Beginning today: Boarding pass advertisements

by Grant Martin on

Six of the legacy carriers carriers announced today that they’re participating in a new program to implement advertisements into their boarding passes. So now when you try to save time by checking in online you’ll be bombarded with a Carnivial Cruise ad that you have to print out and carry around with you while you’re at the airport.

Anything to make money, right? I’m kind of surprised that we don’t have ad space on the inside of aircraft — on the ceiling, walls and seat backs — US Airways already tried putting advertisements on the air sickness bags.

Today, Delta will be the first carrier to test drive the service, called Sojern, on its routes into Vegas, but the ads will quickly multiply around that route. Bacteria reproducing in a host body is a good way to think about that.

What I’m most curious about is whether the 3rd party ads will be custom tailored to the specific passenger. Will I, a young male be getting ads for Lane Bryant? Or will Sojern work with the airline to study my travel behavior, look at my past trips and send me a coupon for happy hour in New York?

Either way, you can kiss your old print-at-home boarding passes goodbye. Which is fine with me, as long as they don’t raise ticket prices.

Use a cell phone to secure your Southwest Airlines boarding pass

by Justin Glow on

Over a year ago, I wrote about how you can print your Southwest Airlines boarding pass without a printer, but since then I got a Blackberry and have adapted the same concept to a cell phone.

Two weekends ago, I was in Chicago for St. Patrick’s Day, and instead of leaving the party mid-day Saturday to find a computer to check in and get my “A” boarding pass for our Sunday flight back home, I used my cell phone’s Internet browser to login to Southwest Airline’s website. Once I entered in my information, it took me to the screen where I could select the passengers to check in and hit “print boarding pass.”

Obviously I didn’t have a printer attached to my cell phone, but with Southwest’s system it doesn’t matter. I was able to see on-screen that I had secured an “A” boarding pass, so I closed out of it and continued on my marry way. Come Sunday, hungover and ready for the flight back home, we arrived at Midway and found a SWA check-in kiosk. There I swiped my credit card, and instead of selecting “print boarding pass,” I selected “re-print boarding pass.”

Southwest does this in case you lose your boarding pass or run out of printer ink mid-print, but it’s perfect for checking in using your cell phone or printing your boarding pass if you don’t have a printer at home, but still want that coveted “A” position. Give it a try.

Print Your Southwest Airlines Boarding Pass Without a Printer

by Justin Glow on

People seem to either love or hate Southwest Airline’s boarding policy. If you’re not familiar with it, it goes a little something like this: You purchase your plane tickets like you normally would, but you’re not issued a boarding pass. Starting 24 hours before your plane takes off, you’re free to go online and print out your boarding pass, or wait until you’re at the airport. Trick is, the plane is divided into three groups: A, B and C. If your boarding pass has an A on it, you get to board first. If it has a C, well, you get the picture. The quicker you print out your boarding pass, the better your chances are of getting that coveted A boarding pass. Typically you can find me sitting in front of the computer, counting down the seconds until the 24-hour window opens up so I can print out my A.

I ran across a little trick, however. Last time I was in Las Vegas, the hotel I was staying at (don’t ask!) didn’t have a business center, and since I typically don’t carry around a bubble jet when I travel, I couldn’t print out the boarding pass. The great thing about Southwest’s system is you don’t have to have a printer. You can just log in to their website, get your boarding pass, and when it gets to the screen where you would print, you’re done. Then, when you’re at the airport, find a Southwest Airlines kiosk and insert the credit card you used to purchase the tickets. An option will pop-up on-screen asking if you’d like to reprint your boarding pass, as the system knows you’ve already printed them once. They do this in case you accidentally lose your boarding pass, I guess, or if your printer runs out of ink half way through the printing process. It’s a handy trick to know if you’re stuck somewhere without access to a printer, yet still want that A boarding pass.

Fake Boarding Passes

by Iva Skoch on

The NY Times had a story about a grad student at Indiana University who created a web site with a fake Northwest Airlines boarding pass. Designed so that families could print out the fake pass get past the TSA check-points to see off or greet their loved ones, it got him in hot water: a cease and desist letter from TSA and an FBI raid of his home.

Obviously, the pass couldn’t be used to board a plane, but it sure points out the foolishness of this ID-plus-boarding-pass check at airports these days. I’ve noticed it’s common to have two different people do a check, in the same line, thirty feet apart.

Security experts note that the fake pass ploy is obvious and surely would have been thought of long ago by bad guys, so this is nothing surprising. In fact, one security consultant said he’d get rid of this useless checking altogether–and get rid of secret no-fly lists too–and spend the money on well-trained, plain-clothes agents milling around airports looking for suspicious activities. He said airport current checks are designed only to “catch the sloppy and the stupid.”