Report on ATA Web Check In: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

[inkkognito]

For our weekend trip, we flew ATA out of Midway and only had carry-on bags, so we decided to try their web check-in service. This allows you to check in and print out boarding passes from your computer up to 24 hours ahead of time.
It was great on the outbound flight. I checked in, got exit rows, and printed the passes with no problem. Next time we're doing carry-on, I will definitely do it again. On the way back, we wanted to try for exit rows again, so we paid $10 to use the hotel's internet service. I got an error message saying to call customer service. When I called, they said I couldn't do it from a hotel computer. I think they should prominently tell you that up front on their website, since that's where you could reasonably expect a lot of people would do it for the return leg. Plus, when we got to MCO we couldn't even access our ressie from the e-ticket kiosks, so we were stuck in the line (and no, we didn't get exit rows). So all in all, the good part is it works great from home...the bad part is, they need to let you know when it will work and when it doesn't, and the ugliness was having our ressie locked and ending up in the line.
Barb
Visit the Platinum Castaway Club at: www.castawayclub.com

 

[cdrn1]

We used web checkin in June flying to Las Vegas and we thought that it worked out pretty well. We checked in, drove to Indy, spent the night in a hotel, got up, walked across the parking lot and right in to the security line. It was great. On the return flight it didn't occur to us to try it from the hotel so we didn't up in your jam. So, for us it worked.