? I have been trying for 6 days. I called the help desk and busy busy busy busy!! What a joke....but then again, it's par.........
OP
Diamondbacks2004
Advanced
- Mar 29, 2004
- 237
- 0
- Thread Starter
- Thread starter
- #50
US Airways debuts improved, easier-to-use Web site
Dawn Gilbertson
The Arizona Republic
May 26, 2006 12:00 AM
One of the first things America West executives heard from US Airways travelers after the airlines' merger last year was a plea to ditch US Airways' Web site.
It was hard to navigate, with flights awkwardly displayed and options hard to decipher. The numbers bore it out: just 13 percent of US Airways' ticket sales came via usairways.com, compared with 31 percent at America West.
America West's conversion rate, the folks who booked rather than just looked, was 75 percent higher than US Airways' despite a lot more visitors to the site.
"People would get there and they would get frustrated with the process and then they'd quit," said Travis Christ, vice president of sales and marketing for the new US Airways.
The airline listened and this week quietly debuted the new usairways.com. It replaces americawest.com and the old usairways.com and is based on the former America West Web site. Visitors to the old sites are redirected to the new site, which has the temporary address of www2.usairways.com/awa.
The switch to a single Web site and, in tandem, a single frequent-flier program, marks a key merger milestone and erases two high-profile pieces of the home-grown America West. Americawest.com and FlightFund, its longtime frequent-flier program, are no more. Aside from repainting the old America West's planes, these are the biggest changes customers will see as a result of the merger.
The new Web site includes some features of the US Airways site, including the ability to type in a city name or airport code for flights instead of having to scroll down a long list of cities served, as you did at americawest.com. And for the first time since the merger, travelers will be able to book America West and US Airways-operated flights in one place.
The Tempe-based airline is not hawking the changes to travelers yet because it wants to shake out the glitches over the next couple of weeks.
The early reaction on the new usairways.com has been mixed, though no major problems have surfaced, and the company says the launch could not have gone much better.
The biggest glitch hit Monday, the first business day of the new site, when about half of the visitors to the site received messages that the airline didn't fly to the cities they were trying to book. The problem was restored that afternoon, Christ said.
Frequent fliers reported problems logging into their mileage accounts, missing mileage, uncombined mileage from the two airlines, error messages and more.
Christ says the mileage discrepancies were expected because they had to have a mileage cutoff date before the switchover took place. Everything on that front should be up to date in a couple of weeks, Christ said.
Fred Donatucci, a Honeywell program manager who commutes between Phoenix and his home in Los Angeles once or twice a week, noticed a lot of glitches early in the week. He said his biggest problem was checking in online for a flight on Sunday, the first day of the new Web site.
At first, he was told him he was randomly selected to check in at the airport instead of online. Then it allowed him to check in but lost his preassigned seat.
"I had to call them," he said. "They ended up fixing it pretty well."
Donatucci works in Honeywell's information technology department and said he has sympathy for any company's computer challenges. Still, he said US Airways likely launched the new site a tad early.
"I think they probably could have used another week or so," he said. "Even better, it seems like some of the issues they had would have been resolved easily if they had involved more people outside the company" in a beta test.
This is the first airline merged in the era of big Internet sales. When American Airlines scooped up bankrupt TWA in 2001, Internet sales were not yet a major financial force at many airlines.
Bookings at airlines' Web sites have soared since then, reaching as high as 65 percent at online pioneer Southwest Airlines.
Airlines want to drive as many sales there as possible because it's the cheapest method of selling tickets. There are no booking fees to pay the giant computer reservation systems used by traditional and online travel agencies.
Christ said US Airways hopes it can get the combined airline to near America West's percentage of Internet sales within six months since the site is easier to book on.
"If we can get the same recapture rate of those customers who go ahead and buy now (at America West), we're going to see a great revenue lift and a great cost savings," he said.
The changeover wasn't quick or easy. The airlines' Web site operations were night and day. America West ran its site in-house, giving it a major overhaul before the merger, while US Airways outsourced its Web site to save money.
Then there's the minor little problem of Byzantine airline pricing, change policies, cancellations, upgrades and more. There are easily millions of combinations of reservations and changes that people can make, Christ said.
"Airline Web sites are about as complicated a retail Web site as you can possibly have," he said.
"You think of Amazon.com as a fancy retail site, and they do a lot of great things, but theirs is very simple compared to what we have to do."
Airlines have to hook into the reservation systems, the airport operations (for flight status) and their frequent-flier programs, a vast database on its own.
Jon Ryder, an America West frequent flier with nearly 500,000 miles in his account, said he hasn't encountered any glitches this week. His miles weren't combined Sunday but they were by Monday.
The Phoenix consultant, whose firm RWI Mediacom offers services including Web site hosting, gets a little irritated by those who complain about early problems with the site because some aren't known until the switchover occurs.
"It's unrealistic for people to say, 'Yeah, they should have this 100 percent before you go live,' " he said. "Microsoft doesn't get everything 100 percent."
Dawn Gilbertson
The Arizona Republic
May 26, 2006 12:00 AM
One of the first things America West executives heard from US Airways travelers after the airlines' merger last year was a plea to ditch US Airways' Web site.
It was hard to navigate, with flights awkwardly displayed and options hard to decipher. The numbers bore it out: just 13 percent of US Airways' ticket sales came via usairways.com, compared with 31 percent at America West.
America West's conversion rate, the folks who booked rather than just looked, was 75 percent higher than US Airways' despite a lot more visitors to the site.
"People would get there and they would get frustrated with the process and then they'd quit," said Travis Christ, vice president of sales and marketing for the new US Airways.
The airline listened and this week quietly debuted the new usairways.com. It replaces americawest.com and the old usairways.com and is based on the former America West Web site. Visitors to the old sites are redirected to the new site, which has the temporary address of www2.usairways.com/awa.
The switch to a single Web site and, in tandem, a single frequent-flier program, marks a key merger milestone and erases two high-profile pieces of the home-grown America West. Americawest.com and FlightFund, its longtime frequent-flier program, are no more. Aside from repainting the old America West's planes, these are the biggest changes customers will see as a result of the merger.
The new Web site includes some features of the US Airways site, including the ability to type in a city name or airport code for flights instead of having to scroll down a long list of cities served, as you did at americawest.com. And for the first time since the merger, travelers will be able to book America West and US Airways-operated flights in one place.
The Tempe-based airline is not hawking the changes to travelers yet because it wants to shake out the glitches over the next couple of weeks.
The early reaction on the new usairways.com has been mixed, though no major problems have surfaced, and the company says the launch could not have gone much better.
The biggest glitch hit Monday, the first business day of the new site, when about half of the visitors to the site received messages that the airline didn't fly to the cities they were trying to book. The problem was restored that afternoon, Christ said.
Frequent fliers reported problems logging into their mileage accounts, missing mileage, uncombined mileage from the two airlines, error messages and more.
Christ says the mileage discrepancies were expected because they had to have a mileage cutoff date before the switchover took place. Everything on that front should be up to date in a couple of weeks, Christ said.
Fred Donatucci, a Honeywell program manager who commutes between Phoenix and his home in Los Angeles once or twice a week, noticed a lot of glitches early in the week. He said his biggest problem was checking in online for a flight on Sunday, the first day of the new Web site.
At first, he was told him he was randomly selected to check in at the airport instead of online. Then it allowed him to check in but lost his preassigned seat.
"I had to call them," he said. "They ended up fixing it pretty well."
Donatucci works in Honeywell's information technology department and said he has sympathy for any company's computer challenges. Still, he said US Airways likely launched the new site a tad early.
"I think they probably could have used another week or so," he said. "Even better, it seems like some of the issues they had would have been resolved easily if they had involved more people outside the company" in a beta test.
This is the first airline merged in the era of big Internet sales. When American Airlines scooped up bankrupt TWA in 2001, Internet sales were not yet a major financial force at many airlines.
Bookings at airlines' Web sites have soared since then, reaching as high as 65 percent at online pioneer Southwest Airlines.
Airlines want to drive as many sales there as possible because it's the cheapest method of selling tickets. There are no booking fees to pay the giant computer reservation systems used by traditional and online travel agencies.
Christ said US Airways hopes it can get the combined airline to near America West's percentage of Internet sales within six months since the site is easier to book on.
"If we can get the same recapture rate of those customers who go ahead and buy now (at America West), we're going to see a great revenue lift and a great cost savings," he said.
The changeover wasn't quick or easy. The airlines' Web site operations were night and day. America West ran its site in-house, giving it a major overhaul before the merger, while US Airways outsourced its Web site to save money.
Then there's the minor little problem of Byzantine airline pricing, change policies, cancellations, upgrades and more. There are easily millions of combinations of reservations and changes that people can make, Christ said.
"Airline Web sites are about as complicated a retail Web site as you can possibly have," he said.
"You think of Amazon.com as a fancy retail site, and they do a lot of great things, but theirs is very simple compared to what we have to do."
Airlines have to hook into the reservation systems, the airport operations (for flight status) and their frequent-flier programs, a vast database on its own.
Jon Ryder, an America West frequent flier with nearly 500,000 miles in his account, said he hasn't encountered any glitches this week. His miles weren't combined Sunday but they were by Monday.
The Phoenix consultant, whose firm RWI Mediacom offers services including Web site hosting, gets a little irritated by those who complain about early problems with the site because some aren't known until the switchover occurs.
"It's unrealistic for people to say, 'Yeah, they should have this 100 percent before you go live,' " he said. "Microsoft doesn't get everything 100 percent."
[quote name='PineyBob' date='May 31 2006, 07:30 PM' post='385083'
Sure it did Travis and I'm the Pope. Yet another example of Sandcastle spin with no relation to facts.
[/quote]
You should have told US before about your " Pope Skills "
they were obviously sorely needed !
Sure it did Travis and I'm the Pope. Yet another example of Sandcastle spin with no relation to facts.
[/quote]
You should have told US before about your " Pope Skills "
they were obviously sorely needed !
jimcfs
Veteran
I booked an award ticket last night online. In order to get the seatmaps to size correctly in the popup windows, I had to redo it in Internet Explorer instead of FireFox.
ClueByFour
Veteran
- Aug 20, 2002
- 3,566
- 37
The old site did that for web check in.
On an unrelated note, you have to wonder how much lost revenue this debacle has cost them. I've posted time and again that the Sandcastle denizens had not done anything difficult or expensive yet in regards to the merger. I rest my case (and UA just picked up $500 to get me from the carolinas to NYC).
sentrido
Veteran
- Jan 8, 2004
- 1,004
- 0
I haven't read thru the thread so i dont know if this has been pointed out already, but the "new" website SUCKS!!! the UI is annoying as hell. Don.t type in your origin and destination to quickly (as someone who flys every week might do...) or the nice active bullshit search help will nicely populate your search with the wrong airports. buying a ticket is "temporarlily unavailable", though i get to go thru the fun of filling everything out before it lets me know this, and apparently getting a human on chat or the phone to do it the old fashioned way is not gonna happen today. EAT A@# US. The only reason I fly you and your crappy oversold RJ for 5 hours a week is cause NWA is all SCABS. NOTE TO US, IF YOU HAVE 4 OVERSOLD RJ'S, PUT 2 BIGGER AIRPLANES ON IT, JERKS.
sentrido
Veteran
- Jan 8, 2004
- 1,004
- 0
:angry: This is total bullshit. On the enterprise level projects i'm involved with, particularly the ones that are CUSTOMER facing, we spend more time in testing than development. Then we would do something called a BETA, and offer our top 500 to 10000 or so customers or users ( depending on the relative size of the project ) early access for 2 or three months and a DEDICATED help line JUST FOR THE BETA USERS to log any errors and in this case I assume to immediatly book tickets or whatever. US/AWA did this project on the cheap, or they got ripped off by whomever they overpaid to do this transition. :angry:
Rant done. I feel much better now.
Would you like to give it a try? Somehow I think that sums it up!
Art at ISP
Veteran
Here's another thing if no one has caught this yet.
I went back to book my now infamous trip to the coast for the end of June (sorry no LAX this time), and on the SAN-SFO leg it would only show connections through PHX or LAS--NO UA codeshares on nonstops.
Just as I was about to go to UA and give them the business, I thought to call Chairmans'. THEY were able to give me what I wanted, AND complete the upgrade procedure (I used miles so as not to have to dance later). If it were not for the Angels at Chairmans' there would have been almost another $1k out the door.
I wonder how much business they are actually losing with this web site.........
I went back to book my now infamous trip to the coast for the end of June (sorry no LAX this time), and on the SAN-SFO leg it would only show connections through PHX or LAS--NO UA codeshares on nonstops.
Just as I was about to go to UA and give them the business, I thought to call Chairmans'. THEY were able to give me what I wanted, AND complete the upgrade procedure (I used miles so as not to have to dance later). If it were not for the Angels at Chairmans' there would have been almost another $1k out the door.
I wonder how much business they are actually losing with this web site.........
I dont think its just the website. The computer at work often shows WN flights in availability BEFORE US or US* flights on UA. Talk about having to shop around for the flight you want.... I know US has a nonstop to PHL, why is it showing me WN????? :down:
