Air Canada should win an award for having one of the worst e-commerce web sites. It is just terrible. Everything about is designed backwards and makes it as difficult as possible for visitors. It just took me over an hour to book a flight!
Even before I started booking the flight, I kept getting a technical error for over an hour just trying to check flight availability. Same thing happened to me a few months ago. It seems like the site is constantly having technical problems.
First of all, you require an obscur 9 digit account number to login to book your flight. If you are a frequent flyer, you may keep the card in your wallet - but I am not and I don't. Of course I tried to find a tool that might email me my account number, without luck. I found a "forgot your PIN" tool, but each of the options requires that you remember your account number. None of the 100+ questions in FAQs address the account number question - apparently I am the first person who needed to obtain their account number. I had to call two different numbers, being put on hold twice before trying to remember every phone number and exact address that I have had for the past 6-7 years. Finally, I got my account number - back to my order already in progress.
Now my best guess at my PIN fails, so I try the "forgot PIN" tool. Enter pet's name, no problem. Usually these things send you an email immediately - but this took 15 minutes - okay, back to the order already in progress.
After entering 3 more pages of information, and not before, I get an error saying that the booking is no longer held for me. Why the hell didn't they tell me that the moment I submitted my account number and PIN? Extremely frustrating....
So I start the whole process from the beginning. Of course, their system was not smart enough to remember any of the information that I previously submitted, so I had to fill everything in again. Finally, when I submit the order, AGAIN it tells me that my session has expired (though the error page was different, with no explanation why).
So I start the whole process from the beginning, this time typing at the speed of light, trying to beat the clock. This worried me somewhat, as I don't have a good track record when it comes to correctly booking flights (who knew 0900 wasn't the same as 9pm?). After zipping through the pages and forms, the order finally was processed.
The site is just the worst - I could go on and on. Makes me wanna call in and listen to their annoying automated telephone system blab on and on for 10 minutes (telling youn to go to the web site) before letting to talk to someone (or more likely wait 15 miniutes before you talk to someone).
Air Canada, get a clue!
Search Engine Optimization, Blog Design, Movable Type Customization, and more.
