Time and money loss due to confusing reservation form at Japan Airline's website
20190804 I filed a complaint via jal.com the following, linking to this blog post.
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# Background of the problem
A few days before my flight, I was told by the JAL (Japan Airlines) telephone operator while we were talking about something else that the last name and the first name were swapped so they wouldn't be able to guarantee that I'd be able to fly with that reservation. After some ping-pong telephone calls to multiple numbers, I was made to believe the names were swapped. And they couldn't offer changing the name within the same reservation as they can do that only when they can find seat availabilities (for all flights within the reservation). Due to the time constraint before the departure, I ended up canceling that reservation and booked a fresh new flights. JAL charged me for $300 for cancellation.
# Problem description
Later I went back to their reservation site and found that the order of text fields for typing in the first and last name are:
Title, Last name, First name
Note that this booking session started from jal.com, JAL's English website, then after a few clicks the website navigated to jal.co.jp. In English spoken world, or at least in the US where I accessed their website from, the order of names are always listed as first name first. So I think I automatically expected the text fields were in the following order:
Title, First name, Last name
What probably happened was I typed in my name in this order where the website requested first and the last name in different order.
In the conversation with one of JAL's telephone operator where I briefly asked how can this happen, she said the website must have asked me to confirm. So I actually tried with a dummy name as you see the screenshot (there I purposefully swapped the first and the last name). The website does show a popup window and asks for confirmation, but as you see, it does NOT clarify first name and the last name. How can one tell whether she messed up the order or not from this confirmation pop-up? And as mentioned already, in English-spoken world, you don't list someone's full name "MR. Lastname Firstname" as far as I've seen (if you do, then putting comma after the last name sounds correct).
I got three emails as a confirmation, none of which again didn't use a notation that clarifies the last and the first name, so I failed to notice my mistake when I received and opened the emails either.
# Request for JAL
Like I said I admit that it's most likely me who typed in my name in the wrong order. But I'm suggesting both the website and the email notification didn't do a great job in clarifying the user's mistake at all. Because of this poor user site design, I'm forced to pay $300 for cancellation, plus a few hours spent on investigation and re-booking, and mental stress.
At minimum I request JAL to consider improvement for their website.
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# Background of the problem
A few days before my flight, I was told by the JAL (Japan Airlines) telephone operator while we were talking about something else that the last name and the first name were swapped so they wouldn't be able to guarantee that I'd be able to fly with that reservation. After some ping-pong telephone calls to multiple numbers, I was made to believe the names were swapped. And they couldn't offer changing the name within the same reservation as they can do that only when they can find seat availabilities (for all flights within the reservation). Due to the time constraint before the departure, I ended up canceling that reservation and booked a fresh new flights. JAL charged me for $300 for cancellation.
# Problem description
Later I went back to their reservation site and found that the order of text fields for typing in the first and last name are:
Title, Last name, First name
Note that this booking session started from jal.com, JAL's English website, then after a few clicks the website navigated to jal.co.jp. In English spoken world, or at least in the US where I accessed their website from, the order of names are always listed as first name first. So I think I automatically expected the text fields were in the following order:
Title, First name, Last name
What probably happened was I typed in my name in this order where the website requested first and the last name in different order.
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| Reservation form on jal.com in question; You see neither the first nor the last names are not clarified. In this example, I typed in a fake last name in the first name text field, and a fake first name in the last name section (i.e. this is what I actually did when making a reservation), so on the pop-up, the name looks the correct order in English spoken world standard. |
I got three emails as a confirmation, none of which again didn't use a notation that clarifies the last and the first name, so I failed to notice my mistake when I received and opened the emails either.
# Request for JAL
Like I said I admit that it's most likely me who typed in my name in the wrong order. But I'm suggesting both the website and the email notification didn't do a great job in clarifying the user's mistake at all. Because of this poor user site design, I'm forced to pay $300 for cancellation, plus a few hours spent on investigation and re-booking, and mental stress.
At minimum I request JAL to consider improvement for their website.
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