Friday, May 9, 2014

App Review: Book Your Next Alaska Airlines Flight From Your Windows Phone

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I have to be honest with you and say that Alaska Airlines is usually not the cheapest airline for the routes that I rarely fly, but from Seattle to California I have used them a a few times. Besides the excellent service they provide, I now have a new reason to consider them – an amazingly simple way to book my next flight, check-in and handle my account right from my Nokia Lumia 925.

That’s correct, Alaska Airlines has joined the Windows Phone family, which makes them part of my family now. This great App gives users quick access to their Alaska Airlines account, booking, check-in and can even track your flight (or your friend’s flights) so you are never late again. Simply tap the “Book A Trip” button and you are off to your next destination and the App will help you take care of the rest.

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The App makes it very easy to select your departing airport and your destination airport. By tapping the target next to the text entry, you enable the GPS to find the closest airport that Alaska operates from. They couldn’t make it much easier to start. The a quick click to the destination airport, along with the travel dates and number of passengers will route you to the best deals on flights from Alaska.

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After entering your dates, you see a screen that has a small calendar on it at the top. This shows you the cheapest flights on the day before and the day after you entered. In this case, the best deal I found for a Thursday flight to California was $144. If our plans are flexible though, the App would save me $108 if we were able to leave on Wednesday instead. That’s my kind of App! The next part that I enjoyed about the App is that the ticked prices shown included the taxes, fees and charges. Too many sites don’t include these, much less their Apps! Kudos to you Alaska Airlines!

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Now, from here I had to steal the screen shots from the App page. As much as I wanted to hit Disneyland next weekend, it just wasn’t in the budget this week. After booking, you can confirm your flight, check in and even “print” your boarding pass on the screen of your Windows Phone.

The install size of 37.46MB is rather small for how powerful and secure this App is. I would assume that this is the case since so much of the content is pulled from online sources. It is worth noting since this is the case, this App does require a live internet connection to work properly. I know that should go without saying, but I wanted to make sure that people knew they needed that cellular or Wi-Fi connection to make their boarding passes or reservations.

All in all, if this App could just remind me of what I’m not supposed to bring in my carry on this week, it would be straight from heaven. Since it doesn’t, all I can say is that an App like this makes me want to be an Alaska Airlines customer. If you are one already, download this App right now for your device. If you aren’t one, you need to become one and how people how powerful the Windows Phone community is. We start getting more incredible Apps like this one, more companies will help take Windows Phone to the next level. Download Alaska Airlines here.

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