- #iHateTheWait is just as bad at American Airlines Terminal 3 at ORD O’Hare airport!
- Review: American Airlines Admirals Club Chicago O’hare ORD T3 near G gates
- Connecting to Delta at Toronto YYZ & I got the dreaded SSSS on my boarding pass!
- Review: American Airlines Admirals Club YYZ post US immigration Terminal 3
- Results and what points did I earn from my 250 Delta SkyMile PWM MQM 1st class run.
It is kinda strange to fly another airline when you have for the past 300 or so segments in the air been on Delta and SkyTeam jets (well not exclusively but just about). Clearly I always think of the way Delta tech does things and feel inside that this is the way it should be done.
On Delta, 99% of the time, I always check in on Delta.com. I never use the APP to begin the process. Why? To date I have never seen the “bumpertunity” or chance to give up your seat offer on anything but Delta.com or airport Kiosk check in. Now I know that the online bid offer is not always the final offer but by bidding $800+ each time I have a negotiating point to work with. Sure, if the gate agent is a stickler I may miss out on a $200-400 bump but I really am AOK with that anyway.
Anyway, as you can see from the screen shot at the top of the post I thus naturally went to AA.com to check in for my flight that I had booked with BA Avios points to position to YYZ for my 250 SkyMile elite mileage run. That did not work so well. I entered all my info in and got airport check in needed. Ugg, no thanks. Let’s try the AA APP.
And this worked (TIP: always try other tech). Now it worked but not without issues. Since I was flying internationally I had to enter my passport info (yes, I already had it on AA.com). On the AA.com site you could use drop downs to change month, date, year. Not on the app. You had to tap, tap, tap 100x times to get to my birth year for example. Ugg. But at least I was able to check in and not have to do so at the airport. I did btw enter all my TSA PreCheck info ahead of time at AA.com as well.
Unfortunately my 1st class seat I had booked and was looking forward to on the short hop over to YYZ evaporated as I was downgraded to an all coach ERJ-145. But I will take this 1-2 seating any day vs the 2-2 on a CRJ200 that Delta partners tend to fly.
I have not visited Canada for a while and I was sorta transitioning but I was also transitioning from one airline to another. So I was given an entry form and yes you must fill it out and yes you must enter Canada. This was disappointing as I wanted to check out a number of lounges but could not get to them post security.
Once I entered Canada it was time to check in for my flights home as Delta would not let me on my one way 1st class ticket check in either online or on the app. Even @Delta (was @DeltaAssist before btw) could not help me. And then I found out why…
Ruh Roh! Say it ain’t so. Not the SSSS (that means mandatory secondary screening). Not good. But the good news was it was NOT on my second boarding pass so this was a one time thing likely due to my connection from a one way to another one way ticket. Phew!
Also I talked to another flyer who tends to do a number of one way tickets as well who also got tagged for the SSSS often that once you check in, go and change your seat, then when they spit out a new boarding pass with the new seat the SSSS is often gone. I will test this next time.
Then I enter America. Well, sorta. You may or may not know you can do immigration to the USA in YYZ and they even had Global Entry that made it even faster. Then you are separated to a small concourse area with only a few gates. I asked at the gate if there was a Sky Club here (I know I should have checked) and the gate agent pointed behind me (there was a StarBucks there). Ah, no thanks. I was off to the AA club but that is for the next post! – René
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I got the SSSS on a one-way from YVR to LAX on Rouge (Air Canada). the guy who did my pat-down assured me that it was completely random – not sure if I believe him (or if he even knows), but he claimed it had nothing to do with the one-way ticket.
In your picture with the calendar on Android, you know you can just tap on the small “2016” near the top to select a different year, right?
I do think they should make that more obvious, because it’s particularly annoying on i.e. foreign carriers when they use a DIFFERENT calendar system and you definitely have to tap.
@Alex – Tapped my finger away and the year did not change. Maybe I need to update my AA app. Will try again soon 😉
The AA is rather confusing. On an outbound last week I tapped all the way back to 1959 thinking there has to be a better way. When I checked in to return to the US I actually tapped on the year, which as you know, is very small. That open a year section window. Not intuitive at all.
Is there a reason you used emigration vs immigration ?
@Jay – Fixed txs.
I had the same SSSS on a one way DL YYZ-DTW a couple of weeks ago. I called Delta as I couldn’t check-in online. The web folks told me that DELTA, not TSA, had selected me for additional screening due to my one way flight.
If Delta’s algorithms think 3 Million Milers are a security risk, Delta needs to change its algorithms.
I was on a round trip to Toronto (3 day stay)and got the SSSSSalll over my boarding pass and had to get touched and taken apart 3 times nuts and then when I was boarding I was pulled aside again to check my valid us passport?? the same person checked me twice and I mentioned it to no avail!!!!!! nuts