Could WestJet have e-mailed us our new confirmation without having to call them?

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

About one month ago WestJet changed their whole reservation systems which meant anyone who made reservations prior to that date needed to call them for a new confirmation, because their old one would not work when trying to check-in online. Plus if you had a profile on their old system it was gone and you needed to create a new one. Anyway the wait times on the phone to speak with a WestJet was an hour or even more, however I eventually got through told them our old confirmation and got our new one without any problems.

Now the agent asked me if I wanted it e-mailed and I said yes, however it occured to me if they still had our e-mail on file which we used when our reservation was made, why couldn't they have e-mailed our new confirmation and not have us call them? Personally I think it would have saved a lot of time just waiting on hold and once we got the new confirmation I noticed they changed the time for our flight to Orlando back to 10:30 AM, because earlier it got changed to 9:45 AM. Now I knew it got changed because I looked it up as a new reservation, however let's say I never did that I would not have known it got changed until I saw the confirmation since they never e-mailed it.

 

[safetymom]

Once you make a reservation it is important to keep an eye on the details. Maybe they needed to confirm details when they changed the reservation.

I would never depend on the airline to notify me. I would call them if I noticed any changes.

 

[dioxide45]

From the WestJet website:

Not making changes but are simply planning to travel on a booking made prior to October 17?

If you are travelling on an itinerary which was booked prior to October 17, 2009 you only need your previous WestJet confirmation number in order to check in. You do not need a new booking number. Please note that you are also able to use our Web Check In for ALL bookings regardless of booking date.

Why do you need the new number? The website indicates that you should be able to check in regardless and doesn't mention the need for the new booking number.

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

Because our old confirmation numbers would no longer be good for checking in online.

Also safetymom,
I know it's a good idea to always keep track of your airline reservations however before they changed their website, they would always e-mail us whenever there was a change to our flight times.

The difference what I noticed is they still had our e-mail on file that was used to make our current reservations, so I thought it's weird that they couldn't e-mail the new confirmation since it's on file and times changes like they did before and this way we wouldn't need to be on hold for an hour or more.

 

[safetymom]

By talking with you they confirmed you knew the details. If they sent an email and you weren't expecting it how do they know you received it?

 

[crashbb]

By talking with you they confirmed you knew the details. If they sent an email and you weren't expecting it how do they know you received it?

What I think the non-Canadians don't realise is that this "update" has been something of a fiasco. Currently, WJ's website has it's third letter of "update" (aka apology). People are waiting on hold for well over an hour to get their new confirmation numbers.

In the meantime, there have been numerous schedule changes - not a big deal, but without your reservation number you cannot look up your trip and you'd only know of the schedule change by doing a mock reservation and noting that your flight no longer exists. Also, paid for select seats seem to have disappeared for some people - again, you need your reservation number to check (and correct) this.

It isn't that WJ is calling everybody (to make sure they get the notice of change) - they are only telling people who manage to make it through the long wait to reach someone.

I actually see the OP's point - I'm not sure why WJ couldn't have emailed the new confirmation numbers to people. There may well be a reason that I'm not seeing, but, well I'm not seeing it

 

[safetymom]

Maybe I am missing something then but how does WJ know that you received the new confirmation numbers unless they talk to you?

 

[crashbb]

Maybe I am missing something then but how does WJ know that you received the new confirmation numbers unless they talk to you?

Admittedly they wouldn't. However at least there would be a chance that you got it.

Currently, they made no effort to proactively give people their confirmation numbers. If they were really worried that they *know* that everyone received their new number, they'd call all their passengers (admittedly a difficult task). They way that they are doing it, they *know* that most people WON'T have their new numbers.

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

Also, paid for select seats seem to have disappeared for some people - again, you need your reservation number to check (and correct) this.

When I spoke to the agent I asked her about our pre-paid exit row seats she said they were still good and mentioned their exact row, plus they are also listed on our new confirmation which I printed out. So it's good we don't have that problem.

Edit to add: The only way someone can check to see if their pre-paid seats are still listed as un available if they don't have their new confirmations, is once again by doing a mock reservation, putting in a name and information and then looking looking at the seating chart for their specific flights and seeing that it says their seat says unavailable. Before we got our new confirmation that's exactly what I did.

 

[safetymom]

I think in this day and age for an airline to be worried it notified all its customers is rare. I think an hour on hold is probably better than getting to the airport on the day of travel and finding out there are problems.

The sooner you notice a change or are aware of an issue the sooner you can get it taken care of. I don't think the airlines care to be on top of the issue, they just don't have the manpower to contact everyone everytime a change is made.

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

Well another thing they did with their website changes was wipe out any existing profiles we had, so to look up a flight reservation all you needed to was log in and your information would show right up. I had planned on pre-entering our Passport information so we don't need to do it when we check-in online. However when I was not able to log on that's when I realized all these changes were made. I then noticed when looking up a reservation it re-directs you to the Sabre Virtually There website and that's when I realized our old confirmation was not working on there, because it said reservation was not valid.

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

Admittedly they wouldn't. However at least there would be a chance that you got it.

I was thinking about this today and it occured to me that in general when making reservations on any airline they always ask for a phone and a second one incase they need to contact you. Now maybe they do that to give you the impression they might call, but they obviously had our phone numbers on file and maybe they could have attempted to call some of their customers.

 

[dioxide45]

They really should have provided a lookup tool on their website. Provide your old confirmation number and last name and it would search and return with the new reservation number. They obviously have something like this available to them when you call.

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

They really should have provided a lookup tool on their website. Provide your old confirmation number and last name and it would search and return with the new reservation number. They obviously have something like this available to them when you call.

I agree 100% and your right that the agents obviously have that option on their computers, since they asked for our old confirmation number before telling us the new one.