What's currently broken on new.continental.com

[dbaker]

I thought that it was bad enough that this extremely broken web site was released to their best customers, not to mention the general public today.

What's currently broken, you ask?

• After reserving an itinerary, you must close your browser and start it back up again to be able to purchase it, or it will force you to re-reserve it when you click to buy.
• Cannot assign elite seats, although this used to work.
• The description that you assign an itinerary is not reflected on the "My Accounts" page, so all of mine show up as "AUS-IAH," which is not that useful.
• List of requirements for qualifying for elite status is broken. It either displays that I need "-14" segments to qualify for silver, or nothing at all other than that I'm currently gold.
• It is impossible to delete a reservation, so it's confusing if you have two reservations for the same day, but one is purchased.
• You can use your profile credit card and address when reserving a ticket, but if you go to buy, you have to type in all the information again.
• Incredibly slow, often 30 seconds to a minute for a page to load.

In terms of the design being a problem:

• The "Activity Detail" is using very bloated tables that take pages to scroll through data that could be read in half a screen on the old site
• The Seat Selector uses counter-intuitive colors for indicating which seats are taken or available. It's contrary to the old site and every online booking site and airline.

Major lacking features:

• The site is unable to detect every PNR booked with your Onepass number. The PDA site and similar are able to do this.
• Unable to search for a span of dates when booking reward travel.

This piece of junk is pre-beta. It's so frustrating just trying to give them my money. It's certainly prettier than the old site, but significantly worse. I was foolish to think that the old site was so bad that it couldn't go any further downhill.

I'm not impressed.

[Nugget]

Every time I've had the opportunity, I've complained about the lacking of continental's onepass web site. As a former Delta loyalist it boggles me just how far behind the state of the art Continental's site truly was (especially given their illogical wins during each years Fraudie awards).

It's disappointing to see that CO has apparantly taken our criticism to heart and yet managed to change all the irrelevant things from the old site while carrying through all the frustrations of the old site.

My complaints with COs site, old and new, lie in the timeliness and accuracy of the information and the spartan amount of actual data that's available. This doesn't appear to have changed at all with the new site -- all the changes I've seen are merely cosmetic and superficial.

It's really frustrating that the pda site has better and more accurate data and is easier to navigate than their "real site".

While I'm confident that many of the issues you raise are just quirks and oversights, more a matter of a premature debut than anything else, I'm saddened that CO appears to have overlooked or avoided the more fundamental and impactful areas where their site could see improvement.

An optimist would hope that perhaps this new site is just phase one and was a necessary step in creating the foundation upon which they can build more meaningful improvements. Time will tell, in any event.

[dbaker]

I just tried to change my EUAed sign seat assignment on an (obviously) purchased and ticket itinerary. When I select my new seat and click "continue," I'm greeted with the "Complete Your Purchase" page that wants me to purchase the reservation.

I wonder what would happen if I purchased it a second time. Double FF miles? Two FC seats?

It's a wonder what the people managing this process are employed. I don't think that it's possible for me to think any less of CO IT, but they always surprise me...

[dbaker]

We're sorry, but continental.com was unable to complete your purchase. Please try your purchase later or call 1-800-300-1547 for assistance.

Please take my money, Continental.

[dbaker]

Current Elite Status: Non-Elite
2002 Elite Mileage: 38,927
2002 Elite Segments/Points: 62

What a piece of junk.

[dbaker]

Seat Assignments: V10C | 7F | V7D | V10C

new.continental.com adds some variety to my life.

[Nugget]

For whatever its worth, I finally had an opportunity to book a flight through "new" dot continental.com (now the primary website) and had absolutely no major difficulties. I booked the flight last Friday and the process was smooth. I see from looking at it now that I've been EUA'd on the first two segments (AUS->IAH->RDU) already although I've not received an EUA email.

Seat Assignments: 4A | 1E | 10F | 9A

The only problem I've found is purely cosmetic: The custom name I've given this itenerary only shows up on the ResMgt "Manage Reservations" page. All other places (my account page and the main site page) still confusingly refer to my Raleigh trip as "AUS to IAH".

[dbaker]

I booked on the new site and got an EUA email last night -- and I'm on the same flight as you out of AUS.

The "AUS to IAH" thing is incredibly lame; I agree. Clearly, the guys who wrote this live in IAH.

[Nugget]

Originally Posted by dbaker

Clearly, the guys who wrote this live in IAH.

What? you mean a flight can have more than one segment? Amazing! Tell me more!

[Nugget]

Seat Assignments: 4A | 1E | 1F | 2E

Yay EUA! (But I still have yet to see a single email...)