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Delta has announced that it’s the first US-based airline to allow its customers to purchase tickets using Apple Pay…..and, having accidentally used it to book a ticket, I can confirm that it works pretty well!
I’m not a Delta flyer so to see how this works I had to download the App from the Apple Store. As soon as the App is downloaded and you open it up you’re left in no doubt as to what the biggest recent update has been….
From there on in it’s all amazingly straight forward.
If you’re a Delta flyer you can sign in with your Delta username and password or you can continue as a guest….which is what I did.
You search for the flights you’re looking for, select them and you’re taken to a summary page in the App:
Once you click on “Review & Purchase” you’re taken to a screen that shows you your trip (in this case Atlanta to Los Angeles), together with details of any seat upgrades you may have booked or any trip protection you may have taken out:
It’s when you scroll to the bottom of this screen that you see the two options to pay and it’s pretty hard to miss the Apple Pay option!
Once you click on “Buy with Apple Pay” the bottom of the screen shows you the card currently selected for payment by Apple Pay and you’re given the option to change the payment card.
It was at this point that I did something amusingly stupid.
In an attempt to take a screenshot of the screen to post here on the blog I inadvertently paid for the ticket!
Note for those who don’t have an iPhone: To take a screenshot of an iPhone screen one of the buttons you use is the same button that’s used to scan your fingerprint.
Ooops!
I hadn’t even been booking the dummy ticket in my name…I figured Adam Sandler may want a ticket back to LA 🙂
I tried to stop the transaction going through by rapidly closing down the App but, as a soon-to-arrive Chase email proved, that didn’t work!
Luckily Delta has a policy whereby you have up to midnight on the following day to cancel a reservation so it only took a quick and rather sheepish phone call to Delta to get the ticket cancelled. The Delta agent was actually very nice about it and, after a good laugh at my expense, promised not to tell anyone else….although I suspect all her colleagues around her knew about this the very second I put the phone down 🙂
So, all in all it’s a very easy payment system to use….possibly too easy…and there’s a lesson to be learned from my carelessness/stupidity.
American Airlines Passengers Beware
It’s only a matter of time before other airlines follow suit with Apple Pay and American Airlines will be one such airline. But if I’d make the same mistake with American as I did with Delta, I may not have been so lucky.
Under the United States’ DOT’s regulations (here’s a link to the specific regulation), as long as a customer books a non-refundable ticket at least seven days ahead of the scheduled departure, an airline is required to offer one of two options: allow that customer to change or cancel the trip within 24 hours without penalty, or hold that reservation at the current price for 24 hours without payment.
American Airlines chooses to offer the “hold” option rather than allowing a passenger to cancel a ticket within 24 hours of purchase.
Had I been playing around with Apple Pay on the American Airlines App (assuming that one day this feature becomes available) it’s entirely possible that I would have found myself having to pay for the ticket I accidentally bought. And, short of begging American Airlines to refund my ticket, there’s not that much I could do about it. That would be an expensive mistake to make.
