My fellow cafe fiends, I write to you today with a heavy heart. OK, perhaps that's a bit much...let's just say I've been betrayed.
Yesterday I heralded the long-awaited coming of truly mobile check-in, using my Blackberry as a boarding pass with Qantas. Well, it's time to silence the trumpets as my return experience wasn't so exciting.
When I repeated the process of checking in for my return flight (in the cab on the way to the airport - had to keep up the image of "man on the move") after clicking the "Check In" button on the Qantas mobile site I was left with this crushing message: "Boarding pass expired. Please call 13 13 13 for assistance."
But I don't want to talk to anyone. I want my robot fingerprint!
Alas, apparently there is some bug in the system where if you check into your outbound flight, sometimes it checks you in for the return flight at the same time. Or so the Qantas staff on the help line told me.
Actually, it wasn't all bad - I've never had such excited Qantas people on the phone with me helping out with a problem. When I rang in and described my plight, the agent on the phone couldn't have been more excited. "Ooh, you're my first call who's used the service! Let me get out my new manual and see what we can do." A few calls back and an escalation to a supervisor only got me to the above conclusion - a bug - but hey, at least the human element of technology was nice to work with.
But I have to say that my earlier effusiveness has waned somewhat...let's see how things go next time as I'll likely be using Virgin Blue's new "Checkmate" system for my next trip. Here's hoping it will bring back that "high" - well, high-tech anyway - feeling from before!
Showing posts with label Mobile Check-In. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mobile Check-In. Show all posts
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Checking Out the New Checking In
Mobile phones have been around for ages it seems. And yes, mobile technology providers, handset manufacturers and software companies have been saying for years that the process of getting on an airplane is going to be revolutionised.
But until yesterday, this particularly well-travelled Barista had yet to really and truly have his travel experience altered by the mobile world.
How did this happen? It only took a little squiggle of lines looking much like a robot's fingerprint, scanned on the screen of my mobile, to change everything.
Recently both Qantas and Virgin Blue announced the availability of mobile check-in along with a suite of other mobile-device enabled services - mainly geared towards iPhones and Blackberries. Virgin Blue in particular has made much noise about their Blackberry-specific application which from my limited exposure to the "App World" seems to be a big deal as it appears to me that nearly everyone else is building Apps for the iPhone. As a Crackberry addict I'm pleased someone is looking out for us who crave real buttons on our smartphones rather than vapourous touch screens. Luddites unite!
But, back to the real action, and how do these much-vaunted applications work in the real world? I can honestly say they work a treat. The night before my flight to Melbourne on Qantas, I logged into their mobile site, found my booking, checked-in on my phone and received a 2-dimensional (in techspeak it's actually called "2D") barcode via SMS and on the Qantas mobile site. Today I just strolled past the check-in queues and kiosks, through security, and straight to the gate where I flashed my phone under the scanner and voila- a beep and a green light later and I'm on my way down the jetway.
I should point out that it's not a completely paperless process- you do get a little ATM-receipt sized piece of paper which you need to produce at the door of the plane to prove that you've used a paper-less process to get that far. An added layer of security, the flight attendant assures me. No problem, I'm all for a bit of tree sacrifice for safety.
But as I write this post, I find myself strangely excited about the prospect of repeating the process on my way home tomorrow. Perhaps not so much because the mobile check-in has finally found it's day in the sun, but more so that I am hoping that I'm again the only person on my flight tomorrow who will be able to whip out their phone and scan my way onto a flight.
As with all new technologies, it's only as cool as long as you're the only one who knows about it. After everyone starts doing it, I'm sure it'll be as boring as in-flight food in no time.
But until yesterday, this particularly well-travelled Barista had yet to really and truly have his travel experience altered by the mobile world.
How did this happen? It only took a little squiggle of lines looking much like a robot's fingerprint, scanned on the screen of my mobile, to change everything.
Recently both Qantas and Virgin Blue announced the availability of mobile check-in along with a suite of other mobile-device enabled services - mainly geared towards iPhones and Blackberries. Virgin Blue in particular has made much noise about their Blackberry-specific application which from my limited exposure to the "App World" seems to be a big deal as it appears to me that nearly everyone else is building Apps for the iPhone. As a Crackberry addict I'm pleased someone is looking out for us who crave real buttons on our smartphones rather than vapourous touch screens. Luddites unite!
But, back to the real action, and how do these much-vaunted applications work in the real world? I can honestly say they work a treat. The night before my flight to Melbourne on Qantas, I logged into their mobile site, found my booking, checked-in on my phone and received a 2-dimensional (in techspeak it's actually called "2D") barcode via SMS and on the Qantas mobile site. Today I just strolled past the check-in queues and kiosks, through security, and straight to the gate where I flashed my phone under the scanner and voila- a beep and a green light later and I'm on my way down the jetway.
I should point out that it's not a completely paperless process- you do get a little ATM-receipt sized piece of paper which you need to produce at the door of the plane to prove that you've used a paper-less process to get that far. An added layer of security, the flight attendant assures me. No problem, I'm all for a bit of tree sacrifice for safety.
But as I write this post, I find myself strangely excited about the prospect of repeating the process on my way home tomorrow. Perhaps not so much because the mobile check-in has finally found it's day in the sun, but more so that I am hoping that I'm again the only person on my flight tomorrow who will be able to whip out their phone and scan my way onto a flight.
As with all new technologies, it's only as cool as long as you're the only one who knows about it. After everyone starts doing it, I'm sure it'll be as boring as in-flight food in no time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)