Continental’s Website March 15, 2006
Posted by Gary Slinger in : Uncategorized , trackbackRoughly this time next week, I’ll be making final preparations to head out to England for two weeks (I leave next Thursday). I’m flying on Continental, and it’s been a couple of years since I flew with them, so I decided that I wanted to check a few things out beforehand. I remember their website as being… well, a little “less than friendly” the last time I used it. I was pleasantly surprised this time around. It’s still a little “busy” at first glance, but if you “step back” for a second and take it all in, it makes a certain sense. I wanted to know:
- What sort, and how large, the seats were. I’m in BusinessFirst, which I’m lucky enough to have had enough points/miles in hand to afford, but hey, everyone wants to know if they’re going to be comfortable or not, right?
- Whether the seat had laptop power or not;
- What the inflight entertainment is going to be;
- What the current carry-on baggage allowance/limits were;
- Whether there was an airline lounge (OK, I know there is), and whether or not my ticket class got me entry to it.
So, away we go:
- Head on over to www.continental.com;
- Hover the mouse over “Travel Center”, and then over “In Flight”. Click on “BusinessFirst” as my starting point, and right there, with one click, I’ve confirmed that I can use the Presidents Clubs.
- Click on “Presidents Club”, and then on “Locations”, and I get a list of everywhere they are. I don’t know which terminal I’ll be flying in to at Houston, but I now know where I’ll be spending my two and a half hour layover.
- Two “backspaces”, and I’m back at the BusinesFirst page. This time, I’ll click on the Boeing 777 link, and it opens up with a section headed “Boeing 777 BusinesFirst Cabin”, and a picture of the seat I’ll be in. The seat’s six and a half feet. That’s good. I’ve been flying British Airways to the UK, and their seats top out at six feet. I’m six foot three, so I’m sure you can do the math! Right here on this page, it’s also confirmed that the seats have Empower laptop sockets. This is good. Four clicks, and I’ve already answered three of my five objectives.
- There’s a link here to “entertainment options”, so off we go. I hit that, and then “Feature Films” on the next page, and I’m looking at the option to download a PDF of the movie guide. (Looks like my options are “Derailed”, “Jarhead”, “Walk the Line” and “Aeon Flux”. I suspect I’ll be OK!).
- Right. Baggage allowances. Hover over Travel Center, hover over Policies, click “Baggage Information”. Click “Carry-On Baggage”, and there we go. Weight limit right now is 40lb. I don’t want to be schlepping that much weight around the aircraft and terminal, but it’s good to know.
SIDEBAR:
“Laptop computers must be removed from their cases and placed on the baggage belt at the security checkpoint”. Isn’t it about time this insane requirement was rescinded? It isn’t done in the UK, or a whole host of other countries. If security screeners can’t “distinguish” the laptop from the “other stuff” in the bag, how about hiring ones that CAN? It’s not that hard, guys. And no, it’s not because a laptop could have something hidden in it. Have you considered all the “stuff” that isn’t pulled out of the bag? The power supply, external drives, iPod’s, radios, GPS devices, radios, cellphone equipment – the list goes on and on.
Anyway, back on topic. Eight clicks of the mouse, one PDF download, and about five minutes of my time, and I’ve answered all the questions I had about this flight, in more detail than I expected. If the overall service of the flight is as well put together as the website, I’m going to be a pretty happy traveller indeed in a week.
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